Turning 2

Posted on 23 August 2008 @ 09:57 in Stress Busters, Travels

She turns 2 today, and remains as feisty as ever.

She is Feng Yi, the giant panda cub I adopted in 2006. I’d named her Yoong Ping for my parents and also in memory of my niece, but have grown used to calling her by her official name.

Feng Yi.

I first met her last year when I went to Wolong, and she’d kept walking away from me. This year, she didn’t; she couldn’t as she was behind “bars” (to the animal activists reading this, if there are any – don’t get upset, it’s not cruel bars she was behind).

Last year, I visited her after she turned 1. This year, I visited her at the Beijing Zoo before she turned 2. I hope I will get to visit her on her birthday one of these days.

Judy, a fellow panda lover, asked if I’d asked her keepers at Beijing Zoo to give her something on her birthday. I hadn’t. But as I told her, we don’t need to do something for the ones we love – what matters is the heart, that we love them. And we can do something for them at other times of the year.

I did get to feed her during the visit. While in Bifengxia, I’d mentioned I’d be going onto Beijing and Cindy from the admin offices kindly called Wu Daifu, the head keeper, to tell him of my visit, and he’d said for me to contact him. So, as “mother” of one of the 8 Olympic pandas currently in Beijing as part of the Olympic attractions, I was honoured with a visit to the keepers’ quarters, to view the 8 pandas from a privileged vantage point, to watch Feng Yi in her training, and to feed her, too.

You can say my feeding her was our birthday present to each other this year.

She remains as feisty as ever.

There were 2 of them in training that day – her and Huan Huan. She went first, after which, they switched places, and she went into the enclosure next door. But she was restless. She knew what was going on in the next enclosure, and more importantly, what was available there – food! So she paced the enclosure and scratched the door, and even climbed on Duo Duo, who happened to be in the same enclosure with her.

Happy Birthday, Feng Yi.

|