Basi: the Panda of Everlasting Fame

At four o’clock in the afternoon on November 12, 2010, CCTV started a countdown program on 2010 Guangzhou Asian Games before the opening ceremony. The program flashed back to the 1990 Beijing Asian Games. Panda Panpan, the mascot of the 11th Asian Games, was in the program. The program also revealed that the Panda Basi, the living mascot, is still alive in a zoo in Fuzhou.

More than 3,000 people from 26 countries and regions gathered together on November 13 in the Fuzhou Panda World to celebrate the 30th birthday of the she panda. Among the participants at the birthday celebration were Li Xingyu and her husband. Li rescued the panda 25 years ago in mountains in Ya’an, Sichuan Province.

One cold day in 1984, Li Xingyu spotted a panda in an icy river. With the assistance of her niece, Li scooped the panda out of the river. She built a fire on the spot by the river and held the five-year-old panda tightly trying to give some warmth to the dear creature that had already lost its consciousness. She cooked corn meal and fed the panda. After the panda came to, the woman and her niece brought her to the Panda Preservation Zone. She later had the privilege of naming the panda Basi, after the valley where the rare animal was rescued. Shortly afterwards, Basi recovered and traveled to her new home in Fuzhou, the capital of Fujian Province in southeastern China.

Li Yuxing, now a mother of four children, considers Basi her fifth child. She came to visit Basi in Fuzhou in 2004 when Basi celebrated her 25th birthday. The revisit to Basi in 2010 made Li sharply aware of the fact that both she and the panda were no longer young.

Basi has had a legendary life. She settled down in Fuzhou in 1984. She learned a lot of acrobatic tricks and starred in various shows. In 1987, Basi took part in a show in San Diego, America. In 1990, Basi appeared in various activities staged by the 11th Asian Games in Beijing and she became the Panda for the sports gala. In 1991, she appeared in the CCTV’s spring festival celebration and made her national renown. In 1998, she donated cells for clone studies. The study results ranked among the top science and technology achievement later.

According to scientists, a 30-year-old panda equals to a 120-year-old human being. It is said that Basi is the oldest living panda in the world. If Li Yuxin is Basi’s mom who saved the panda’s life, then Chen Yucun at the Fuzhou Panda World is a key figure who has kept the dear panda alive.

Chen Yucun, director of the Fuzhou Panda World, is known as papa of panda Basi. Basi has experienced a few near-death crises in recent years. In July 2002, Basi suffered a massive hemorrhage after a blood vein in her nose broke after a spell of hypertension. She was in coma for a week before she came back miraculously. In June 2010, Basi was afflicted with acute pancreatitis. She was sent to the emergency center at a military hospital in Fuzhou. Chen Yucun and his colleagues were with Basi day and night, feeding her and caring for her. By June 9, the panda had become strong enough to amble around again. Chen Yucun has long passed the retirement age, but he most gladly continues to work to take care of Basi.

Liu Zongren is the designer of Panda Panpan, the mascot of 1990 Beijing Asian Games. After attending the celebration of Basi’s 30th birthday in Fuzhou, he said he wanted to set a wrong description right. According to Liu, Basi is not Panpan. To be more accurate, Basi is the living image of his design Panda Panpan.

As a matter of fact, Panpan was a pure imagination. Basi became the living image only afterwards.

Liu read in a local newspaper in 1985 that the organizers of the Beijing Asian Games were asking artists all over the country to design a mascot for the 11th Asian Games. And the mascot was to be in the image of panda, a rare and lovely Chinese animal. Liu created Panda Panpan, a cartoon image holding a torch in its hand. Six months later, he got a call from the organizers that his design ranked the third on the shortlist and the organizers asked if he could come to Beijing for the next round of examination and improvement. In Beijing Liu found that altogether there were six artists for the top three designs. He improved his design by changing the torch to a gold medal. Though some people dismissed his new design as excessive emphasis on winning gold medals, Liu thought the design was good and refused to make any more change. After he resumed his normal work at the Changcun Film Studio, he learned through the grapevine that the design chosen was a cute panda upholding a gold medal. Liu was very pleased to believe it was his design. And his belief was soon confirmed by the organizers. Before the opening ceremony of the Beijing Asian Games a national campaign was staged to select a living panda to stand for the mascot image. Liu saw Basi, a smart and cute panda, and cast his vote for Basi as the most winsome candidate.

Shortly after the name Panpan was announced, the organizers received a complaint from a Japanese expert that the name discriminated against Japanese women. The organizers explained that Panpan was a he panda. It was the first time that a mascot in international sports games needed to be clear about its gender.

To his surprise, during his visit to the Fuzhou Panda World, Liu found that Basi is actually a she panda.