About 20 fans including Japanese tourists were excited Tuesday to see Tokyo-born giant panda Xiang Xiang, who was put on public view over the weekend for the first time since arriving in China in February.
The 6-year-old bear was calmly eating bamboo shoots at a giant panda research center in southwestern China's Sichuan Province when the fans took videos and pictures of her with their smartphones. Xiang Xiang made her public debut on Sunday after being acclimated her new environment.
Some enthusiastic fans called out "Xiang-chan" with Japanese suffix for something adorable, and the panda born at Ueno Zoological Gardens in Tokyo turned to them and paused for a moment.
Rie Sakamoto, an avid panda fan from Tokyo who had been to the Ueno zoo more than 100 times, happened to visit the research center in the city of Yaan on Sunday and came daily to the facility.
Sakamoto said she was full of emotions for being reunited with Xiang Xiang after her departure from Japan earlier this year. "She was eating bamboo shoots with a look I remember seeing in Ueno in the past," the Japanese fan said.
"There are many pandas that are treated like stars, but Xiang Xiang is special because she is loved both in China and Japan," said You Ruixi, a visitor from Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan.
Xiang Xiang was born in June 2017 from a pair of pandas on loan from China, becoming the first naturally conceived giant panda at the zoo. She came to Sichuan in February this year under an ownership agreement between China and Japan.
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