A hug to remember

We are asked to wake up earlier than before. It’s the day before the competition and we are greeted by tons of media as we arrive to the panda base. They question of the day is as always “how do you feel” and “do you think you have a good chance to become a pambassador”. The tone of the questions are very competitive oriented and gives us an aura of being in a reality show. This feeling passes away quickly when we enter the nursery station. One of the areas in the nursery station is accessible for tourists and behind two glassed walls we can see a baby panda and a couple of cubs dreaming away.

Small facts:

1. The panda baby ways 1/1000 of her mother’s weight. Around 50-190 grams.

2. Keepers will sometimes hand rear the baby panda, this is usually done when the mother has given birth to twins and is not able to feed both of babies herself. In the wild the mother will only nurse the strongest baby and will reject the other.  Another technique that is commonly used in captivity is “baby swapping”, where the keepers will swap the twins from the mothers chest by distracting the panda mother with food or by placing a big bowl of milk in front of her face. This allows both babies to receive the essential nutritions and social interactions needed for their future lives.

3. The keepers will also rub/massage the panda cub’s lower stomach to help them defecate. This is to imitate the mothers natural behavior in the wild. The panda cubs stomach is not ready to digest  the mothers milk properly from birth.

In the beginning of our adventure we were told to memorize as much panda facts as we could in order to work as tour guides in Chengdu panda base. And today was time to show off our skills.

Me and Cissi talking about Giant Pandas and the environment with some lovely elementary school children.

Before we were allowed to go home the panda base had yet another surprise for us. Although it was mainly a media thing I was extremely excited when they told us we would take pictures while hugging sub adult pandas!



Getting a high five from one of the cubs!

Tomorrow is the day of the final and I have too many things to prepare. I'm prepared to do my best and really hope I can become one of the six Pambassadors. Even if I wouldn't make it to the top six I've had a wonderful time here in Chengdu and I will never forget this once in a lifetime experience.

Thanks for the support everybody!

Ali