Tourist attractions are meant to be harmless fun. Within a 10-minute walk from the Oriental Pearl TV Tower, the Shanghai Ocean Aquarium lures droves of tourists each day. These places are meant to be showcases for world-class cities like Shanghai, a chance to dream high and large, build tall and be imaginative. Unfortunately, for me, Shanghai's premier aquarium morphes quietly into a dismal display of disrespect for animal life.

Don't get me wrong, though. The Shanghai Ocean Aquarium is an incredible combination of engineering and marine biology. The escalator descending through a fish tank is ingenious and the underwater sightseeing tunnel allows people to have sharks swim above and around them.

However, my recent trip to the aquarium left me stranded in the gift store with a complimentary cultured pearl in my hand and a bad taste in my mouth. Did my friend and I actually see what we thought we saw?

As we wandered around the first section of the aquarium, peering into tanks and adoring the cuddly-looking mitten crab, we discovered a tank that seemed to have nothing in it. My friend quickly pointed out that it did, and that it was beneath a rock much heavier than itself. A small turtle had been trapped beneath some shiny new rocks and didn't appear to be moving. Unless I misunderstood a turtle-suicide by self-crushing, it appears that a careless accident ended this particular turtle's life.

As we moved on through the exhibits, I began to notice something else - "Do not tap the glass" signs were plastered everywhere, everywhere. Despite this, the enthusiastic Chinese tourists were knocking on the glass as if they expected the fish to open a door, come out, greet them and invite them in for some feed. Some were literally banging on the glass with two-fists and yelling.

This is obviously not a new occurance; it happens in zoos around the globe every day. But this is China, where there is an abundance of labour and certainly no shortage of employees. The Shanghai Ocean Aquarium was teeming with them - kindly explaining things to visitors, but mostly clustered near the entrances. These employees should be stopping visitors from annoying or frightening the animals - if it isn't in their job description, it should be.

The oddest thing about the whole trip remains the horseshoe crabs. They were accompanied by a description that included something to the extent that horseshoe crabs may look dangerous, but they're really quite harmless, and if you flip them on their backs, they'll die.

The crabs didn't appear too scary because they were already on their backs. One was still breathing, but a couple of others looked dead. The minority among them were standing properly.

The Shanghai Ocean Aquarium's website said the building was built to international standards, perhaps the time is now for it to start operating by some.