YA’AN, China, Sept 15 – With Japan now without pandas for the first time in nearly half a century, devoted fans are heading to southwestern China for a glimpse of Xiang Xiang, the former darling of Tokyo’s Ueno Zoo.
At the Bifengxia Base of the Giant Panda Protection and Research Center in Ya’an, Sichuan Province, Japanese visitors can be found almost every day watching the nine-year-old female eat, play and wander around her enclosure.
“I think she’s having apples today. They’re her favorite,” one of about 10 Japanese visitors said during a visit in late April, as the group excitedly discussed what the panda might be eating.
When Xiang Xiang emerged into the outdoor area, cameras immediately came out, with the visitors eagerly checking the photographs they had taken.
Their devotion is a form of “oshi-katsu,” a Japanese term for enthusiastically supporting and following a favorite celebrity, character or other figure.
Xiang Xiang was born at Ueno Zoo and became one of its most popular animals before being returned to China in February 2023 under a bilateral lease agreement.
Her adjustment was not easy.
“She was very unsettled and under a lot of stress when she first arrived,” said her keeper, Zhao Lanlan, 40.
Xiang Xiang was particularly sensitive to unfamiliar sounds in the more natural surroundings of the Ya’an facility, reacting even to the wind and the movement of plants and trees.
Zhao also felt the pressure. It was the first time she had cared for a panda returned from overseas, and posts on Chinese social media platform Weibo made clear just how closely Xiang Xiang was being followed.
Zhao said she gradually won the panda’s trust by approaching her work with what she considers the three qualities essential for a keeper: compassion, attentiveness and a strong sense of responsibility.
“Come on, it’s time to eat,” Zhao called as she held out some fruit.
Xiang Xiang, already drooling in anticipation, had been pacing around the indoor enclosure, apparently wary of the presence of a reporter. But she calmed down at the sound of Zhao’s voice and began eating.
As she cleaned up the panda’s banana-shaped droppings, Zhao said examining them was an important part of keeping track of Xiang Xiang’s health.
For her Japanese fans, such glimpses of Xiang Xiang’s daily life have taken on added significance.
In January, Ueno Zoo’s twin pandas, male Xiao Xiao and female Lei Lei, were also returned to China, leaving Japan without any pandas.
Pandas first arrived in Japan in 1972 and have long played a symbolic role in ties between Tokyo and Beijing. But bilateral relations deteriorated sharply following remarks by Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi in the Diet last November suggesting an attack on Taiwan could prompt a response by Japan, putting further panda exchanges under a cloud.
Natsuki Mizuguchi, a visitor from Tokyo, said her late-April trip was the sixth time she had seen Xiang Xiang since the panda returned to China.
“She has such a beautiful face, and I love the way she plays,” Mizuguchi said with a smile. “Every time I see her, she seems even cuter.”
Another Japanese visitor, a woman in her 50s, said she had followed Xiang Xiang since she was young.
“I’ve watched her grow up all these years,” she said.
She expressed hope that pandas would one day return to Japan despite the current chill in relations with China.
