SPEAKING Of "Crazy, Rich, Entitled Americans" ! [MIGHT THIS BE PANDARING?]
Richie Nearsen
How about SHIT-for brains?
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"Love, worry send Tai Shan fans to China"
By William Wan
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, September 29, 2010; 11:42 PM
BIFENGXIA PANDA BASE, CHINA - For four middle-aged American women, a
trip to China was a chance to pull out all of their panda finery: the
panda earrings, the necklaces, and the many, many panda plush toys.
But what they experienced when they got to the country's largest panda
reserve topped anything they'd ever done in years of devotion to their
beloved bear, Tai Shan.
Hunched over in brown janitorial coveralls, they used their hands to
gather new ursine artifacts straight from the source: clumps of
fibrous, multicolored panda poop.
The sight of the Western women scrubbing down the panda pens was
enough to cause flocks of Chinese tourists to swivel their cameras to
catch the action. A few even stopped the women in their tracks to pose
with them for pictures.
For the Americans, the up-close panda time was a privilege for which
they had spent lavishly and planned meticulously. The four of them -
three from Washington, one from New York - had dreamed up this trip
into the bamboo forests of Sichuan province months ago, almost from
the moment the National Zoo in Washington announced that Tai Shan was
leaving.
His departure in February left the women heartbroken and desperately
wondering what his life would be like. But what worried them most was
this: In a faraway land with hundreds of other pandas and 1.3 billion
strangers, would anyone love Tai Shan like they had throughout his
life?
That's what they came here last week to find out. And to get as close
as possible, they even persuaded his new handlers to let them feed and
clean up after him.
It may seem like a bizarre idea, the women admitted, maybe even a
little excessive. But as any songwriter or romantic will tell you, you
don't always get to choose who you love. And when that somebody turns
out to be a panda, and he moves halfway across the world, you do what
it takes to make sure he's all right.
"We don't want to come off like crazy or rich, entitled foreigners,"
explained Karen Wille, 56, a business consultant from Arlington. "He's
their panda now. . . . But we just want to see how he's doing."
Friends at the zoo
The four women were complete strangers just five years ago, their
friendship forged over long days at the National Zoo. They went once a
week whenever possible to watch Tai Shan, to talk to one another and
to seize any chance to speak with his keepers. They became regular
donors to the zoo; one of the women even paid $1,200 at a fundraiser
for an ink print of Tai Shan's paw.
Among the four women, Wille is the quickest to cry. Elise Ney, 50, an
audiologist from Bethesda, is the strong one, always upbeat. The third
woman, who lives in New York but said she did not want her name
published, is the most private and least inclined to explain to a
reporter how she ended up crossing oceans and continents just for a
bear.
It was the youngest - Christie Harper, 42, of Derwood, Md. - who
served as the master planner, mapping out each step of the trip.
A friendly woman with a warm smile and contagious laugh, Harper, a
pension consultant, talked freely about how she learned to bake just
so she could make panda-shaped cakes on special occasions. How she
later learned photography and bought a professional-grade camera for
her weekend shoots at the zoo.
Her husband supports her interest and has even tagged along on some of
her many trips to see Tai Shan in Washington. But he has also - half
jokingly, half seriously - asked her to dress less frequently in black
and white.
It all began, Harper explained, with the "panda cam" - the live Web
site that streamed 24-hour coverage of Tai Shan shortly after his much
publicized birth in 2005, the first cub to survive past infancy at the
National Zoo.
Just a few months before, Harper's mother had passed away. And as she
watched the baby panda follow his mom around, and the way his mom
lovingly nuzzled him back, something about it just grabbed hold of
her.
She wasn't the only one. During his 41/2 years in Washington, Tai Shan
and his mom adorned the cover of National Geographic. His fans
included first lady Laura Bush and the queen of Bhutan. His cuteness
inspired thousands of gifts, letters, even wedding invitations sent to
the zoo. And when Washington's most beloved animal finally left, it
was as though the entire city went into mourning. Several of the four
women made the papers in the ensuing coverage of devastated Tai Shan
fans.
Harper also read articles from China in which his new keepers vowed to
treat him like any other panda. No more sweet potatoes or pears (his
favorites). No special treatment.
Among the four women, she noted, only one has children. Tai Shan, she
said, was in many ways their baby. As Ney put it: "Watching him go was
a little like sending your kid off to school. You just don't know. You
worry."
A thrilling trip
The women, however, were careful not to say any of this as they
entered the panda reserve with a tour group from the U.S. Like
everything else about this trip, they had deliberately planned how
they wanted to be perceived by Tai Shan's new keepers: friendly,
easygoing, sane.
But when they finally reached Tai Shan's new home - a spacious
concrete pen leading out to a large bamboo-lined courtyard - the
squeals of joy and tears flowed immediately and freely.
The women volunteered through a new program at the Bifengxia panda
research center. The program was designed to give foreign donors a
hands-on look at the center, but has since been opened up to all
tourists. Although their tour included just two days at the reserve,
the women stayed on for almost an entire week.
The trip was expensive overall - roughly $5,000 per person - but the
fee to work with the pandas was relatively small, about $15 a day plus
$22 for the uniform. Most volunteers are assigned their jobs, but the
women's enthusiasm persuaded officials to let them toil mostly on Tai
Shan's pen.
They were quickly put to work, their bodies aching at the end of each
day. But what made everything worth it was the feeding, when they got
to touch Tai Shan for the first time through bars - something they
always wanted but were never allowed to do in Washington.
Upon learning that the women had paid to do such work, one Chinese man
taking photos of them was simply dumbfounded. "I don't understand it,"
said Ma Yueguang, visiting from the nearby city of Chengdu. "That kind
of hard labor is what the poor migrant workers do in China. They spent
money to do this?"
Beyond fees and donations, the women also brought loads of gifts for
Tai Shan's keepers: T-shirts, chocolates, even trinkets for their
children. And after a long morning's work last Friday, they invited
one keeper to lunch, treading lightly with their questions: Does he
like working at the panda center? What does he think of Tai? How has
their baby bear been these past months?
At home in China
The next day, in an interview with a reporter at the reserve's office,
the center's vice director of panda care tried to address those
questions. For the most part, the official, Luo Bo, spoke in facts and
figures.
Tai Shan, he explained, arrived underweight at 196 pounds and with a
flabby belly. His Chinese keepers tackled both problems by preying on
his love of food, hiding snacks to force him to exercise while
simultaneously bulking him up. In just seven months he had gained 40
pounds. (A spokeswoman for the National Zoo disputed the underweight
characterization and attributed his weight gain in China to seasonal
fluctuations.)
In another year or two, Luo said, he'd be ready for mating. Already,
they were working out his hind legs in anticipation, hanging food
above his head to practice mating positions.
Yes. But is he happy?
At this, Luo's face softened and he put aside the spreadsheets and
numbers.
Ever since Tai Shan's arrival, Luo has seen the steady trickle of
American fans to his panda reserve. He's read how these Tai Shan
lovers are often laughed at and derided, both in the United States and
China. But Luo said he welcomed their passion and even admired it.
Throughout much of China, the concept of animal rights is just
emerging, he explained, and abuse of animals is still prevalent. "When
you are poor you only worry about what you will eat, where you will
sleep. Things like animal rights are considered a luxury," he said.
"But that's changing in China," Luo said. "If the Chinese see just how
much these foreigners are able to love a single panda, perhaps they
will start loving animals, too."
Hearing such talk from his keepers has done much to soothe the four
women's worries, but it hasn't stopped the tears.
Outside Tai Shan's pen after a recent morning's feeding, one of his
keepers, Liu Juan, recounted how the American women had cried upon
seeing Tai Shan; a few cried again after feeding and touching him for
the first time. And she strongly suspected they would cry once again
when it came time to leave him.
"Some people think it's strange, but I understand their feelings," she
confessed. "I cried too when I saw pandas for the first time. I want
to tell the women that we also love pandas. That's why we all work
here. They don't need to worry about Tai Shan."
[Staff researcher Zhang Jie contributed to this report.]
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/29/AR2010092907837.html
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National Zoo before coming back to California.