Panda World

On our recent vacation in Chengdu (see also the story about Leshan Buddha) we visited the Chengdu panda reserve. We had registered as "volunteers" for the day, so when we arrived a friendly member of the education staff took us to the panda area.

The panda's were amazing on all accounts. They are cute and adorable and kind of weird looking in their black and white outfits. Apparently though, they are not too bright. And from what I learned from the zoo keepers it seems a wonder they they are surviving at all...

Of course, as we all know, their habitat--the wild bamboo forests--are rapidly disappearing and that is their biggest problem. But their physiology is also not helping the survival of the species. Because of their bamboo diet, they apparently don't have a lot of energy to do anything at all. So they just eat and sleep, eat and sleep... with very little energy left to have sex perhaps a few times per year. This means that in a year, there are just not that many opportunities to create descendants. And even if a panda becomes pregnant and a panda cub is born, the cub's chances of survival are small.

But we quickly forgot about all these depressing details when we fed and played with the pandas. They seemed fun-loving animals and definitely enjoyed the apples we give them on a stick.

We fed them apples...

We cleaned up their bamboo. (If the panda's don't finish their bamboo, it's taken out of their cages and replaced with fresh bamboo. They are picky eaters and will only eat the fresh stuff. Every day, loads and loads of fresh bamboo from the mountain areas around Chengdu are wheeled into the panda reserve.)

We read a book with panda. 

We felt his fur. 

In het Nederlands: Tijdens onze vakantie in Chengdu, in de provincie Sichuan, een aantal weken geleden, gingen we ook op bezoek bij de panda's. Wat een mooie dieren. Maar het is geen wonder dat ze met uitsterven bedreigd worden. Niet alleen gaat hun habitat (ze eten alleen bamboe) eraan, maar ze hebben gewoon bijzonder weinig sex (dat kost te veel energy en dat kan je je dan op basis van die bamboe niet vaak veroorloven) en als er al een kleintje komt heeft die ook bijzonder weinig overlevingskansen. Maar de panda's die wij zagen maakten het goed, zoals je op de foto's ziet. 

Leshan Buddha

China is home to a couple giant Buddha's. And when I say giant, I mean giant. I guess to be sure that the Buddha will look kindly upon your mortal soul, you better build (or carve) him big enough to be spotted from space. There are for example some huge Buddha carvings in Datong (near Beijing (hint hint), Luoyang, and in Leshan.

Just south of Chengdu (meaning a two and a half hour drive), visiting Leshan was a perfect day-trip on our recent visit to Sichuan Province and Chengdu, and of course we went to see the famous and humongous "Leshan Buddha." 

What I loved about this place was actually the story surrounding it. The version that I was told--as we were climbing down on the right side of his body--is that a monk, Mr. Haitong, with great energy and inspiration started raising funds in 713 AD for his idea to build a Buddha, which he thought would bring calm and safety to the wild and crazy water currents of the convergence of the Ming, Dadu, and Qingyi rivers in front of it. 

Lo and behold, after many years of work and 71 meters of carvings, a benign and rock-solid Buddha appeared on the shore. And as the works had progressed, the rivers had actually calmed down because of all the rocks and sands sliding into the river from the construction. A miracle! The Buddha didn't even have to use his build-in safety features; the mere construction of him already had brought peace to the river.

What a great story. However, when I just read this other version, A Short History of the Leshan Giant Buddha, I realized that Mr. Haitong might have started the whole project knowing very well that the construction of it would slow down the river. Or as the article says, it was a "half-flood control, half-religious project." I suppose that takes a little bit away from the miracle of the Buddha, but it does show incredible foresight by the monk (not to mention an apt for marketing techniques, if you read the article) to be able to solve a flood-control problem and at the same time use it as a way of funding his desire to honor the Buddha!

The monk didn't live to see the final result, but exactly 90 years after the project was started, the statue was finished in 803 AD. In 2012 AD, a bunch of Dutch tourists came see it with their own eyes.

The three Buddha's.

For a sense of scale. The boat in the foreground is not a toy.

Captain Haddock and the Buddha.

Buddha and Goofball.

In het Nederlands: Van de zomer waren we op bezoek bij de Grote Boeddha van Leshan, in de provincie Sichuan in het mid-westen van China. Wat een monster! Samen met nog zo'n duizend andere toeristen daal je een smal trapje af, van het rechteroor van de Boeddha naar z'n teen, en dan weer omhoog. Maar mooi is het wel. Ook leuk is het dat door de constructie van de Boeddha, en dan met name door alle stenen die in het water vielen, de rivier een stuk rustiger werd en er dus minder schepen vergingen dan voorheen. Dat is nog eens een effectief beeld!