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  1. #1
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    Pandas!

    I was trying to get on to the San Diego Zoo's pandacam, but it was overloaded

    Giant panda gives birth to fifth cub at the San Diego Zoo

    * Story Highlights
    * Giant panda Bai Yun gives birth to fifth cub at the San Diego Zoo
    * Bai Yun will care for the newborn by herself with zoo staff occasionally checking in
    * Weighing around 300 pounds, Bai Yun is about 1,000 times the size of the cub

    updated 7:57 a.m. EDT, Thu August 6, 2009

    (CNN) -- A giant panda at the San Diego Zoo gave birth to a cub the size of a stick of butter on Wednesday, her fifth cub born in the zoo since 1999.
    The public can view live video of the cub and its mother, Bai Yun, on the zoo's Web site.

    The public can view live video of the cub and its mother, Bai Yun, on the zoo's Web site.

    The sex of the mostly hairless, pink newborn, which was born around 5 a.m., is not known yet, said Dr. Ron Swaisgood of the zoo's Institute of Conservation Research.

    It will take about one month for the iconic black-and-white coloration of the giant panda to become visible, Swaisgood said.

    Its mother, Bai Yun, will care for the newborn by herself until she starts leaving the den regularly, at which time members of the zoo's giant panda team will step in briefly to check on the cub, he said.

    "She is a very experienced mother. She raised all of her other cubs until about 1.5 years, the natural age for separation," Swaisgood told CNN Radio. "She's a real pro."

    Weighing in around 300 pounds, Bai Yun is about 1,000 times the size of her cub, who weighs around 4 ounces., the typical size of a baby panda, Swaisgood said.

    "Pandas give birth to what's called very 'altricial' cubs. That means they are very small and fragile. This cub would probably weigh about 4 ounces. It would be pink and hairless and completely dependent on the mother," he said.

    The birth is considered a success for the zoo's Institute for Conservation Research, which works with research and breeding centers around the world to boost the endangered panda population

    Herself a model of that effort, Bai Yun was the first panda to be born and survive at the breeding center of the China Center for Research and Conservation of the Giant Panda in the Wolong Nature Reserve in 1991.

    She has given birth to four other cubs since arriving at the San Diego Zoo in 1996 from China. Two of them have since been returned to China, Swaisgood said.

    The newborn's father, Gao Gao, is a wild-born giant panda that arrived at the San Diego Zoo in 2003 from the Wolong Nature Reserve. He will not be involved in raising the cub.

    The cub will remain in the den with its mother for a few months and gradually start to come out as soon as it is able to walk, Swaisgood said.

    In four to five months, the cub will be ready for the public, Swaisgood said. Until then, the public can view live video of the cub and its mother on the zoo's Web site.

    "This highly endangered species still requires a lot of attention and assistance, but there is hope for the future," he said.
    Gene Ching
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  2. #2
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    hope the cub has better luck than my pekingese puppies... LOL... one was carried off by a hawk two years ago and the other one died because the mom stopped feeding it while we went away for the weekend.

  3. #3
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    ttt 4 2016!

    In honor of KFP3, here's a ttt.

    JANUARY 15, 2016
    Washington’s Panda Obsession
    BY ROBIN WRIGHT


    The National Zoo’s newest panda cub, Bei Bei.

    When I was little, I wanted a panda for my birthday. Last August 22nd, which happened to be my birthday, the National Zoo, in Washington, sent out an alert on e-mail, Twitter, and Facebook: its female panda, the gentle Mei Xiang, had gone into labor. I signed onto the zoo’s Panda Cam just in time to hear an eek-y squeal from the back stall where Mei had built her nest. It was the birth yelp of a baby boy. A four-ounce butter stick, pink-skinned and blind, slipped from his mom’s womb and slid across the floor.

    At a formal ceremony hosted by Michelle Obama, he was given the name Bei Bei (“Precious Treasure”). The former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright tweeted a selfie wearing a giant panda brooch. “Guess I’ll have to call it Bei Bei now,” she wrote.

    The panda prince finally makes his public début this week. He’s now eighteen roly-poly pounds of black-and-white fur. He recently found his legs, and waddles, unsteadily, around the panda house. His eyesight is still weak. He keeps trying to climb up walls painted with mountain scenes, which he can’t distinguish from the real rock formations in his den. But he’s a spunky little guy. Bei Bei alternates between tagging behind his mom and pawing persistently at her to play, even after she swats him away. He’s particularly enamored of his first toy, a red ball that he likes to wrap his body around.

    There’s something about pandas, the world’s rarest bear, that captivates the famous, turns the powerful into putty, and wins over skeptics. In 1956, Elvis Presley travelled with a huge stuffed panda on a twenty-seven-hour train ride from New York to Memphis. On the first leg, the bear was photographed in its own seat. At night, the photographer Albert Wertheimer later recounted, the bear was strapped into the upper berth in Elvis’ compartment, its legs protruding through the webbing, as Elvis listened to acetates of his recent recordings in the lower berth. The next day, Elvis, not yet a national icon, perched the bear on his hip and used it to flirt with girls as he strolled through a passenger car.

    Chris Packham, a British naturalist and the host of a BBC wildlife program, has led a campaign to let the species die out, because of existential challenges in breeding, food, and habitat. There are only about sixteen hundred pandas left in the wild, and some four hundred in zoos and breeding centers around the world. “Here’s a species that, of its own accord, has gone down an evolutionary cul-de-sac,” Packham said, in 2009. The world pours millions into keeping them alive, at the expense of other, more vital animals that would better insure global biodiversity, he argued. “I reckon we should pull the plug. Let them go with a degree of dignity.” But Packham conceded that the panda has disproportionate appeal. “It’s big,” he acknowledged. “And cute.”

    Washington, a city centered on crude, self-absorbed politics, melts over its panda bears. The first pair was gifted from China, in 1972, to mark the thaw in relations after President Nixon’s visit. They generated the zoo’s first panda groupies, some of whom are still active four decades later. Ling-Ling and Hsing-Hsing bore five cubs, but none survived. When Hsing-Hsing developed arthritis, a nearby Starbucks donated blueberry muffins, in which zoo vets hid his daily medicine. That became his favorite food. The capital of the world’s mightiest power went into serious mourning when the pair died, in the nineties. Local schools made sympathy cards to send to the zoo. The pandas’ pelts are still kept in a Smithsonian vault.

    By then, pandas had become the unofficial symbol of Washington. “It’s a power town, and pandas are a power species like no other,” Brandie Smith, the zoo’s associate director for Animal Care Sciences, told me. “They’ve become synonymous.” In 2000, Washington opted to rent another pair from China—initially at a million dollars a year, plus hundreds of thousands of dollars annually for joint research, and more for feeding, caring and staffing the pandas.

    The couple arrived with fanfare. They flew from China on a specially equipped FedEx plane called Panda One, with a large bear painted on the fuselage. Mei Xiang (“Beautiful Fragrance”) and Tian Tian (“More and More”) got a police escort—and live television coverage—as their motorcade made its way into town. I worked at the Washington Post when their first cub, Tai Shan, was born, five years later. Few would admit it, but Post reporters regularly checked Tai’s antics on the zoo’s early, grainy Panda Cams. (They’re high-def now.) His squeals often echoed in stereo across the newsroom.

    Bao Bao, a little girl, was born in 2013. Six weeks later, the government shut down because of a congressional budget dispute, and Bao Bao’s Panda Cam feed was turned off. The National Zoo, one of the few in the country without an entry fee, depends on government funding. The Internet feed was dark for sixteen days. “Our national nightmare is over,” NBC reported, when Republicans and Democrats finally reached a budget compromise. “The Panda Cam is back.” Within ten minutes, it was reaching its maximum capacity, of eight hundred and fifty viewers. The crisis led The Economist to conclude that pandas, despite their non-existent sex lives and self-destructive diets, are far more appealing than “costly, bumbling Washington politicians.”

    For all their charm, however, pandas are far from profitable. “They don’t make money,” Steven Monfort, the chief scientist at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute, told me. “Every zoo that ever had pandas realizes they will not make their money back. Just building the infrastructure for pandas costs many millions of dollars, in addition to the cost of supporting, caring, and feeding them. The reason zoos do it is more intangible, including reputation and public draw. But those are worthless unless you can do something to help the species.”
    continued next post
    Gene Ching
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  4. #4
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    continued from previous

    Bei Bei is Washington’s third surviving cub—his twin died within days of their birth–and he may be one of the last. Mei’s fertility cycle is near its end, Smith said. The zoo’s panda program exists partly to diversify the genetic stock of the endangered species. It participates in a kind of eharmony.com for pandas. In the late seventies, zoos began keeping stud books on their males, in order to expand the DNA pool, Monfort explained. Tian Tian, the zoo’s male panda, produces decent sperm, but he’s never figured out how to copulate. He doesn’t “align properly,” Monfort said. “It’s pretty frustrating to watch the poor guy try to mate.” Tian pushes Mei to the ground rather than raising her high enough to penetrate properly. As a result, all of their cubs have been produced by artificial insemination.

    For diversity, as its mama panda ages, the zoo turned to the global stud book to find another match. Mei was artificially inseminated twice last spring, with Tian’s sperm and the frozen sperm of a bear in China. “Fresh has better mobility, but sometimes you use both,” Monfort said. “You don’t want to waste a chance.” A female is fertile for only a couple of days a year. Tian’s sperm took—good for the public’s enjoyment of an endearing new member of the zoo’s panda family, but not as good for the long-term survival of the species, since he had already sired two cubs.

    Washingtonians are oblivious to genetics. With each cub, the zoo’s Panda Cams have grown more popular. More than five and a half million viewers have clicked on the cameras in the four months since Bei Bei’s birth—double the number after Bao Bao was born. People get in a kind of Internet waiting line to catch a glimpse, lasting only fifteen minutes before they’re automatically bumped off.

    Last week, I attended a zoo preview of Bei Bei and encountered some of the panda faithful. Merry and Allen Richon visit the pandas every morning before he heads off to work as a scientist at the National Institutes of Health. They regularly load their pictures on the zoo’s Facebook page. Why the commitment? I asked.

    “Pandas have a karma,” Allen said. “They’re raging Democrats. They’re environmentalists.”

    Karen Wille, a management consultant and another regular, has been to China—six times—to visit Tai Shan, the zoo’s first cub, born in 2005. All baby pandas go back to China after four years, for panda preservation. Wille pulled out a necklace pendant with Tai’s face on the front and his name, in Chinese characters, on the back. Her friend Christine Harper rolled up a sleeve to show me a row of panda bracelets, sales of which benefit panda research. Both are involved with Pandas International, a group based in Colorado that raises funds to buy medical equipment, computers, ultra sounds, and vaccines for China’s panda-research programs.

    Angela Wessel, a zoo volunteer for four decades, used to operate the Panda Cam, on the 4 A.M. to 7 A.M. shift, before heading to work at Hewlett-Packard. She showed me a scrapbook with pictures of her in a panda suit, part of the Zoo’s education program for kids. “You expect kids to grab you and hug,” she said. “But adults do, too—all the time.” She has also has been to China, five times, to visit Tai, who is a notorious ham. Another woman in line was decked out in panda scarves and a headband with panda ears. Among the groupies, she is known as the Voice of the Cubs. She tweets about pandas under the handle @houseofcubs, a play on “House of Cards.” She has more than sixteen hundred followers. No one knows her name, and she prefers it that way.

    I asked the zoo’s staff to explain the public fixation on pandas. “With lions and tigers, you’re simply a meal. All they’re interested in is eating you,” Brandie Smith told me. “Pandas are different. When you look in their faces, there’s an intelligence and dependence. You have the feeling, ‘I could be friends with this bear. If we hung out, we’d have a good time.’ ”

    There may be a scientific explanation, too, Smith added. “People talk about the power of awe. When you see something that brings awe, it produces oxytocin.” Oxytocin, sometimes known as the “love hormone,” influences emotion and social behavior. “It makes you feel more of a community person. It’s happiness and togetherness,” she said. “So when you have those moments of awe—and aww!—you are biochemically becoming a better person. That’s what pandas produce.”
    And given that it's DC, there's this...

    Here’s Why People in Panda Suits Are Following Chris Christie Around
    Zeke J Miller @ZekeJMiller Jan. 16, 2016


    They're 'pander bears'

    (AMES, Iowa) — New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is being tracked by a pair of “pander bears” in Iowa Saturday, who are passing out fliers highlight his shifting positions.

    It was not immediately clear who was responsible for sending the two people dressed in panda costumes to brave 15-degree temperatures outside a Christie town hall at a bar in Ames, Iowa. Their handout did not list a sponsor, and one of the pandas told TIME, “We’re doing it ourselves.”

    Phil Valenziano, the Christie campaign’s state director, walked out of the event to to challenge the protesters, asking who they were working for. When he discovered there was no “Paid for by” disclosure on their materials, he proclaimed for reporters, “That’s a violation!”

    The stunt follows in a long tradition of costumed trackers on the campaign trail, both real and fictional.
    Gene Ching
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  5. #5
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    Need a job?

    Cuz being a panda handler would be the best job ever.

    Panda base on the hunt for caretakers
    By China Daily and Xinhua (China Daily)
    Updated: 2014-05-12 07:19


    A panda rests on a tree at Bifengxia Base of the China Giant Panda Protection and Research Center in Ya'an, Sichuan province. Li Wei / Xinhua

    Being a panda caretaker could be the most enviable and fun-filled job in the country.

    Xinhua News Agency reported on Sunday that a caretaker at the China Giant Panda Protection and Research Center in Ya'an, Sichuan province, will earn 200,000 yuan ($32,000) a year, have the use of an SUV and receive free meals and accommodation.

    Recruitment for the position started on Saturday in Beijing and one of the organizers, club.sohu.com, called the job the "Chinese version of a caretaker of an island on the Great Barrier Reef".

    "Your work has only one mission: spending 365 days with the pandas and sharing in their joys and sorrows," organizers said.

    Applicants should be at least 22 years old and have some basic knowledge of pandas. They should also have good writing skills and the ability to take pictures, according to the recruiters' requirements.

    "Many people at our center do the same job, but the salary was never that high," said Heng Yi, a publicity official at the panda center. "But we want more people to pay attention to giant pandas' protection work and participate."

    The campaign will also recruit eight panda observers for a free three-day trip to the Bifengxia base.

    Volunteers at the center, who account for 80 percent of the base's staff, are mostly from Japan, Europe and the United States, Heng said.

    Ye Mingxin, a market manager for Ford Motor Co in China, a co-organizer of the recruitment campaign, said he does not think the job is easy.

    "You need perseverance for this job. We expect that the applicants will be mainly white-collar workers from big cities. They are used to eating whatever they want, but inside the giant panda base, the choices will not be plentiful," Ye said.

    People can apply for the job at fun.sohu.com. Recruiting drives will also be held in Shanghai, Chengdu and Guangzhou and will last until July 15.
    Gene Ching
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  6. #6
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    I want that job...

    ...not that I'm into furries or anything.

    Zoo staff wear panda costumes to trick baby cub
    12:09pm, Feb 4, 2016 ABC

    The panda caretakers are responsible for the cub’s ‘back to nature’ training.


    The costumes aren't likely to trick zoo-goers. Photo: ABC/CNS

    A group of panda caretakers in China have dressed up like the animals to make back-to-nature training more authentic for three cubs.

    Staff members dressed up in panda costumes to undertake physical examinations on three giant panda cubs at Hetaoping field training base in Wolong, a major habitat for the animal in China’s Sichuan Province, local media reported.

    Three panda babies born in 2015, including Xinnier, who is pictured with the caretakers, took part in the training.

    The pandas are the sixth group to be put through the training since the program launched in 2005, the People’s Daily Online reports.

    The program was designed to introduce artificially bred giant pandas to the wild after two years of training and preparation.

    The three cubs are carefully selected from all cubs born in 2015 at the centre and will be gradually re-introduced to living in a natural environment.
    Gene Ching
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  7. #7
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    I'm in China

    New TV show puts foreigners in unique jobs in China
    chinadaily.com.cn, July 5, 2018


    [Photo provided to China Daily]

    Nearly 500 expats from across the globe, including those working and studying in China, have applied to participate in a reality television show to experience unique jobs with Chinese characteristics for one day.

    The jobs include taking care of pandas in the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding in Sichuan province, becoming a kung fu apprentice at Shaolin Temple in Henan province, taking on the role of a high-speed train maintenance worker in Wuhan, Hubei province, and learning how to be chef of hand-pulled noodles in Lanzhou, Gansu province.

    Only one applicant will be selected for each of the eight jobs, according to the team from "I'm in China", a State-supported media project that aims to share the culture and history of China.

    Applicants with relevant work experience and are fluent in Mandarin are preferred, according to the team.

    Details regarding the application were released on professional networking website LinkedIn on June 20. So far, the job at the panda base in Sichuan province has garnered the strongest response.

    "We believe LinkedIn will help the TV show organizer find the best candidates, who will in turn work as ambassadors by sharing their real experiences of Chinese culture with the world," said Huang Lei, marketing and public relations director at LinkedIn China.
    Here's the LinkedIn I'm in China page.

    All of these jobs look pretty cool.

    THREADS:
    Apprentices
    Pandas!
    Gene Ching
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  8. #8
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    So wrong

    PANDA PELTED WITH STONES BY TOURISTS WHO TRY TO WAKE IT UP FROM A NAP AT CHINA ZOO
    BY BRENDAN COLE ON 7/23/18 AT 12:09 PM

    Four tourists have been blacklisted from a Chinese nature reserve after they threw stones at a panda to try to get it to move.

    The panda had been motionless under a tree where it had been resting in its enclosure at the Foping National Nature Reserve in Hanzhong, Shaanxi province, in the north-east of the country.

    A group of around 20 people gathered and started shouting at the animal and when it did not move, one man started throwing stones. Footage posted on social media shows a man throwing the objects, the South China Morning Post reported.


    This photo shows a panda at the Shenshuping Base of the China Conservation and Research Centre in Wenchuan in China's southwestern Sichuan province. Footage has emerged of tourists throwing stones at a panda in Hanzhong, in the north-east of the country.
    GETTY IMAGES

    The reserve’s marketing manager, Yan Xihai, said in fact there were several people throwing stones and reserve staff were forced to stop them from disturbing the seven-year-old male.

    “This incident happened at a place where the pandas generally don’t come or hang around, so we don’t have any surveillance cameras installed in the area,” Yan said, according to the Post.

    One visitor recorded footage that showed the tourists shouting at the bear to get its attention and to make it move.

    Park manager, Zhen Xihai, said: “We will improve our management of the panda park and also fine the tourists and tourism agency involved.

    “Should the tourism agency be found guilty of similar uncivilized behavior again, it and all its guides will be blacklisted and banned from the park too,” Unilad.co.uk reported.

    The panda sanctuary is set over 22 acres and is home to nine-year-old Qizai, believed to be the only living panda in the world that has a rare coat of white and brown. He was discovered by researchers aged two months in a nature reserve in the Qinling Mountains after his mother had disappeared.

    Pandas hold a special status in China. The country's government has made considerable efforts to conserve the species. They are no longer endangered and there are estimated to be around 2,000 giant pandas in the world.

    On her final days in China, the media widely reported how first Lady melania Trump toured the Beijing Zoo and befriended a 240-pound panda named Gu Gu.
    Why is melania in lower case?
    Gene Ching
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  9. #9
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    success

    well this is good news.

    Giant panda conservation success of China and world’s zoos celebrated in Beijing exhibition
    World’s fascination with giant pandas goes back to French missionary Père David’s first account of them in 1869, and multimedia show in Beijing charts the measures taken since to conserve the iconic animals and their habitat
    PUBLISHED : Saturday, 25 August, 2018, 1:49pm
    UPDATED : Saturday, 25 August, 2018, 1:49pm
    Elaine Yau
    https://www.facebook.com/elaine.yau.3152
    https://www.scmp.com/elaineyau200608



    An exhibition celebrating the origins and success of China’s giant panda conservation programme opened this week in Beijing.

    Film screenings, artwork and photographs are featured in the first exhibition devoted to what its organisers call “panda culture”.

    It traces the giant panda’s journey into Western consciousness, recalling how French priest and zoologist Armand David, known as Père David, was the first foreigner to bring them to the attention of the West. The French missionary described the body of a white bear with black legs and ears in his journal in 1869 while stationed at the Dengchi Valley Cathedral in Yaan, a city in Sichuan province.


    Launching the exhibition, Yang Chao, director of the Department of Wildlife Conservation and Nature Reserve Management of the National Forestry and Grassland Administration, said the threat to giant panda populations had been reduced through conservation work.

    Panda lanterns on display at the China Giant Panda International Culture Week Exhibition. Lanterns will be a common sight next month as China marks the Mid-Autumn Festival. Photo: Elaine Yau

    “Their number rose from 1,114 in the 1980s to 1,864 [now],” he says. “After decades of efforts, China’s captive panda breeding programme has overcome the obstacles of [female] pandas being seldom in heat, pandas’ difficult breeding and insemination and the low survival rate of cubs.”

    The first captive baby panda was born in Beijing Zoo in 1963. At the end of last year, there were 518 captive giant pandas in China. Xiang Xiang was the world’s first captive panda released into the wild in 2006.

    Chao said nine of the captive pandas have so far been released into the wild, and seven were still living.

    In addition to the captive pandas in China, more than 100 giant pandas live in zoos around the world. Attending the launch ceremony for the exhibition, Austrian ambassador to China Friedrich Stift said Vienna’s Tiergarten Schönbrunn, the world’s oldest zoo, received two pandas named Yang Yang and Long Hui from China in 2003 for joint research.


    A display at the China Giant Panda International Culture Week Exhibition shows Beijing Zoo staff in 1963 with the first captive-born panda. Photo: Elaine Yau

    Yang Yang gave birth to a cub in 2007, the first panda conceived naturally in Europe, he said.

    “In 2010 another young panda was born, followed by another baby in 2013. A highlight was the birth of twin babies in 2016. Yang Yang succeeded to raise the twins without any human assistance, which is unique around the world,” Stift said.

    “Of the five pandas born in Vienna, three have already been returned to China. The twins, Fu Feng and Fu Ban, will be brought to China in November. It is part of the contract that after two years of their birth, the pandas have to be given back to their homeland in China.”


    Xiang Xiang was the first captive giant panda released into the wild, in 2006. Photo: courtesy of the China Giant Panda International Culture Week Exhibition

    Stift said that since the death of male panda Long Hui in 2016 from cancer of the gall bladder, Austria had been working to get a new male panda so more pandas can be born and raised at the zoo.

    “Pandas are the most popular attraction at the zoo where more than two million visitors come every year to see them,” the ambassador said.

    Chao said the number of nature conservation sanctuaries for pandas in China had risen from 15 in the 1980s to 67 now, but lamented a lack of co-ordination between some of them.

    “China is building a giant panda national park to [better] adjust the animals’ distribution to attain their stable propagation,” Chao said. “The habitats of giant pandas also contain over 8,000 species of wild flora and fauna, including the golden snub-nosed monkey. So the construction of the park will not only help preserve giant pandas, but also boost the biodiversity of the whole region.”


    Yang Chao, director of the Department of Wildlife Conservation and Nature Reserve Management of the National Forestry and Grassland Administration. Photo: Elaine Yau

    Co-organised by the State Council Information Office, the State Forestry and Grassland Administration, the Chinese People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries and the provincial governments of Sichuan, Shanxi and Gansu, the China Giant Panda International Culture Week Exhibition runs until August 26 at the China Millennium Monument in Beijing.

    An accompanying photography exhibition is being held at Zhangwang Hutong in Old Gulou Street, where 25 photos are displayed to show the pristine environment of Sichuan, the artificial insemination of pandas and programmes to release captive pandas into the wild.
    Gene Ching
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  10. #10
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    Yang Yang - Panda painter

    Fur-Sale! Painting panda's abstract artwork hits the market
    By TIFFANY HAGLER-GEARD Aug 27, 2018, 1:10 PM ET


    PHOTO: Giant Panda Yang Yang uses finger paint and a brush to create a picture at Schoenbrunn Zoo in Vienna, Austria, Aug. 10, 2018. Heinz-Peter Bader/Reuters

    There's a painting panda at Vienna's Schoenbrunn Zoo and her abstract artwork is selling for more than $500 a pop.

    Yang Yang uses black paint with white backgrounds, which seems to be a favorite color scheme for the zoo's giant panda.


    Heinz-Peter Bader/Reuters
    Giant Panda Yang Yang holds a brush behind pictures it painted at Schoenbrunn Zoo in Vienna, Austria, Aug. 10, 2018.

    With a zookeeper acting as her easel, the panda creates minimalist splotch art reminiscent of the American abstract expressionist Jackson Pollock.


    Heinz-Peter Bader/Reuters
    Giant Panda Yang Yang uses finger paint and a brush to create a picture at Schoenbrunn Zoo in Vienna, Austria, Aug. 10, 2018.

    One hundred of her adorable pieces will be sold online for around $560 each to fund a picture book about the Vienna zoo's pandas.


    Heinz-Peter Bader/Reuters
    Giant Panda Yang Yang uses finger paint and a brush to create a picture at Schoenbrunn Zoo in Vienna, Austria, Aug. 10, 2018.
    Yang Yang, 18, has given birth to 5 pandas, with one set of twins over the years.


    Heinz-Peter Bader/Reuters
    Giant Panda Yang Yang uses finger paint and a brush to create a picture at Schoenbrunn Zoo in Vienna, Austria, Aug. 10, 2018.
    Oooh. I want one of these. A bit out of my price range though.
    Gene Ching
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  11. #11
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    Odd op-ed piece

    At least it's about Hong Kong too.

    Pandas may provide a population lesson
    Ocean Park pandas Ying Ying and Le Le are struggling to breed and could be heading back to their native habitat in a bid to encourage them
    The stress of Hong Kong is likewise a factor in couples in the city delaying having children or deciding against the idea
    PUBLISHED : Saturday, 17 November, 2018, 10:37pm
    UPDATED : Saturday, 17 November, 2018, 10:37pm
    SCMP Editorial



    The giant panda pair at Ocean Park have much in common with the typical Hong Kong couple; they are not that interested in having offspring. Pandas, just like Hongkongers, have a low birth rate. The reasons may not be identical, but the solution could well be the same. Families need the right environment to thrive.

    For pandas Ying Ying and Le Le, the key could well be heading back to their native habitat in Sichuan province to encourage them to start a family. Pandas are notoriously difficult to breed, but in captivity, the rate of having cubs falls to just 26 per cent of when in the wild. In the 11 years the pandas have called Hong Kong home, Ying Ying has had two phantom pregnancies and miscarried once. Biology is at play, but being the star attraction and a public favourite surely does not help; put simply, it is stressful.

    The stress of Hong Kong is likewise a factor in couples in the city delaying having children or deciding against the idea. Work hours are long, flats small and cramped and children an expensive proposition. Unsurprisingly, the fertility rate is one of the lowest in the world, being just 1.13, well below the 2.1 per couple necessary to keep the population growing. With Hong Kong’s development and growth in mind, authorities have for years been looking for ways to encourage couples to have children and attract people from elsewhere to make the city home.

    Improving living conditions would seem the sensible approach and there is a push in that direction through increasing the length of maternity and paternity leave. A suggestion that Ying Ying and Le Le would have a better chance of mating by sending them to the Wolong panda conservation area in Sichuan is in the same vein; reconstructed with Hong Kong funding after the 2008 earthquake, the sanctuary would give them quality time together in a less stressful environment. With the breeding period being 130 days, they could perhaps stay there for a year and a replacement pair of pandas could be loaned to Ocean Park. If the approach is successful and Ying ying gives birth, the happy family that is eventually brought back to Hong Kong could serve as a useful lesson in boosting Hong Kong’s population.
    Gene Ching
    Publisher www.KungFuMagazine.com
    Author of Shaolin Trips
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    Noodles, Pandas & COVID-19

    If there's one thing the Chinese are good at, it's talking in code.

    ‘Noodles’ and ‘Pandas’: Chinese People Are Using Secret Code to Talk About Coronavirus Online
    "Vietnamese pho noodles," anyone?
    By David Gilbert
    Mar 6 2020, 5:35am



    Chinese citizens angry at their government’s handling of the coronavirus outbreak have come up with some ingenious ways to express their outrage and circumvent the extreme censorship measures imposed by Beijing.

    In a bid to control the narrative, Beijing authorities have censored sensitive topics, silenced WeChat accounts, tracked down those who are sharing criticism of the government, and disappeared citizen journalists.

    But all those efforts still haven't silenced people online, and angry citizens are now relying on coded words and phrases to express their dissatisfaction.

    The most common example is “zf” which is the abbreviation for the Chinese word “government. To refer to the police, the letters “jc” are used, while “guobao” (meaning "national treasure") or panda images are used to represent the domestic security bureau. Citizens talking about the Communist Party’s Publicity Department use “Ministry of Truth” from the George Orwell novel "1984," instead.

    One of the ways Beijing has sought to stem the flow of information out of China is by cracking down on the use of virtual private networks (VPNs) as a way of circumventing its censorship system, known as the Great Firewall. So discussing this technology online has also become taboo.

    Instead, citizens have been talking about how to use the technology by referring to “Vietnamese pho noodles” or “ladders.”

    China’s embattled president Xi Jinping is among the most censored topics on Chinese social media. A Citizen Lab report this week showed that WeChat ramped up censorship efforts in recent weeks by adding a number of Xi-related words and phrases to its blacklist.

    In an attempt to get around these restrictions, Chinese citizens have begun referring to their president as a “narrow neck bottle” because the Chinese pronunciation of the phrase is similar to that of "Xi Jinping."

    But despite the obscure nature of this reference, China’s censors managed to pick it up when they removed a question posting on Zhihu (China’s version of Quora) asking “how to wash a narrow neck bottle?”

    “To fully appreciate conversations on China’s social media platforms, merely knowing Chinese is not enough,” an Amnesty International researcher located in China who did not want to be identified told VICE News. “To combat systematic internet censorship, netizens in China have created a new vocabulary to discuss ‘sensitive issues.’ This language keeps evolving as the government constantly expands its list of prohibited terms online. Those not keeping up with the trend could easily be left confused.”

    Part of the reason for China’s strict censorship of online comments is that the government is keen to change the way the world is talking about coronavirus and in particular China’s role in the outbreak.

    Beijing wants to dispel the suggestion that coronavirus is a Chinese virus and instead position itself as the country that saved the world from a much worse situation. China is hitting out at other country’s failure to take the necessary measures to contain outbreaks, particularly taking aim at the U.S. and Donald Trump.

    On Friday, China reported that all new cases of coronavirus came from Wuhan, the epicenter of the outbreak, further bolstering the government’s claims that it has managed to get the outbreak under control.

    But there has been an unprecedented backlash against the government’s attempts to portray the situation in Hubei province as a positive one, and on Thursday that online backlash spilled over into the real world, with a very rare public display of criticism of the government.

    During a tour of Wuhan, a city of 12 million people that has been in lockdown for six weeks, residents locked in their apartments openly berated a senior government official.

    Footage of the incident that has been spread virally online shows residents shouting “Everything is fake” and “It’s all fake” as officials show Vice-Premier Sun Chunlan around the city at the center of the coronavirus outbreak.

    Cover: An employee clad in a protective suit waits on customers at a supermarket in Beijing, China on March 6, 2020. (The Yomiuri Shimbun via AP Images)
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    Gene Ching
    Publisher www.KungFuMagazine.com
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    Kung Fu Panda: The Dragon Knight

    Happy National Panda Day!

    ‘Kung Fu Panda’: Jack Black to Reprise Role in New Netflix Animated Series
    Martin Holmes
    29 MINS AGO

    Netflix
    Netflix is celebrating National Panda Day with the announcement that Jack Black is returning as the Kung Fu Panda, Po, for a new animated series, Kung Fu Panda: The Dragon Knight.

    Black confirmed the news on his social media pages on Wednesday (March 16), preparing fans for another globe-trotting adventure with the heroic yet accident-prone giant panda Po. Helmed by DreamWorks Animation, the new series is executive produced by Shaunt Nigoghossian (Bunnicula) and Peter Hastings, who previously developed the 2011 Nickelodeon spinoff series Kung Fu Panda: Legends of Awesomeness.

    The story of the new series revolves around a mysterious pair of weasels who set their sights on a collection of four powerful weapons. It’s up to Po to leave his home and head out on a quest for redemption and justice. On his journey, Po finds himself partnered up with a no-nonsense English knight named Wandering Blade. These two mismatched warriors embark on an epic adventure to save the world — and they may even learn a thing or two from each other along the way.

    Kung Fu Panda was first released in 2008 and was directed by John Stevenson and Mark Osborne. It starred the voices of Black, Dustin Hoffman, Angelina Jolie, Ian McShane, Seth Rogen, and Lucy Liu. It became the third highest-grossing film of 2008, launching a multimedia franchise along with two movie sequels and two TV series, the previously mentioned Legends of Awesomeness and Prime Video’s Kung Fu Panda: The Paws of Destiny.

    The Dragon Knight marks the first time Black has reprised his role for a TV spinoff — only Liu and James Hong reprised their film roles for the Legends of Awesomeness. Chris Geere also stars as Klaus, alongside Della Saba as Veruca.

    Check out the first look images from the new series below.


    Kung Fu Panda: Dragon Knight: Season 1. Jack Black as Po in Kung Fu Panda: Dragon Knight: Season 1. Cr. NETFLIX © 2022


    Kung Fu Panda: Dragon Knight: Season 1. (L-R) Chris Geere as Klaus, Della Saba as Veruca, and Jack Black as Po in Kung Fu Panda: Dragon Knight: Season 1. Cr. NETFLIX © 2022


    Kung Fu Panda: Dragon Knight: Season 1. (L-R) Jack Black as Po and Della Saba as Veruca in Kung Fu Panda: Dragon Knight: Season 1. Cr. NETFLIX © 2022
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    Kung Fu Panda: The Dragon Knight
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    Gene Ching
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    Pandas!

    Gene Ching
    Publisher www.KungFuMagazine.com
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