Traveling the World

Many people who come to China do so for a few reasons: to see the Great Wall, Tiananmen Square, the Forbidden City, to hold a Panda, to adopt a baby, or to start/expand a business. I came here for none of those reasons, but in this instance when my friends were here, holding a Panda became essential to my life’s mission.

I was nervous. Would the Panda like me? Would it try to bite my head off? We have always been taught that they are big, clumsy, playful, and docile creatures, but is that the truth? We so often make assumptions about animals, but we fail to remember that they aren’t human, and thus it’s impossible to predict their behavior. Just last year, a man entered a Panda habitat in an attempt to “pet” it, but the Panda slashed him to death.

As we arrived at the Panda reserve, I began to shake with excitement. We spend our entire lives watching about Pandas on Discovery Channel, yet only a small percentage of us have the great fortune to come face-to-face with them. Our first stop was at the breeding center, where the tiniest of babies were sleeping or being fed milk from a bottle. They were cuter than I had expected. We spent a few moments “ooohhing” and “aaahhhing,” before we moved on.

Then came the red “pandas,” which are basically off-colored raccoons. Those were annoying and fidgety, so we moved on to the real Pandas. These Pandas were sitting around, sleeping, eating breakfast, or playing with each other.

More to come next time…