Posted on 17 December 2011 @ 09:40 in Friends, People, Stress Busters
I’ve been wondering which keeper from Bifengxia accompanied Yang Guang and Tian Tian to Edinburgh Zoo, and now I know.
Scott with Edinburgh Zoo’s Head of Giant Pandas Alison McLean and Pambassador Jeroen Jacobs (Photo: www.GiantPandaZoo.com)
Scott Xie Hao is a seasoned giant panda keeper and American-born giant panda Mei Sheng’s first keeper when the black and white furball returned to Wolong in 2007. Scott worked for a while in the admin offices in Bifengxia and also spent some time in Old Wolong as part of the “re-introduction to the wild” team.
Ever since my 2008 visit to Beijing to see my adopted panda Feng Yi and the rest of the “Olympic 8″ team, I’ve been interested to know which keepers are sent to accompany pandas on loan to other zoos in China and overseas, mainly to see if I know the keepers, and also to assure myself that the pandas are in good hands.
In the case of Edinburgh Zoo, I am assured that Yang Guang and Tian Tian are in the good hands of an experienced and gentle keeper who will share his knowledge with their new keeper.
Good to see you again, Scott!
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Posted on 28 October 2011 @ 17:10 in Funny
I’m having a very bad throat infection at the moment, bad enough for me to go and see the doctor yesterday morning. Normally, I’d self-medicate (my grandfather started a Chinese medicine shop in the 1930s and I grew up living on the upper floor of that shop, so what did you expect?), but this was bad. The doctor took one look at my throat and said, “Oh my, your throat’s as red as cili padi!” He has prescribed a three-day course of antibiotics, some anti-inflammation pills and lozenges, too.
The throat infection has cost me my voice. It’s there, enveloped in something thick and probably green. I can speak, and it doesn’t hurt, it’s just not my usual voice.
So, yesterday evening, at my sister’s, I went to say hello to Prince the dog. I had to speak up, and his eyes went wide as he tilted his head to the right. He was like “Who are you?”
As for Morpheus the AlphaDog, he looked somewhat confused when I told him to sit but finally did. And when I followed it with the down command, he lowered his front paws halfway so that it was like a half-crouch which he maintained until he finally decided it was okay to obey this strange voice.
And strange it is, too. Maybe it’s the right voice for 31 October.
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Posted on 25 September 2011 @ 10:50 in Travels
Child’s backpack, dictionary and crushed soccer ball recovered from the earthquake that hit China’s Sichuan Province on 12 May 2008, and on display at a mini memorial in the Visitors’ Centre in Shuimo Town.
From the display, I think all three objects might have been recovered near one another, and belonged to the same child. I said a prayer for the child’s family when I got back to my hotel room.
Shuimo, one of many towns destroyed by the earthquake, was reconstructed only two years later, and is now held as a model of earthquake reconstruction. Participants of Wolong Panda Club’s 7th Hug My Baby event were taken there for a visit on 19 September 2011.
This is my second close-up encounter with the earthquake. While flying home from my September 2010 trip, I sat in the same row with an earthquake survivor, and had a brief chat with him. I wrote about it here.
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Posted on 24 August 2011 @ 22:51 in Stress Busters, Travels
We’re at the tail-end of Mollie’s “Great Panda Adventure”. We were in Fuzhou on 16 and 17 August to see Basi, Long Fei, Lin Yang and Zi An, and in Bifengxia Panda Base between 18 and 24 August for her to see her San Diego “babies” – Hua Mei, Mei Sheng and Zhen Zhen.
Since there would be no access to Facebook, Twitter and YouTube while in China, I thought I would be updating via my blog. But just before I left for the trip, I learned about a Facebook feature that allows photos or videos to be emailed to a Facebook user’s account. So I activated the feature and used it to email in some photos. As a result, I did not use my blog to update about the trip.
Mollie finally got to see her babies again – Hua Mei after 7 years, Mei Sheng after 4 years and Zhen Zhen after nearly a year. Her fourth baby, Su Lin, is in old Wolong with her own newborn cub.
I got to see my adopted daughter, Gong Zhu, and her 2010 cub (from a distance, he was up in the trees).
We also got to see the usual Bifengxia attractions, including the cubbies. Usual for me, but Mollie’s very first time.
We also participated in the 1st Joint Birthday Celebration of Wolong’s Overseas-born Pandas on 21 August. 21 August was also Hua Mei’s 12th birthday; it was the reason Mollie visited Bifengxia at this time of year – to celebrate Hua Mei’s birthday.
There were 6 birthday cakes for each of the 6 overseas-born pandas – Hua Mei, Mei Sheng, Fu Long, Tai Shan, Su Lin and Zhen Zhen. A total of 6 keepers and 18 volunteers participated in the event, with 1 keeper and 3 volunteers per cake (decorating and presenting to the panda). Each of the 5 pandas in Bifengxia got their cakes while Su Lin’s cake went to the four cubs in the same “neighbourhood”. I asked for Mollie and I to be allowed to do Hua Mei’s cake. And so we got to deliver the cake into her enclosure and to watch her come in and … reject the cake. Instead, she was more interested in the bamboo platform that supported the cake.
More photos here.
The celebration was covered by the local media, and we appeared on the local TV news, becoming “international media stars”. Here’s the coverage.
We’re off to Chengdu very early in the morning to try and see Atlanta-born Mei Lan at the Chengdu Panda Reserve. And then, it’s homeward-bound, me to Petaling Jaya, Malaysia, and Mollie to San Diego, California.
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Posted on 14 August 2011 @ 14:27 in Stress Busters, Travels
Personal photographer to the San Diego Zoo’s giant panda family, Mollie Rivera (aka Rita Petita on Flickr) arrived in Fuzhou at 12:22 p.m. this afternoon.
She’ll be visiting Basi and gang at Fuzhou Panda World and her babies Hua Mei, Mei Sheng and Zhen Zhen in Bifengxia Panda Base.
And yes, I’m here, too, arrived around 10:45 p.m. yesterday night. I have to be here, or I wouldn’t be posting this.
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