CHINA: China's most celebrated panda Jing Jing, one of the nation's Olympic mascots, draws a crowd for her first birthday party

One of China's brightest Olympic stars celebrated her first birthday this week in style. And she didn't skip the cake. Unlike the nation's 20,000 or so athletes now undergoing strict training regimens for the 2008 Games in Beijing, Jing Jing (pron: djeeng djeeng) doesn't do much other than sit around and look good. She is one of China's 2008 Olympic mascot line-up that also features a Tibetan antelope, a swallow, a fish and the spirit of the Olympic flame. She is also the only flesh-and-blood avatar of the five colourful cartoon characters. A day after China unveiled the mascots in 2005, the Giant Panda Breeding Research Base in south-western Sichuan province named a 10-week-old female panda cub "Jing Jing" after one of them. "The reason that we named her Jing Jing was because Jing Jing was also the name of one of the Olympic mascots. The panda, a symbol of peace and friendship, can represent the spirit of the Olympics," said Zhang Zhihe (pron: djahng djur heh), Director of the Research Base. The five Olympic mascots are named "Beibei", "Jingjing", "Huanhuan", "Yingying" and "Nini", which together mean "Beijing welcomes you." Coloured in the five hues of the Olympic rings, they also represent the sea, forests, fire, earth and air. The selection of China's mascots generated plenty of debate, and caused headaches for a design team trying to select something that could best represent a country which has a written history going back more than 2,000 years and much tradition to draw on. Little visitors at the Research Base agree that a panda was the right choice. "Pandas are our national treasure. It is something only China has. Other countries don't have pandas. To have pandas as the Olympic mascots are the most appropriate," said 10 year-old Xiong Xujing (pron: hseeohng hsoo djeeng), a visitor to the base. Besides its panda celebrity, the research base is home to around 40 other fuzzy residents, and boasts 6 new panda cubs with several more on the way this year. The giant panda is one of the world's most exotic and endangered species and is found only in China, where it is a national treasure. An estimated 1,600 wild pandas live in nature reserves in Sichuan, Gansu and Shaanxi provinces. It is extremely hard to breed giant pandas in captivity. Females only ovulate once a year, with a slim 24-to-48 hour window for breeding when artificial reproduction methods are usually adopted. Infant mortality is also high.

ITN Source | September 2, 2006

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