In February 2023, the Memphis Zoo in the United States announced that the 25-year-old giant panda Lele had died. Immediately, the health condition of Yaya, the panda living in the United States, also attracted great attention. According to the evaluation of the Chinese giant panda expert team in the United States, Yaya is currently in normal condition except for skin disease that causes hair loss. China and the United States are also actively coordinating to prepare relevant procedures for Yaya's return to China.

Every move of the panda touches the hearts of the people. It may be appropriate to use a sentence from American zoologist George Schaller in "The Last Panda" to describe this phenomenon: "The panda escaped from its home in the mountains and became a citizen of the world." In Japan, the "citizenship" of pandas is particularly obvious.

On February 21, 2023, Xiangxiang, a panda in Japan, took a special flight back to China. On February 25, Japan's Ueno Zoo official Twitter updated the news that the two staff members who accompanied Xiangxiang back to China have returned to Japan, and said that news will continue to be broadcast in the future.

Before returning to China, Xiangxiang lived in Ueno, Japan. zoo. Xiangxiang was born in 2017, the child of a natural mating between giant pandas Lili and Zhenzhen living in Japan. To the Japanese people who watched her grow up, Xiangxiang is like their own child.

According to the relevant regulations on leasing giant pandas in China, the ownership rights of cubs born to leased pandas still belong to China. According to the agreement, Xiangxiang’s original return time was June 2019. The Japanese people were reluctant to leave Xiangxiang and hoped that she could stay in Japan for a longer time. Japan applied to China for a one-and-a-half-year extension to return her. After that, Xiangxiang's return plan was delayed four times due to the epidemic. On December 23, 2022, Yuriko Koike, Governor of Tokyo, Japan, announced the planned date of Xiangxiang’s return to the country.

The Japanese people are extremely reluctant to leave Xiangxiang back home. In the outer building of Ueno's landmark Matsuzakaya Department Store, a 20-meter-long portrait banner of Xiangxiang is hung. The portrait is made up of 920 photos of Xiangxiang. The text in the background means "I like you the most."

The panda magazine "Panda Himself" also launched the latest special issue "Xiang Xiang Himself" on the same day. The slogan is "My heart will always belong to Xiang Xiang." In addition to messages from various Japanese panda lovers, There are also tons of Xiangxiang photos.

Starting from January 21st, Ueno Zoo will adopt an appointment lottery system to enter the park, and a maximum of 2,600 people can win the lottery every day. February 19 is the last day for Japanese people to meet Xiangxiang. About 60,000 people across Japan have signed up to participate in the lottery. The registration competition ratio is 24:1, reaching the highest since the last round of visits was launched.

On the 21st, more than 300 fans rushed to Japan's Narita Airport to say goodbye to Xiangxiang, and more people paid attention to Xiangxiang's whereabouts on the Internet. The official Twitter account of Ueno Zoo launched 11 real-time live tweets focusing on Xiangxiang's whereabouts until about 23:00 late at night Japan time.

The welcome Xiangxiang receives in Japan makes people wonder why pandas, especially Xiangxiang, receive such high courtesy in Japan?

Picture: On February 21, 2023, a truck carrying Xiangxiang drove to Narita International Airport. Japanese people gathered at Ueno Zoo to see it off.

In 2011, Xiangxiang's parents Lili and Zhenzhen arrived in Japan. This was the first time in three years since the death of panda Linling that Ueno Zoo welcomed giant pandas. The following year, Lili and Zhenzhen gave birth to a cub for the first time, and the Japanese people were in a frenzy. Commercial areas around the zoo also launched related panda peripherals to celebrate the birth of the panda cub.

Six days later, before the public could get over their joy, news came from the zoo that the panda cub that had not yet been named had died of pneumonia. The Ueno Zoo hung a notice board announcing the death of the panda cub in front of the panda pavilion, and surrounding business districts also removed posters celebrating the birth of the panda. The then director of Ueno Zoo, Toshimitsu Toi, lowered his head at the press conference, unable to hide his sadness and wiped away tears with a handkerchief several times.

As the place where the first giant pandas Kang Kang and Lan Lan lived in Japan, Ueno Zoo has always had a special status in the hearts of the Japanese people. It can be said that pandas are one of the symbols of Ueno Zoo. Things didn't go well, and Lili and Zhenzhen did not give birth to any more cubs in the following years.

Until June 2017, Xiangxiang was born. After 29 years, Ueno Zoo finally successfully gave birth to a panda cub through natural reproduction. The then Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said, "This is news that makes the whole of Japan happy." At that time, banners celebrating Xiangxiang's birth were hung on Ueno streets, shopping malls and buses in Tokyo. In order to celebrate, some department stores even Started promotional activities.

After the lessons learned five years ago, Ueno Zoo did not dare to relax for a moment after Xiangxiang was born. In the first three months, they continuously guarded the panda baby 24 hours a day. Every 10 or 20 days, Ueno Zoo will publish photos of Xiangxiang on its website.

To choose a name for the newborn panda cub, Tokyo set up a selection committee. Ueno Zoo solicited names from the public and received approximately 320,000 submissions. Six judges including Tetsuko Kuroyanagi, a famous Japanese TV host and writer, voted on the top 100 candidates and selected eight candidates. After consultation with China, Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike announced at the press conference that the panda cub will be named "Xiang Xiang", saying that the name "gives people a bright impression like a blooming flower."

On December 19, 2017, Xiangxiang was made public for the first time. Ueno Zoo adopts a lottery system to control the flow of people. Due to the large number of applicants, the winning rate on the first day was about 1/46. During the first weekend of opening, the lottery rate reached 144 times.

In order to meet the needs of the Japanese people to watch Xiang Xiang, Ueno Zoo has set up 8 cameras in the panda house to broadcast live broadcast of Xiang Xiang’s life from 9:30 am to 5 pm. Since then, Xiangxiang's every move has attracted the attention of the Japanese people.

Takahiro Takahiro, a panda lover, fell in love with pandas after accidentally meeting Xiang Xiang’s parents at Ueno Zoo in 2011. For the past 12 years, he has been photographing pandas at Ueno Zoo almost every day, and published the photos he took on the blog "Daily Panda" he created.

He has witnessed almost every process of Xiangxiang from birth to growth. "Xiangxiang is about the same age as my daughter, just like my daughter." Gao Shiguibo said, "People all over the country are excited for this 'hard-won child', as if they care about their own children, watching Xiangxiang grows up bit by bit and protects it, so the relationship is particularly deep."

As Toshimitsu Doi, the former director of Ueno Zoo, mentioned, the relationship between people and giant pandas in Japan is " A bit like the relationship between celebrities and idols, every move of the giant panda touches the hearts of the people. It is precisely because of the huge amount of emotion invested that the relationship between the giant panda and the people is inseparable."

Picture: The first panda cub born to pandas Lili and Zhenzhen in Japan unfortunately passed away. After Xiangxiang was born, the Japanese people watched its growth and felt that it was hard-won. (Visual China / Picture)

2 “Fantasy Animal”

Before 1972, to ordinary Japanese people, pandas were a “fantastic animal”. There are no wild giant pandas in Japan. They have only heard of this animal but have never seen it with their own eyes. According to Japan's "Royal Yearbook", in 658 AD, as a national gift, Wu Zetian presented two live white bears (pandas) and 70 skins to Emperor Tenmu of Japan. This is the earliest record of Sino-Japanese panda diplomacy.

In the 1930s, as the number of pandas hunted in China increased, European and American society's attention to pandas rose sharply, gradually forming a "panda fever." At this time in Japan, except for occasional reports in newspapers, the public's awareness of pandas was still not high.

In 1958, panda Ji Ji was brought to London Zoo. According to Kuroyanagi Tetsuko, after it arrived in London, Japan gradually began to have information about giant pandas. As information gradually became public after the war, photos of pandas were transmitted to Japan about every five years. She remembered that there was a photo of the keeper bathing Ji Ji in a water basin. It was very cute. At that time, she would also go to a bookstore that specialized in overseas books to see if there were pictures of pandas in foreign animal photo albums, and if there were any, she would buy them. She carefully collects information about pandas as if they were treasures.

In the same year, pandas appeared as Xu Xian's friends in Japan's earliest full-length color animation "The Legend of White Snake". They were welcomed for their fresh and cute images, and pandas' attention gradually increased. Later, in 1971, Emperor Showa of Japan visited the pandas at the London Zoo. Japanese people's attention and enthusiasm for pandas have never been higher, and they hope to see giant pandas in Japan.

Opportunities will follow. In September 1972, Japanese Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka visited China. Prior to this, in February, Premier Zhou Enlai proposed to donate a pair of giant pandas to the United States during Nixon's visit to China. In April of that year, the giant panda was unveiled at the Washington Zoo, and Mrs. Nixon attended the ceremony, setting off "panda fever" in the United States. The New York Times reported the matter with the title "New Panda Melts People's Hearts."

Due to the enthusiastic response to this move, Japan was designated as the next country to donate pandas. On September 29 of the same year, China and Japan signed the "Sino-Japanese Joint Statement" marking the normalization of diplomatic relations between China and Japan. In this way, Kangkang and Lanlan, as the first generation of giant pandas living in Japan, went to Japan with the mission of Sino-Japanese friendship.

For the Japanese people, this is a "dream come true" moment. At 6:50 pm on October 28, 1972, the special plane carrying pandas Kangkang and Lanlan landed at Japan's Haneda Airport (now Tokyo International Airport). The then Chief Cabinet Secretary of Japan, Susumu Nikaidou, personally went to the airport to greet them. Thousands of reporters were already waiting there.

At 9pm, escorted by more than a hundred security personnel, Kangkang and Lanlan arrived at Ueno Zoo. Hundreds of Japanese people were waiting there, including Kuroyanagi Tetsuko among the crowd. She was rehearsing a drama, sometimes asking people around her "How many kilometers is it from Haneda to Ueno?" and sometimes estimating the time when the pandas would arrive.

In order to take a look at the pandas, she said to her colleagues, "I'm sorry, I'm in a hurry." Then she passed the rehearsal and went straight to Ueno Zoo.

With the guarantee that the media would not turn on the flash, the staff opened the blinds, and the media waiting at the scene finally saw with their own eyes the giant panda they had been waiting for. This is also the first time that giant pandas have appeared in Japan. It only lasted for ten minutes, but it caused a sensation in almost all of Japan.

In the Japanese cartoon "Chibi Maruko-chan", there was a plot: when Maruko-chan's grandmother recalled the scene when she saw a panda for the first time, she said, "When there are many people, I heard that light You have to wait in line for three hours, but the time you can actually see the pandas is only ten seconds. "This is not an exaggeration.

On November 5, 1972, Kang Kang and Lan Lan were publicly exhibited to the general public in Japan for the first time. On that day, the number of tourists in Ueno reached 56,000. There was a queue of about two kilometers at the entrance of Ueno Zoo. Some people queued for 2 hours, and the viewing time was less than 30 seconds. The following year, the number of visitors to Ueno Zoo reached 9.2 million.

Later, China successively presented Huanhuan and Feifei to Japan. Unfortunately, their descendants have all passed away. After Feifei, the Chinese government stopped donating pandas to foreign countries and instead leased them. Once the deadline is up, the pandas will be returned to China. For the Japanese people, pandas are animals with a "shelf life", and they cherish every opportunity to meet a panda.

Why do Japanese like giant pandas? In the outer building of Matsuzakaya Department Store, a landmark building in Ueno, there is a 20-meter-long portrait of Xiangxiang, which is made up of 920 photos of Xiangxiang. The name of Xiangxiang is on the front, and the text in the background repeatedly reads "I love you the most." (Matsuzakaya Department Store/Photo)

3 Spiritual Refuges

At 5:46 a.m. on January 17, 1995, Japan time, a 7.3-magnitude earthquake occurred in the Kansai region of Japan. In the early morning of the incident, most Japanese people were still asleep. Houses collapsed one after another and roads were severely damaged. According to official statistics, a total of 6,434 people died and 43,792 were injured in the earthquake.

Kobe City, a major city in Japan's Hanshin Economic Zone, was severely affected by the earthquake. Many Kobe citizens were distraught as they faced the devastated city. Many people are separated from their loved ones and face the reality of being displaced. The whole city was enveloped in an atmosphere of sadness.

The then director of Kobe City Oji Zoo, Takeo Oku, came up with the idea of ​​inviting pandas to encourage children. He said that after the earthquake, he could no longer hear the laughter of children. He wanted to make children happy again and restore Kobe to its former vitality. In this way, for the sake of citizens who are rebuilding after the disaster, the Kobe City Government proposed to relevant Chinese parties that it hopes to jointly carry out research on giant panda breeding and breeding with China.

This request received a positive response from China. In 2000, pandas Dandan and Xingxing arrived at Kobe City Oji Zoo. After the arrival of the pandas, the number of visitors to Prince Zoo increased from more than one million to more than two million. People rushed to see the giant pandas, and their liveliness and playfulness brought vitality to the citizens of Kobe. In Japan, a stay lasts for more than 20 years.

"The panda is a symbol of Kobe's revival and has given many people Dream, so we can’t live without pandas,” said Kobe City Councilor Hirano Shoji, who is known as the “Panda Councilor”. Yujiro Kako, director of Kobe City Oji Zoo, also said that Dandan’s arrival brought hope and courage to the Japanese people and healed people’s hearts injured after the Great Hanshin Earthquake.

To the Japanese people, the "kawaii" natural image of the panda is warm and healing. Toshimitsu Doi, the former director of Ueno Zoo, once said, "Giant pandas were originally 'rare animals' like elephants and giraffes. Gradually, people began to pay attention to their 'cuteness' such as their movements and body shape, and this continues to this day."

Pandas are round and cute in appearance. Even adult pandas still have the childlike and clumsy characteristics of human children, which fits well with Japan's "cute" aesthetic taste. In Japanese culture, there has always been the aesthetic concept of "taking small as beauty". They have a sense of love and compassion for young and cute things, and can discover their beauty from their childishness and weakness, and give them the aesthetic value of "cuteness". This kind of Perceptual understanding is also in line with the popular "Kawaii culture" today.

On March 11, 2011, a magnitude 9 earthquake occurred in Japan and triggered a huge tsunami. When the earthquake occurred, the pandas Lili and Zhenzhen at Tokyo's Ueno Zoo were "restless" for a while, but they returned to their original living conditions the next day.

Affected by the earthquake, Ueno Zoo is temporarily closed. On April 1 of the same year, the Ueno Zoo, which had been temporarily closed, officially opened its giant panda exhibition. On the first day, more than 20,000 people entered the park to see the giant pandas, 1,688 of whom came from shelters across Tokyo to watch the giant pandas. Some victims thought, "After the earthquake, such a heartfelt smile is very precious."

Near the panda house where Lili and Zhenzhen lived at the time, Ueno Zoo staff held donations for donations in their hands Box, hoping to use the popularity of giant pandas to raise funds for post-disaster reconstruction. People queuing up to visit donated generously. Merchants located near the zoo also saw new hope and put out various souvenirs one after another, hoping that the "panda effect" would once again give them confidence in life.