Chet’s Chatter

Thinking of pandas

Posted on 20 October 2010 @ 07:53 in Stress Busters

For some reason, I woke up thinking of Duo Duo, that I didn’t see her during my trip to Bifengxia last month, and trying to remember who she was housed with earlier this year. Is she even in Bifengxia?

As soon as I was fully conscious, I got up and booted up my netbook to check the stud book. She’d been transferred to Nanjing in April 2009, along with twins Lang Lang and Cui Cui, soon after returning from their stint as part of the Olympic 8 at the Beijing Zoo. I’d never seen Duo Duo up close before; if I saw her at all, it was as part of the kindergarten group in Wolong in September 2007 and in a group in Beijing in August 2008.

I found myself thinking it’s going to be harder to remember and keep track of all the giant pandas as more and more of them are being born each year. More of them is a good thing but not when we want to just celebrate numbers.

Duo Duo was born in 2006. That was a special group of giant panda cubs. It was the first year they had 18 cubs in Wolong – a record black and white year!

2006 is a special year. That was the year my adopted panda, Feng Yi (who I named Yoong Ping) was born.

An amazing end to an amazing trip

Posted on 3 October 2010 @ 16:02 in Travels

With all my travelling to the Sichuan Province in the last couple of years, this had to happen eventually. And it did, in the last minutes before my return flight from Chengdu finally took off after an almost hour-long delay.

The captain had made an announcement that our 40-minute delay would be delayed by a further 10 minutes. The Chinese lady sitting beside me spoke out that she wasn’t sure if he’d said it would be another 40 or 10-minute delay (the announcement had been in English). I offered my help, and soon we were chatting.

There were the usual travel-related questions. I told her I’d been visiting giant pandas. To my surprise, she replied that she’d lived near Wolong as a child. Most people, when I tell them I’d been visiting giant pandas, assumed I’d been visiting Chengdu Panda Reserve. This lady didn’t. She assumed Wolong, and she assumed right.

I went on to tell her I’d been visiting Bifengxia, where the pandas from Wolong had been relocated after the earthquake. At the mention of “earthquake”, she tapped her companion’s arm to get his attention and said this was his first flight since the earthquake. She got very excited and her Mandarin picked up speed. I heard the words “earthquake” and Yinsiu, a place name that’d figured during the earthquake. She said something about him being an “earthquake something-something”, which I interpreted (wrongly – my Mandarin’s not that advanced) as “earthquake rescue worker”. It was only when I heard the words “metal clips” and “all over the body” that I realised I was in the presence of an earthquake survivor from the 2008 Sichuan earthquake.

I asked him a little about his experience and later wrote up the following notes in my travel log:

Met an earthquake survivor on the flight. His first flight since 512. (512 is the name given to the earthquake by local Chinese, taken from May 12, the date it happened.)

Was in a meeting in Yinsiu with the earthquake happened. Was trapped for 3 days. Not scared during the 3 days, only after. 65 people, 9 survived. Nearly had his left leg amputated. Lots of metal clips in his body.

And then I decided to ask him to write down his name next to the notes I’d made. He was surprised. “My name?” he asked. After which I got his girlfriend to write hers down, too. She wrote it below his.

Mr Guo Yang, a survivor of the 2008 Sichuan Earthquake. From the little he told me of what happened, he impressed me as a brave man who never doubted he would be rescued. Cheerful and gentle, too, from the way he spoke with his girlfriend.

I’d wondered if he walked with any limp and had my answer after we landed. After clearing Immigration, I saw them at a distance and noticed he did walk with a slight limp. That was the last I’d probably see of them. But I’d never forget him or his story.

My best meal at Bifengxia Panda Base this trip

Posted on 1 October 2010 @ 23:26 in Food, Travels

It’s the Chinese National Day today, and the start of a seven-day holiday for the whole country. Approximately half the panda team is on holiday and with many visitors expected over the next seven days, those on duty will not have time to go for lunch in the canteen at the staff quarters. Instead, the canteen will be sending a food van (Bifengxia’s version of “Meals on Wheels”) around to every department and exhibit.

Around 11:15 a.m. this morning, I saw a couple of the team members carrying a bowl and pair of chopsticks each. Then someone called out, “It’s here!” Melody from the Panda Club office asked if I’d like some lunch. But I didn’t have my own bowl and chopsticks. Instead, my lunch came in a set of three paper bowls and pair of disposable chopsticks.

The first bowl had white rice, the second bowl a mix of sprouts, stir-fried pork and cold meat, and the third bowl cabbage soup. The fourth bowl, which had white rice buried beneath the sprouts, stir-fried pork and cold meat, was Melody’s. We ate at the coffee table. Levi, with his own metal bowl, was eating at his desk, behind his computer monitor, but soon came to join us. We ate and discussed panda stuff and I had the best meal of my trip to Ya’an, and on the last day, no less.