Giant Panda

choi

本文通过一路BBS站telnet客户端发布

Judith Martin, China's Cuddly Emissaries. Wall Street Journal, July 2, 2011
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303339904576405982375338112.html?mod=WSJ_Books_LS_Books_6
book review on Henry Nicholls, The Way of the Panda: The curious history of China's political animal. Profile Books, 2011)

Quote: "Pandas were formally discovered quite late, in 1869 * * * they had never been mentioned or depicted in Chinese literature or art. * * * Then one day a French missionary and collector of animal specimens noticed a strange black-and-white skin decorating the home of a Chinese hunter with whom he was having tea. He promptly commissioned the locals to shoot him a couple of the critters, and mailed their dried skins to a zoologist in Paris.


Note:
(a) Henry Nicholls
http://www.henrynicholls.com/1.html
(b) A.A. Milne
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A._A._Milne
(1882-1956; English author)
(c) The quotation above depicted French Jesuit missionary Armand David.
(d) Giant panda
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant-panda
(section 5.1 Early references; section 8 Name)

section 5.2: "The first Westerner known to have seen a living giant panda is the German zoologist Hugo Weigold, who purchased a cub in 1916. * * * In 1938, five giant pandas were sent to London.

The WSJ review states, "Madame Chiang Kai-shek had originated the practice of giving out 'comical, black-and-white, furry pandas' as presents." This alludes to the gift to London which traveled by ship through Singapore and arrived at London in 1939.

--