Snakes Aren't Cute

These snakes look more like pigs than reptiles...

Like the incorporation of 2013 in the snake flourish

Chinese New Year is just around the corner and with the Year of the Snake, it's not the most cuddly animal in the zodiac.

In the last few weeks I've seen stuffed animal snakes that are meant to look cute but look ugly instead; snakes aren't something you want to hug and aren't fluffy so you can't exactly pet them either.

So please folks -- can we cut out the attempt to make snakes cute?

However we were impressed by some snake designs. TBR or Temple Bar & Restaurant in Beijing has this calligraphic flourish of the reptile, while a luxury lifestyle company called Quintessentially has produced stylish red lai see packets with the snake skin design on it.

Do these snakes look cute to you or really creepy?

There are 52 native species of snakes in Hong Kong, 20 of which are venomous, so in reality most Chinese don't like snakes -- unless they're in soup.

Yum!