Comic strips about the earthquake
Not ha-ha funny comics, but graphic novel-type earnest renderings of some of the earthquake scenes now becoming famous in China. They are by the Chinese artist/illustrator Coco Wang and are here, with captions in English. Check the index on the right side of the page -- "Strip 2: The Boy Who Lived," etc -- to see each of the several-panel installments.
The current installment tells of the rescue of pandas from the Wolong center -- including the fact that the staff was instructed to rescue the foreign visitors first, then the pandas. The images are copyrighted, so here is just one atypically jokey frame from the panda sequence:
Most of the other stories are in far more heroic/tragic mode. The strips are interesting in themselves and are a little window on the imagery and tone with which the earthquake is entering public imagination here. (Thanks to Brian Wagner.)
An account of Mao Mao the Panda's funeral in Wolong
I mentioned earlier that the remains of Mao Mao, a 9-year-old mother panda, had been found in the rubble of the Wolong Panda Reserve a month after the devastating Sichuan earthquake. The current home page of Pandas International features an account by PI's Suzanne Braden about the search for Mao Mao, who had been missing since the earthquake, and what happened thereafter.
It has photos of the search for Mao Mao, an explanation of the "quake lake" phenomenon (which is what did Mao Mao in), and an update on the panda reserve. Strangely moving, including the part about how Mao Mao must have been trapped by rising quake-lake water when the wall finally came down on her. It takes nothing away from respect for the enormous human cost of this event to recognize the other costs too.
Mao Mao the panda laid to rest
Mao Mao, a nine-year old panda who had given birth to five cubs, had not been seen at the Wolong Panda Reserve since the Sichuan earthquake on May 12. On Monday of this week, her body was found under the ruins of her stone enclosure.
The current home page of the (Washington DC) National Zoo's panda page reports her death and says, "Mao Mao was a valuable member of the panda community and will be missed." An AP story on Mao Mao points out the larger peril the earthquake has posed for the Wolong panda breeding program, since many of the females were in the "falling in love" season and were newly impregnated. Also, much of the panda sperm stored in freezers at the reserve, to maximize genetic diversity, may have been lost.
Her keeper, He Changgui, mourns at her grave. According to the AP, "he had cared for the panda since she was 3, speaking to her in the local Sichuan dialect as he worked.
"It's like you could say something and she would understand," he said. "If you were happy, she was happy too."
I do love the idea that Mao Mao spoke not just Chinese but the Sichuan dialect. After all, it was her native region.
(Thanks to Margot Griffith.)
Pandas on TV
Word from Pandas International is that an NBC-TV crew has recently been to the Wolong Panda Reserve, heavily damaged in the recent Sichuan earthquake. Reports are scheduled to run on both the Today show and the Nightly News with Brian Williams tomorrow, Friday, June 13.
"Are scheduled to" is not the same as "will." But for the heck of it, why not tune in? I would if I could.
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