The Pandas everybody ‘hates’ to ‘love’; Panda-rama’ & Panda-monium!

I just saw on the National news, that Pandas from China have been sent to the Smithsonian Zoo in Washington, DC for the first time in 24 years. The original pair (and eventually their cub) in the Smithsonian Zoo was transferred back to China. Chinese and American diplomats and bureaucrats call this “Panda Diplomacy”. The Chinese are very guarded with Pandas and their descendants. It seems they want to own the entire Panda trade, and even control the proliferation of Panda descendants. That being said, it seems to function in practice as a kind of lend/lease agreement, but I do not know the details. The Chinese will loan you some pandas, and if they have any babies apparently, the babies are ‘owned’ by the Chinese. Since there is nothing in Mao’s Red Book about Animal Rights, we must not suppose that the Chinese are so guarded because they love animals in general, or pandas in particular. Suffice it to say, the Chinese are very transactional in their approach. Let’s be honest, in the interest of educating the poor natives, the Chinese aren’t getting in Panda ‘lend/lease’ situations with the zoos in Botswana, Tanzania, or even Nigeria. Only the White man, the Japanese, the Australians, et al, big money ‘lovers of nature’, can afford to pay to have access to this endangered species that happens to only live in Southern China. The panda is like ‘oil’ to the Saudis; the gift that keeps on giving. They can for all intents and purposes ‘print money’ based on the ‘randomness’ of a natural resource, that quite randomly ended up geographically in China. Every nation presumes this ‘right’ to appropriate its own resources, and yet it cannot be said with straight face that the Chinese government loves Pandas any more than the Saudis could be said to ‘love’ God because of Mecca, Medina, Kaaba…compared to the material blessing of the oil. If you ask them which they would rather have…. My simple argument is that it is not just the communists and the capitalists that end up being hard core dialectical materialists, elevating material, materialism, and profit to a near godlike power in Human Culture. And yet for the Chinese, the Russians, the North Koreans, the Cubans, any so-called socialist country this is the inevitable result of materialism, dialectical materialism, and taking God out of the human economic and political equation. Without God/gods, there is no reason to do anything apart from sheer physical survival, and beyond that only what is in one’s material interests and the interest of the Communist state is good. The communist state becomes the arbiter and definer of the public good, which basically, absent Democratic processes and a God with rules that transcend Party, gives it a right to do whatever it wants, in the name of itself. This has the effect of functioning like an economic, political, military and security apparatus ‘blank check’.

And apparently, an animal resources and Chinese natural resources blank check. I oftentimes wonder in these ‘Panda’ transactions if White folk or the Chinese really love pandas. It seems to me they don’t. To cage them in completely synthetic and unnatural circumstances, and then once they get used to that, put them on a plane and transport them all the way back to China where presumably they will be caged again, and put on display in just as synthetic circumstances as they were in America but in China for Chinese audiences. With benefactors and friends like that, Pandas don’t need enemies.

Do not fool yourself, the Pandas will not be released back into the wild once they are repatriated to China. They are too profitable, an attraction at zoos and the like. How do we know? The Chinese officials at that Chinese zoo that dressed dogs up as pandas did not do so because as Marxists, they knew it was important to the state to maintain the dignity of the zoo by having a panda exhibit and population. That the local zoo in question was unable to get Pandas, perhaps because the Chinese government makes more money and curries favor with the Europeans and international community, by doing the lend/lease program with pandas, to countries that have something to offer China. I wouldn’t be surprised if there is some Panda sweltering in a zoo in Saudia Arabia who got transferred to the Saudi zoo in the lend/lease program as part of a big oil deal. Thus at the local Chinese zoo that dressed up the dogs, attendance was down, revenue was down, and desperate times call for desperate measures. And of course, every 2-bit socialist and ‘bro’ that has on a Che Guevera T-Shirt and listens to the Rock band ‘Rage Against the Machine’ knows that ‘the end justifies the means’ (unless one is being disobedient to the central committee).

So these Chinese Communist bureaucratic officials at this rural zoo/Amusement Park, when told that if they don’t start paying their taxes and fees in full down at the central Party office in Beijing, they will be closed down, decide to do something radical in desperation. They cut the tails off the dogs, and otherwise amend or enhance the appearance of them to appear to be Pandas. I’m sure the reader would be curious to know how long the ruse lasted. I do not know. What I do know is that a movie needs to be made about that zoo by some young up and coming Chinese film maker (willing to risk his life). It should be a comedy marketed around the world, and the first Chinese film that with Chinese actors that wasn’t martial arts related to be a huge hit in Western Theatres. I am telling the reader it would be solid gold, in China especially with its many theatres, in North and South America with their tens of thousands of theatres, and in Europe with its tens of thousands of theatres. If I could afford the auteur aspirations necessary to produce, cast, and film such a thing myself, I would……go with me into the screenplay….

The zoo is in rural China, far from prying eyes and is more like a cheap state fair style amusement park with a petting zoo (with common farm animals), than a real zoo (in the European and Western sense of the word zoo). A new plucky manager, who got demoted from the Central bureaucratic zoology marketing department of internal bureaucratic affairs. So he is at the rural park in the middle of a backwards county where everybody is poor, and the level of education is low. The plucky, smart, handsome, down on his luck, beer swilling alcoholic, that thinks his career is over, County Zoo manager feels like perhaps with a paint job and some new exhibits, the place would be a draw all across the county, close by villages, and perhaps the surrounding counties. Immediately, he hits upon the idea that perhaps he could get a panda exhibit, and that would be the perfect thing to draw in new audiences to the Amusement park/petting zoo.

So he phones the zoo and wildlife bureaucrats, at his old office in Beijing thinking perhaps he can be sent some pandas. But they are mostly paper pushers, and the ones in power are partly responsible for his being sent to a zoo facility in the boondocks (even for Chinese standards as big as it is). What altogether worse to his sense of faith in the Communist system, after getting the run around, finally they put him on a list to receive Pandas. When he sees where his Zoo is on the list, he realizes his zoo is in a line that is 40 years long. Our plucky, handsome single, bright, well-spoken, Chinese dude asks if ‘a little something under the table’ (bribe) might help expedite the process. Excitedly, the high-level Chinese bureaucrats at the zoology and wildlife Bureaucracy say sure, and quote him a figure. Our Chinese hero looks at it and realizes that not only is it more than quadruple what the petting zoo/amusement park/gift shop and all its land and possessions is worth, it is more than the value of the entirety of the city and county budget in that rural area!

This of course seemed unfair. One day while drinking beer with some zoo employees lamenting the sad state of the place, and the fact the Beijing bureaucrats were going to shut it down soon, a female employee, one of the locals working part-time, brought her dogs because the dogs seemed to enjoy walking around the petting zoo, amusement park and gift shop areas. Everyone commented how cute the dogs were and then our Chinese equivalent of Matt Damon, Tatum Channing, etc., looked and realized that with a hairdo, hair-dye applied at some key points, no tail, and a little overeating to fatten the dogs up, the ‘Chow like’ dogs would look just like pandas. Bingo! Like a flash of lightening in a drunken haze he decided right then and there. He mentioned the idea to the gathered staff, who true to poor people from the rural areas, had a few qualms about seeming to ‘trick’ or ‘fool’ people. What if it was illegal? He comforted them by saying they would just do it long enough to pay off the debts and keep their jobs. That was the most convincing argument because it wasn’t that many jobs in rural deep country China. Finally, they all agree to the ruse, agreeing to keep it top secret, as literally, accidentally being on the wrong side of Beijing bureaucrats or seeming to embarrass them is not a good idea. Nevertheless, they all thought they could get away with it, like mulatto Negroes in antebellum south being light enough to pass for White.

Furthermore, all in attendance figured that because of the poor nature of the local population, many of whom didn’t have televisions or many books, most of them probably had only seen a ‘real’ or ‘photograph’ of a panda a few times in their lives, and certainly not enough to be decisive or conclusive about what is or isn’t a panda as long as its fat, cute and Black and White. Many of the locals were either illiterate or barely literate. Surely, it wouldn’t hurt anybody if the locals thought their local amusement park/petting zoo/gift shop had pandas, but in actuality it was two dogs. It would help ticket sales of course, but the gift shop too because panda themed merchandise would now fly off the shelves.

Our intrepid, plucky, and Chinese lead character emphasizes to his somewhat concerned staff, that they wouldn’t do it long, just long enough. Maybe they would make enough to repair the aging roller coasters that haven’t been inspected in years because the former manager of the zoo facility just kept bribing the Beijing bureaucrats at the Chines Zoo and Wildlife Bureau. Maybe with the additional funds, they could get some slightly more ‘exotic’ animals for the ‘petting zoo’ as opposed to common farm animals. They begin the ruse and to their surprise, it works perfectly, none of the locals suspect these are two dogs dressed up as pandas. Not a soul suspects that these are two dogs in ‘drag’ as pandas, like Ru Paul drag race, but for dogs that either want to be pandas, or their owners want them to be pandas. Elementary schools from the town and the surrounding county begin taking students on field trips to see the ‘Pandas’. After a few weeks the thing got so successful it got out of hand as crowds began coming from all around. In itself that wasn’t the problem, even if a few visitors might have had suspicions, everybody knew it was good for the town. People started taking pride in the town and held their heads a little higher when they interacted with Chinese from the big cities. Kids were excited at school, and the principal informed our plucky handsome Chinese lead character that discipline problems were down because if any child acted up, he and the teachers would threaten the child with not being able to go see the pandas on the field trip.

As the success grew, and the crowds grew larger, our plucky character and his staff got more and more worried. Curious guests would ask, ‘where is the bamboo eating’? At first the no cameras policy (because they upset the pandas) made sense. However, people resorted to sneaking their cameras in and surreptitiously trying to film the pandas or do selfies in front of the Panda exhibit enclosure. The more people came, the more they asked questions, informed questions that neither he nor the staff could answer. But that wasn’t the worst part. The worst part was that surrounding towns and counties and their zoos, which were bigger and better than his, got jealous. How did he leapfrog better zoos and facilities? Some of them did more than ask questions, they began investigating.

In the meantime, our plucky Chinese lead character has a love interest who he loves, and their relationship is good. She works at the zoo part time, and it is her dogs that got turned into pandas. But he wonders if her affections are only because of his success with the zoo, and if she knew he was about to get put out of the zoology management bureaucracy, demoted, or fired if they ever got found out. This was his last stop on the way downward. She is a beautiful woman that has relocated to rural China to take care of her aging parents, from Shanghai where she worked in a factory. Her age, early-30’s, hardworking life as opposed to being educated, a little rough around the edges as basically a country girl, and a few failed relationships before affected her self-esteem and she also felt ‘unworthy’ of him, big time zoo success. Nonetheless she has invested heavily in him personally (allowing her dogs to be mutilated and psychologically harassed to behave more and more like poodles) and as they fall in love, she wonders is he just a city boy romancing a country girl on his way to bigger, better prospects (economically and romantically). With her aging parents she would be trapped in rural China for the near future at least.

Of course, eventually the ruse is up. Photos from investigators have been submitted to the central office by other local zoos jealous of our hero’s success. However, even that wasn’t the straw that broke the camel’s back. It turns out the photos that the zoo in the next county over submitted to the Beijing office of the Zoology and Wildlife Bureaucracy were tied up in the bureaucracy, and the zoo in the next county over didn’t have the ‘funds’ to expedite the investigation process. Something for worse happened and not coincidentally this is my favorite scene in the movie. Two kids from the local High School/Vocational Agricultural College got insanely drunk after graduation. They broke into the zoo, with the purpose of breaking into the panda exhibit and talking selfies with the pandas. Ladies and gentlemen, one must be mindful here of the differences between ‘Panda’ natural behavior, and ‘puppy raised dog’ behavior. Pandas are notoriously ornery. The story I’m about to tell is true (as in you can look it up on the internet). Bat shit intoxicated; a lonely depressed Chinese dude jumped in the Panda enclosure at a zoo in China to hug the Panda. The Panda reacted violently to the intrusion not only to his cage, but to his personal space (as the dude required a hug), and bit the man, latching onto him and not releasing. The panda continued to bite, and the man’s yells and screams for help went unanswered because he had snuck into the zoo after hours. Finally (keep in mind this part is a true story), the man was so desperate to be released from the panda’s bite and grip, that without an weapons to hand, he realize he only had one option, and hit bit the panda on the back (presumably through the fur) as hard as he could, at which point, the Panda released him. I cited it in another one of my books, and much as I love that story it did not happen to our heroic teens in our present movie. When our teens jumped in the enclosure, the ‘pandas’ reacted as human trained since they were puppies would react, that is to say they bounded up to the intruders wagging the stubby tales, licking the perpetrators, and desiring back and tummy rubs. Needless to say, this is not natural panda behavior and by then the jig was up!

Our plucky Chinese star, his love interest, the staff, and the country town are embarrassed and humiliated. They are the laughingstock of all of China and the entire world. Our star feels that the best thing is for him to resign his position as manager of the zoo and hope he can get a job cleaning out the elephant stalls at the Beijing or Shanghai Zoo. Similarly, he feels that he has caused his girlfriend great embarrassment, and that she no longer wants to see him. She hasn’t called him because he hasn’t called her, and she thinks he is embarrassed and this is his way of dealing with the pain and anyway, if he was moving somewhere else, the relationship was over, and that fact needed not be said. Nevertheless, he feels he cannot just leave, and decides to tell her he loves her, but that he has disappointed her, and the town, and is moving back to Shanghai or Beijing to accept his fate from The Department of Zoology and Wildlife Bureaucracy. When he gets there however, she is not there. Her mother has Alzheimer, so he was shocked when she answered the door, and welcomed him in. Usually she sat, nearly catatonic looking at Chinese soap operas. But this day, she was engaged and seemed happy. Our hero felt worse in the presence of her inexplicable joy. She must not know that I humiliated her daughter and the town. He tried to explain that he was leaving town, but it seemed as if it went in one ear and out the other. And then she said, “daughter has been so happy. We happy because daughter is happy. Why daughter happy, not matter. We do not make daughter happy, we happy because daughter is happy. Town happy. Town proud. Children happy. Families happy….former town drunk was leading tours at the Zoo. Families were happy and proud when the town was on TV! Families happy. He tried to explain, you don’t understand Ma’am, I messed it all up. I brought shame. No. She fussed back. “You showed the world that we country people aren’t all ignorant and stupid, and not only can we out hustle them, but we can out-think them too, fooling the world! We tried to get a panda the legitimate way, but we didn’t have enough bribe money to move more than 40 years up the list. We asked for loans for years, from the Central Government Development Agencies and Bureaus and they didn’t give it to us, preferring to take advantage of our children having to go the big cities to find work, where they often get exploited. And yet time one of us has the desperation, the courage, the intelligence, and the spirit to take matters into his own hands with what he has, everyone laughs. The world laughs. Let them laugh. We will tell our own story, and it is not a tragedy but a comedy. No animals were hurt. All the money we raised on the pandas and panda merchandise went into paying down debts, buying new equipment and outreach to schools. You know what Mrs. Jones. You’re exactly correct. Our plucky hero and his wife, write a book called ‘The Country Village that fooled the World’. Communist Party officials see the book and use its popularity to ‘crack down’ on corruption. The facility gets two real pandas, conveniently named ‘James and Florida’ (From the Good Times American Television Show) which his mother-in-law likes to watch on Satellite Television. Everyone lives happily ever after.

It should be clear by the above meanderings, why I write such good books. That being said, such a movie adaptation would be better than another Star Wars, Bat Man & Robin spinoff, Marvel iteration, or DC Comics re-rehashing. Even more telling about the state of Chinese politics and culture is that the Chinese would never agree to such a movie (nationally or internationally). That is the other problem with hard core materialists and deterministically dialectical materialists, they are hypersensitive and cannot take a joke, even if it would help them and their ‘movement’.

A perfect example is when current Chinese President Xi Jinping got described by a young female Chinese journalist (an older one would have known better), as looking like ‘Winnie the Pooh”! Instead of laughing it off and moving on, Xi and the Communist Party got ‘them little feelings hurt’. They banned the journalist and all public references to the comment, which of course went viral initially in China, and certainly the west. What could have been a perfect opportunity for Xi to soften his image and the image of Chinese Communism in general was wasted. For God’s sake he is more or less President for life, what does he have to fear? By laughing it off, maybe even embracing it, it would have softened his image and proved domestically and internationally, that he had a sense of humor and could make fun of himself. Nope. To hate religion so much, atheists are very quick to turn themselves into unassailable gods, who mustn’t even be profaned by ever laughing at. If your god farted, would it not be funny? Not in China apparently. Xi could have proven with one incident that the new China tolerated humorous (as opposed to traitorous) critiques (and is capable of knowing the difference). Nope. The Chinese could have even proven that the chains on Chinese journalism were being loosened by tolerating a little humorous ‘dissent’, from journalists. That would help smooth feathers a little in Hong Kong and Taiwan. And it could have signaled to the Chinese people that the new, successful, confident China on the world stage was so self-assured, economically powerful, militarily powerful and geopolitically powerful that it could take a joke, a mere joke, that funny or not changes none of the above domestic or international power dynamic realities. It would signal and era in China where because this female journalist was allowed to joke about the ‘fearless leader’, it meant that Chinese intellectuals and artisans would be free to be creative with their words and ideas, without fear, presuming it was more or less harmless. But neither Xi nor the Chinese Communist Party, which is the body for which he is the head, had enough political sense or sense of humor to take a gift horse at face value…instead preferring that a group of well-paid party bureaucrats search its mouth for objectionable things.

That is why China, North Korea, Russia and the United States ironically have their own versions of the ‘thought, language, and humor police’. Oh, you say not in America. You can get cancelled tomorrow because you misused gender pronouns and hurt feelings, used a derogatory term for some ethic group who society has decided that even though it used to call them the same thing for generations, no one else is allowed at risk of being humiliated and fired (fried). Pronouncing Kamala Harris name wrong, or not referring to Jill Biden as Dr. Jill, or assuming a normal woman desires or has children, and the list goes on and is added to everyday.