If you will excuse my general laziness and lack of writing initiative, dear readers, I will get caught up on the journals from the great city of Chengdu.
Today was not the best day for waking up. The Grand Harbinger scheduled an alarm for 8:00 in the morning, and we were to meet the rest of the program for a trip to see the great pandas of Chengdu. Unlike the dorm in Beijing, this hotel had hot water on demand at any point during the day. I almost couldn’t contain my excitement at the prospect at showering at a time outside the predetermined times of 6:00 to 8:00 AM and 8:00 to 12:00 PM.
After a shower, I walked over to the dining room of the hotel, where we were destined to eat breakfast. I was certain that breakfast was going to be a wash – cold boiled eggs, non-toasted bread with bad jelly, hardly palatable baozi, pickled vegetables, strange noodles and the like. Sadly, my prediction came true. I ate bread with jelly and about 4 hard-boiled eggs.
After the meal – and a good deal after the scheduled time for meeting on the first floor – we boarded the buses, bound for the Great Panda Center at Chengdu. On the way over, we saw a good bit of Chengdu, and I have to say that I liked what I saw. Chengdu is much warmer than Beijing, and the humidity generally stays around 60-80%. All of the trees had bloomed, and everything was green. It was a great change after the somewhat dreary bare trees of Beijing. Chengdu is also a lot less crowded than Beijing – something else that I like about the city.
When we got to the facility, the immensity of the sprawling complex was impressed upon me. A hotel, large man-made lake, museum, and ritzy restaurants adorn the facility, and the entire complex is landscaped to a T. Soon after arriving at the panda temple, I extricated myself from the group and our negligibly knowledgeable tour guide by lagging behind to take some pictures. I wanted to examine these portly and well-protected creatures on my own time.
First, I visited the red panda housing facility. I immediately liked the red panda, strolling cat-like through their domain, curiously examining the visiting Chinese as they yelled at it and snapped at its face. Red pandas appear to be somewhat more intelligent than their larger, more corpulent taxonomical cousins, although I am no biologist. Red pandas, besides their very cool body design, coloration, and intelligence also possess another trait that I find very intriguing – their preferred sleeping habits. Should you ever come across a red panda in the wild – which I count as highly unlikely – you should immediately look to the trees above. In these trees you will find a multitude of sleeping red pandas peacefully dozing on small limbs at a precarious height.
The great pandas, I am sorry to say, were not as impressive as the red pandas; however, I admit that my analysis may be somewhat skewed. I do have certain criteria for what I consider “good” animals, and that list includes, but is not limited to, the ability to reproduce of their own volition, a desire to raise one’s young and perpetuate the existence of their species, using resources at a rate not more than what an ecosystem can naturally support, physical activity, the act of being interesting, and some level of ferocity that instills in us, the onlookers of said creatures, a sense of admiration and fear. On all of these counts but one pandas to not make the cut. They do perform some interesting behavior, and that includes lying on its back and stuffing bamboo into its mouth with both hands.
I realize that such a harsh analysis of these rotund creatures will illicit some less-than supportive responses from you, dear reader. I do realize that we are preserving these creatures in the name of preserving natural genetic diversity of our planet, but aren’t there other creatures whose homes are being destroyed by mean men in the name of construction and poaching that need our protection, too? For every panda lying on its back and stuffing bamboo into its mouth, I grant you that ten other creatures die in the wilderness due to habitat destruction and the deleterious ways of man.
As we rode back to the dorm, I got a text from Gabe. Remember when I mentioned that the police had barricaded the neighborhood? Well, Gabe said that as of yesterday, a Tibetan monk doused himself in gasoline and burned himself alive in protest of the Beijing government. The protests in north Africa and the Middle East have heartened the ethnic minorities of the Great People’s Republic, and the government was preparing for something big. People all over southeast China were talking about Tibet and the central government retaliation and clampdown in the Tibetans, but Beijing had such a clamp on information that no news of it ever left the country. Away from the capital, however, things were different. People were talking, but no one was rioting. Rioting has gotten them very little but bruised heads, anyway. I kept my eyes peeled for any signs of activity in reaction to this demonstration, but nothing occurred in Chengdu, to my knowledge.
With these thoughts floating through my brain, I fell into a deep and much needed sleep at the hotel.
I woke up at 6:30. I had been asleep for almost 5 hours. It had been raining and drizzling for the last 22 hours, and there was no end to the rain in sight. I shook off sleep and sat down to write. After a little while, I contacted Wes and Hannah to see about their plan for supper. We went out to eat a hot pot restaurant in the neighborhood, but the meal wasn’t nearly as spicy as the teachers had professed.
We called some of the other people in the program who were hanging out in the bar district of the city and took a taxi to what we thought was the bar at which they were hanging out. They gave us the wrong directions. We wandered about in the rain looking for their locale, first in the wrong direction entirely (partly due to faulty directions: we’re in the direction of the street with all the lights. Oh thanks), and we finally found them.
I spent the rest of the evening learning how to play a game called liar’s dice. It is a gambling game of sorts, and involves dice. I’ll have to show you how to play when I return. We left the bar a reasonable hour by ACC standards, 12:30, and I fell right to sleep.
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