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South Koreans Bid Farewell to Beloved Panda Fu Bao before Her Return to China

Giant panda Fu Bao eats bamboo at Everland amusement park on Sunday, March 3, 2024, in Yongin, South Korea. (AP)
Giant panda Fu Bao eats bamboo at Everland amusement park on Sunday, March 3, 2024, in Yongin, South Korea. (AP)
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South Koreans Bid Farewell to Beloved Panda Fu Bao before Her Return to China

Giant panda Fu Bao eats bamboo at Everland amusement park on Sunday, March 3, 2024, in Yongin, South Korea. (AP)
Giant panda Fu Bao eats bamboo at Everland amusement park on Sunday, March 3, 2024, in Yongin, South Korea. (AP)

A South Korean zoo on Sunday threw a farewell party for Fu Bao, the first giant panda born in the country, ahead of the beloved animal's scheduled return to China.

Fu Bao, which means lucky treasure, has attracted a huge fan base ever since she was born in July 2020 at the Everland amusement park just south of Seoul. The panda is set to return to China's Sichuan province next month after spending a month in quarantine.

Thousands of visitors queued up in the early morning chill to attend the farewell event, with many saying they will miss the panda once she's gone.

"I was mentally ill three years ago, but Fu Bao has helped me get through it and brought me a lot of comfort," said Kim Min-ji, a 31-year-old visitor. "It's sad to say goodbye, but we need to let her go. I wish she goes safely and will be happy."

Jo Ah-hyeon, 24, said she waited more than four hours to see Fu Bao. "This is our last chance, you never know when we'll see her again so I had to come," she said.

Zookeeper Kang Cher-won, who has been caring for Fu Bao, said the panda had given him so much love as well as teaching him a lot about the critically endangered species. Online videos of Kang caring for Fu Bao, and her clinging to him, are very popular in South Korea.

"Fu Bao is a friend who has played many roles," Kang said. "She was my first panda cub, and my heart is filled with memories of her that I will never forget all my life."

The cub's parents, 10-year-old female Ai Bao and 11-year-old male Le Bao, arrived in 2016 from Sichuan province, the home of the giant pandas, as part of China's "panda diplomacy". Last July, Ai Bao gave birth in South Korea to giant panda twins.

Female pandas can only conceive once a year for a limited period, and cubs have very low chances of survival as they are often born prematurely, usually weighing less than 200 grams (0.44 lb).

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Varieties

Greece's 'Instagram Island' Santorini nears Saturation Point

Tourists queue as they wait to take a picture from one of the balconies. Aris Oikonomou / AFP
Tourists queue as they wait to take a picture from one of the balconies. Aris Oikonomou / AFP
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Greece's 'Instagram Island' Santorini nears Saturation Point

Tourists queue as they wait to take a picture from one of the balconies. Aris Oikonomou / AFP
Tourists queue as they wait to take a picture from one of the balconies. Aris Oikonomou / AFP

One of the most enduring images of Greece's summer travel brand is the world-famous sunset on Santorini Island, framed by sea-blue church domes on a jagged cliff high above a volcanic caldera.
This scene has inspired millions of fridge magnets, posters, and souvenirs -- and now the queue to reach the viewing spot in the clifftop village of Oia can take more than 20 minutes, said AFP.
Santorini is a key stopover of the Greek cruise experience. But with parts of the island nearing saturation, officials are considering restrictions.
Of the record 32.7 million people who visited Greece last year, around 3.4 million, or one in 10, went to the island of just 15,500 residents.
"We need to set limits if we don't want to sink under overtourism," Santorini mayor Nikos Zorzos told AFP.
"There must not be a single extra bed... whether in the large hotels or Airbnb rentals."
As the sun set behind the horizon in Oia, thousands raised their phones to the sky to capture the moment, followed by scattered applause.
For canny entrepreneurs, the Cycladic island's famous sunset can be a cash cow.
One company advertised more than 50 "flying dresses", which have long flowing trains, for up to 370 euros ($401), on posters around Oia for anyone who wishes to "feel like a Greek goddess" or spruce up selfies.
'Respect Oia'
But elsewhere in Oia's narrow streets, residents have put up signs urging visitors to respect their home.
"RESPECT... It's your holiday... but it's our home," read a purple sign from the Save Oia group.
Shaped by a volcanic eruption 3,600 years ago, Santorini's landscape is "unique", the mayor said, and "should not be harmed by new infrastructure".
Around a fifth of the island is currently occupied by buildings.
At the edge of the cliff, a myriad of swimming pools and jacuzzis highlight Santorini is also a pricey destination.
In 2023, 800 cruise ships brought some 1.3 million passengers, according to the Hellenic Ports Association.
Cruise ships "do a lot of harm to the island", said Chantal Metakides, a Belgian resident of Santorini for 26 years.
"When there are eight or nine ships pumping out smoke, you can see the layer of pollution in the caldera," she said.
Cruise ship limits
In June, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis floated the possibility of capping cruise ship arrivals to Greece's most popular islands.
"I think we'll do it next year," he told Bloomberg, noting that Santorini and tourist magnet Mykonos "are clearly suffering".
"There are people spending a lot of money to be on Santorini and they don’t want the island to be swamped," said the pro-business conservative leader, who was re-elected to a second four-year term last year.
In an AFP interview, Tourism Minister Olga Kefalogianni echoed this sentiment and said: "We must set quotas because it's impossible for an island such as Santorini... to have five cruise ships arriving at the same time."
Local officials have set a limit of 8,000 cruise boat passengers per day from next year.
But not all local operators agree.
Antonis Pagonis, head of Santorini's hoteliers association, believes better visitor flow management is part of the solution.
"It is not possible to have (on) a Monday, for example, 20 to 25,000 guests from the cruise ships, and the next day zero," he said.
Pagonis also argued that most of the congestion only affects parts of the island like the capital, Fira.
In the south of the island, the volcanic sand beaches are less crowded, even though it is high season in July.
'I'm in Türkiye
The modern tourism industry has also changed visitor behavior.
"I listened (to) people making a FaceTime call with the family, saying 'I'm in Türkiye," smiled tourist guide Kostas Sakavaras.
"They think that the church over there is a mosque because yesterday they were in Türkiye."
The veteran guide said the average tourist coming to the island has changed.
"Instagram has defined the way people choose the places to visit," he said, explaining everybody wants the perfect Instagram photo to confirm their expectations.