The terms of the loan agreement with Austria: Fu Bao lives in the Vienna Zoo until 2034. Results in deeper ties between Austria and China. Free visas for visitors to Vienna from Chengdu and vice-versa.
Fu Bao knew the terms of the agreement, though she felt an unpleasant lurch in her stomach being a pawn on China’s diplomatic chessboard. In her new home in Austria, her enclosure was an artificial spring and 98 square meters of bamboo forest. She slept on a patch of grass while the Austrian children gawked at her from 9 to 5, the neverending parade of new visitors with nothing to do but watch her eat bamboo.
That was her life on repeat. Eat, sleep, and play with the various toys the zookeepers dropped into her cage, a quite humiliating life if you asked Fu Bao. In China, she lived a free and laissez-faire lifestyle. Munching her jaws away on bamboo sticks ad nauseum, wrestling with her sisters, and resting under the overlapping of leaves thirty feet above. One day, Fu Bao was awoken by the commotion from her family. She was caught by the government and placed in the back of a rusty van.
Now she was all alone in a foreign country, just a spectacle to be ogled. Somehow, she had an inkling of how much more important she was than the rest of the animals in the zoo. Pandas represented China, and China was a major world power. The Viennese zookeepers furnished her enclosure with everything she needed, like serfs appeasing a noble. But Fu Bao didn’t feel like a noble. She was a pawn of the overlord country. She hated the way the Austrian children made silly faces at her as though she didn’t represent the dignity of the Middle Kingdom.
In the second year of her Viennese sojourn, the zookeepers decided they needed a more exciting spectacle, more panache. One thing led to another, and Fu Bao suddenly realized she was pregnant! 135 days later, she gave birth to a healthy baby boy. The zookeepers were thrilled and named him Huang Xi, because Joy is yellow, and they wanted the baby panda to be energetic and entertaining. The first week Huang Xi made an appearance in the enclosure, thousands of people gathered around, every hour of the day. Fu Bao did not like the overwhelming amount of attention the family of two were gaining. She wanted to nurture Huang Xi in peace, she wanted to rest in peace, she wanted to eat in peace. She wanted an jing.
Another clause of the 10-year agreement was that China owned the rights to any panda offspring born overseas. Once Huang Xi was weaned, the Chinese government demanded the baby’s return while Fu Bao stayed in Vienna, so the zookeepers kidnapped Huang Xi while Fu Bao was sleeping and sent him “back” to a zoo in Chengdu. When she woke up and found her son missing, Fu Bao knew the inevitable had happened. She was just a pawn after all. After her Huang Xi, “yellow joy” was gone, she spent her days constantly hiding in the shrubbery, eating bamboo in a corner, and sleeping for 23 hours a day. Soon enough, the zoo had enough of her intransigence—
Written by Sophie Tran from San Jose, CA
