Giant panda Fu Bao just celebrated her 4th birthday, which is equivalent to a 15-year-old human. This is an age full of energy and liveliness. At the Wolong Shenshuping Base of the China Conservation and Research Center for the Giant Panda, she needs to be fed 30 to 40 kilograms of bamboo and 5 to 10 kilograms of bamboo shoots daily. When she is in high spirits, she climbs trees, rolls around, digs holes, and pulls up grass. On her birthday, upon seeing the bamboo firecrackers and bamboo wind chimes prepared by the base, she grabbed them with one swipe and started eating, lying down as she continued to munch away. As her keeper, Xu Xiang, put it, “She gets a bit wild.”
As the first giant panda born in South Korea, Fu Bao is an undisputed “star” in the animal kingdom. Fans call her “Fu Piggy” and “Princess Fu Bao” in the comments section. She has her own merchandise, including dolls, pillows, and cups, and her image has been made into emoticons. Countless people use her photos as their profile pictures.
On April 3 this year, Fu Bao left South Korea and embarked on a journey back to China, arriving in Chengdu in the afternoon. She then moved into the Wolong Shenshuping Base of the China Conservation and Research Center for the Giant Panda. Now, the little one is spending her first summer back in her homeland, living a regular and natural life in the base surrounded by green mountains and fresh air.
“Very relaxed and comfortable,” said her “panda daddy,” Xu Xiang, who spends the most time with Fu Bao daily. Having worked as a keeper for 15 years, he believes that Fu Bao is adapting well and growing healthily in her homeland. Consequently, he is also adapting to many scenarios he never imagined, with netizens calling him and Fu Bao the “Xu Fu Duo.” He now needs to accept some media interviews and appear in live broadcasts, sharing more details about Fu Bao’s growth with the public.
Everyone Loves Fu Bao
“All of this is brought to me by Fu Bao, and I think it’s great; it’s also a form of exercise for myself.” This has made Xu Xiang, who used to focus solely on feeding the pandas, start to seriously think about the relationship between pandas and their keepers and the significance of his work. “For us, every panda is our treasure. We provide services for them, and their healthy growth is the best future.”
On July 23, three days after Fu Bao’s birthday, the celebratory atmosphere could still be felt in Gengda Town, Wenchuan County, Sichuan Province. This small town, known for summer resort and rural tourism, had its guesthouses adorned with large photos of Fu Bao, birthday posters, and greeting notes.
“Many people came on that day, and all the guesthouses were fully booked, especially with Korean tourists,” said a local guesthouse owner. They can easily distinguish between tourists coming for a summer resort and those specifically for the pandas. “Usually, it’s young people, families with children, or those carrying professional cameras; they are likely here to see Fu Bao.”
Everyone loves Fu Bao, and her every little move draws attention. At the base, visitors need to queue up to see Fu Bao, entering in batches. Each group can quietly watch her for 5 minutes through the fence. People queue up repeatedly just for these 5 minutes per batch, resulting in countless short videos of Fu Bao being shared online.
In the video, she is a clever little bear. While eating bamboo, if someone compliments her looks, she will pause and give an “uh-huh” in acknowledgment. She is also a lively bear, “getting lost” in people’s exclamations and rolling around energetically three or four times. And she can be a lazy bear, holding onto a bamboo shoot and lying down lazily while continuing to eat. She has a bit of a temper too; sometimes when “panda daddy” Xu calls her back to the enclosure, she will “pretend” not to hear him. She has her own little world, facing the crowd with her round ears perked up, staying motionless. Some describe this as her “peaceful and secure” face.
A Wealth of Story about Fu Bao
Her parents are Hua Ni and Yuan Xin, pandas who traveled to South Korea. Fu Bao was born at Everland in South Korea amidst great anticipation. Her name was chosen from a public vote, receiving 17,000 votes. Her growth has been worthy of this name.
She is lively and adorable, cherished by many. Every detail of her growth is treasured, such as her first time climbing a tree, falling off her bed, and interacting with her mother. She is outgoing and cheerful. When she hears familiar voices, she instinctively looks over and also acts cute, clinging to the keeper’s leg and not letting go.
According to the China-South Korea cooperation agreement and customary practice, Fu Bao returned to China when she turned four. She quickly adapted to her new environment at the Shenshuping base, establishing her own “routine.” Every morning, she goes for a walk and exercises. She is more active in the morning, eats more, and especially loves bamboo. After lunch, she takes a “nap,” eats again after waking up, and then starts a session of “acting cute.”
She also loves to “visit neighbors.” Her neighbors are 6-year-old He He and 18-year-old Yi Bao. Fu Bao communicates with them through sounds and smells via the enclosure’s communication windows.
Over the past year, Zhou Man, a girl from Chongqing, has driven to the base several times specifically to see Fu Bao. In her view, it’s rare to see an animal that is so cute, has such a rich history, and whose stories contain so many wonderful elements. “Fu Bao is like a projection of our happiness.”
Adorable Creature
As the person who now spends the most time with Fu Bao, keeper Xu Xiang feels that the story began on an extraordinarily ordinary day. “One morning, the base leaders asked me if I could feed a panda that was coming back from South Korea.”
“I said, sure.” Known online as “panda daddy” Xu, he is actually a genuine post-85s generation. Graduated in animal husbandry, he became a panda keeper through recruitment in 2009, working at the Dujiangyan and Ya’an bases of the China Conservation and Research Center for the Giant Panda. In 2016, after the Shenshuping base reopened following reconstruction post the 5.12 earthquake, he was transferred here.
To Xu Xiang, this was just a regular work assignment.
Before Fu Bao, the Shenshuping base had welcomed several other pandas back from overseas: Sheng Yi from Malaysia, Tai Shan, Bao Bao, and Xiao Qiji from the Washington Zoo in the U.S., and Zhen Zhen and Su Lin from San Diego.
“Every panda returning from abroad is equally important to us,” said Wei Rongping, deputy director and expert at the China Conservation and Research Center for the Giant Panda, during a media meeting on June 11, before Fu Bao’s official debut. He detailed the comprehensive preparations made for Fu Bao’s return, including a three-stage adaptation process – transitioning from quarantine to socializing and eventually to public display.
Xu Xiang accompanied Fu Bao through her adaptation period. It was only after a friend pointed it out and he checked online that he realized how incredibly popular Fu Bao was. However, he didn’t feel too stressed. “Just do your job responsibly.”
Therefore, he learned about Fu Bao’s habits and personality in advance. After her arrival at Shenshuping base, he entered the quarantine area to accompany her through more than a month of quarantine.
“That was a relatively simple stage.” The first time they met, Xu Xiang found Fu Bao to be an exceptionally handsome panda. He called her “Little Fu,” a habit among the base’s keepers. “Many times, we raise pandas from 20 centimeters at birth to over 200 pounds. In our hearts, no matter how big they grow, they are still the babies we hand-raised.”
Fu Bao is very smart. She quickly adapted to the Sichuan dialect and the name “Little Fu.” After adaptive training, she got used to activities centered around the transportation cage during this stage.
“Training her to get into the transport cage, it took just two sessions a day for two days.” Xu Xiang was pleasantly surprised to find that Fu Bao initially treated the cage as a toy, pushing it around, but quickly got used to it, enjoying sleeping on it and eating inside it, essentially treating the transport cage as her little home.
Being the Feeder of the Celebrity
Originally, experts and the caretaking team believed that Fu Bao’s greatest challenge would be to smoothly integrate into her new environment at the Shenshuping base after living with her parents in South Korea. This would involve familiarizing herself with her new neighbors with minimal stress and eventually becoming part of the larger panda family.
However, Xu Xiang found that Fu Bao adapted even better than he had expected. Besides smoothly transitioning through the three-stage adaptation process, she also adjusted well to the local bamboo.
“Sichuan and South Korea have different types of bamboo,” Xu Xiang explained. Based on his experience, they provided pandas with a variety of bamboo types to allow them to choose, try, and develop preferences. They offered bamboo according to the season. “This season mainly features bitter bamboo, white bamboo, Lei bamboo shoots, and Gui bamboo shoots. Little Fu needs to go through all the bamboo types throughout the year to find her favorite flavors.”
But for Xu Xiang, being a keeper for a “top star” panda like Fu Bao posed challenges beyond his professional duties.
The night before Fu Bao’s public debut on June 12, he barely slept, worried about Fu Bao’s condition and anxious about the live broadcast, a first-time experience for him.
During their debut as the “Xu-Fu Duo,” Fu Bao exhibited a commanding presence. She first peeked around curiously, then slowly circled the area before lying down to devour the “fruit and vegetable cake” laid out for her.
Meanwhile, Xu Xiang, introducing Fu Bao to the online audience, was good-naturedly described by viewers as “so nervous he had his eyes closed the entire time.”
“I wasn’t that nervous,” Xu Xiang laughed. He admitted that he was naturally introverted and quiet, usually not initiating conversations, and instinctively closed his eyes when facing the camera. “But when it comes to talking about pandas and their care, I’m not nervous at all. Just being real and honest works for me. If I had to talk about something else, I’d probably not know what to say.”
Being real and honest has been Xu Xiang’s “secret weapon” in adapting to the constant attention and questions.
Just the day before Fu Bao’s official debut, during a media meet with both domestic and international press, Xu Xiang responded to concerns about whether Fu Bao had suffered hair loss or discoloration, which led to suspicions of maltreatment, by providing detailed professional explanations.
“We collected relevant samples for testing and found no pathogenic bacteria. Additionally, her skin showed no signs of allergies, scabbing, or thickening,” Xu Xiang explained. He also clarified why pandas, even those that look like they’ve been “digging coal,” aren’t frequently washed. “Panda fur has natural oils. Washing them just for cleanliness can strip these oils, leading to other health issues.”
In a recent interview, Xu Xiang advised Fu Bao to roll less while feeding her. He explained that frequent rolling can lead to intestinal torsion and illness in pandas. “Little Fu may now have a conditioned reflex, rolling when hearing people exclaim. That’s not good either. I believe true panda lovers want to see them in their most natural state.”
Every Panda is Our Treasure
Indeed, there are many keepers well-known because of their pandas. There’s “Hua Hua” and her “Grandpa Tan,” “Meng Lan” and his “Uncle Mu,” and “Xi Le” with his “Grandpa Feng.” People love pandas for their adorably clumsy nature and enjoy discovering the unique moments of interaction between the pandas and their keepers.
With more people paying attention due to Fu Bao, Xu Xiang has adapted to the new changes and spent a lot of time reflecting on the relationship between keepers and pandas. He summarized his feelings about the job with three words: love, nature, and responsibility.
“Here, every panda is our treasure and our responsibility.” For Xu Xiang and his colleagues, Fu Bao is precious, and so are the over 70 other pandas at the Shenshuping base, each with their own personality, but equally cherished.
In this mountainous, picturesque base, it’s easy to learn about other pandas’ stories. They have diverse personalities. “Little Miracle” returned with her sister “Yi Yi” in 2023 and has grown from 78 kg to 97 kg in nine months. “Xin Xin,” the “class leader” of the 2023 pandas, is independent and beautiful, often playing alone or hanging on a tree. Fu Bao’s neighbor, “Yi Bao,” is an 18-year-old “elder,” with a strong presence, rarely interacting with Fu Bao but kindly watching over her and the other neighbor, “He He.”
Xu Xiang feels that the most common misunderstanding about panda keepers is that they don’t care enough. “Often, visitors think about what pandas need from a human perspective, not understanding their needs from the pandas’ point of view.”
Take environmental enrichment, for example. It’s about providing measures based on the animals’ habits to encourage natural behaviors and restore their original nature. “To prevent pandas from getting food too easily and developing health problems, we sometimes hide food in bamboo tubes, making them figure out how to get it themselves.” Xu Xiang has faced criticism for not providing enough toys for the pandas because of such practices.
or Xu Xiang and his colleagues, the principle of minimal interference with pandas is paramount. “The natural state is best for them. Even with environmental enrichment, it must be tailored to each panda’s needs, not just a matter of buying toys and throwing them in,” Xu Xiang said. They aim for every panda to have its own growth plan and to thrive naturally.
Recently, Xu Xiang noticed that Fu Bao has developed some “mysterious” behaviors. For instance, when Xu and other keepers discuss panda diets near the enclosure, Fu Bao pokes her head out, her eyes wide with curiosity. Xu chuckled, “I asked her, ‘Do you understand? If not, why are you looking?'”
Xu sometimes “reprimands” the little panda, reminding her repeatedly not to roll too much and to eat, sleep, and explore more. “She might not like my nagging,” he laughed, “She gives me a look that says ‘stop nagging,’ then turns and walks away.”
Xu Xiang keeps track of these little moments with Fu Bao. To him, the most satisfying part of his day is knowing that the pandas are healthy and happy. “When they sleep, we rest too,” he said. In the tranquility of the mountains, both humans and pandas are growing together.
