Chengdu & the pandas

Chengdu is a city of 11 million. Few would accuse it of being handsome, although it has a nice new airport. It seems odd that there are beautiful new buildings right next to some of the worst slum buildings in the city. The Holiday Inn Express is a nice looking new one with two really horrible, mold covered wrecks on the opposite two corners.

But it has an old section that is the nicest heritage site I have seen in China. The architetcure is pleasant and one a couple of streets, the tea houses put out chairs and tables and on nice days, a lot of people stop to play games and drink tea. Some of the (only) most interesting stores I saw on the whole trip were in the old part of Chengdu. There are two large monasteries (one for the boys, one for the girls; old boys, old girls). They are both really beautiful and serene. The largest is the one for men which has huge gardens and pools with a lot of old shade trees. The one for the women is more compact and has no garden, but is very attractive. While I was there, they were celebrating the 100th birthday of their founder. She was 97 years when she died three years ago, and was the first woman to attend Szechuan U., and the first Monk(ette) in China. Most religion is confusing at best, but these nuns were mainly elderly, with shaved heads, utterly shapeless bodies, sacks for clothing, and apparently quite happy there. It appeared in the upper windows, that they had taken in little orphan girls. Their families had come to visit on the big day, and there was a free veg lunch and it was a pleasure to see people enjoying themselves so much. I thought it funny that these nuns would constantly reach under their sacks and pull out a cell phone and answer it. Chengdu is more famous for earthquakes and pandas. I didn't really see much damage from the huge earthquake a year ago and the earth was quiet while I was there. I had not expected to be captivated by the pandas, but they are fascinating. They are kept in a large park, and the public sees on a few of the large numbers kept there for breeding purposes. There are many signs around abjuring visitors to be quiet while there, but the loudest person there was a tour guide waving his flag and shouting and giggling. All the groups were noisy. The Pandas are let out early in the a.m. when the help have placed the giant bouquets of bamboo in the right places. The pandas lumber out and eat voraciously. No wonder; of all the bamboo they eat, so much is fiber only that they only get 2% nutrition. A film we had to watch said that male pandas have a hard time finding just the right mate; they are fussy and it can take many years (hmm, sounds familiar somehow). Once they do find a mate, procreation is not even very likely. Worse, the mothers often do a poor task of handling the kid which is beyond delicate - it is entirely helpless for six months and I cannot imagine how any survive at all. While we were there, one was in an incubator, and two were in a baby crib. The scientists there seem to have little or no hope that they will ever recover in the wild - even tho they had survived 4 million years previously. It all sounded like a Darwinist specie failure. The stands of bamboo in the park were really spectacular and China has devoted a lot of resources to dealing with these beings and their comforts.