By Huang Zhiling (www.chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2008-06-01 21:15

CHENGDU: Liu Yu, a 10-year-old pupil from Beijie Primary School in Dujiangyan, Sichuan Province, arrived in the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding in this provincial capital of Sichuan early this morning.

To his surprise, he was the first to arrive in the base which is home to 67 giant pandas and enjoyed free admission.

Students from the Longmenshan Town Central School in Pengzhou, Sichuan Province, have an intimate moment with the four-month-old female panda Xing Ya in the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding.  Photos by Huang Zhiling

"My son has never seen any panda before, and it is my hope he is happy to spend the first International Children's Day here after the earthquake,"said his mother Qin Taiqiang who accompanied him to the base. She is a middle-aged teacher in Dujiangyan, a city about 40 km from Chengdu.

The duo, whose home and school were left in a precarious condition in the earthquake, were not the first or only lucky guys. Yesterday, 80 students from the Longmenshan Town Central School in Pengzhou, a city hard hit by the earthquake, visited the base.

"To celebrate the International Children's Day, the base has decided to offer free admission to all the children in Sichuan from May 31 to June 2 to make them forget the traumatizing earthquake temporarily,"said base chief Zhang Zhihe.

About 70 km from Chengdu, the Longmenshan Town Central School has 1,100 students. One died and three were injured in the earthquake which turned their school into dangerous buildings. Thanks to the air force of the People's Liberation Army which built a detachable steel structure classroom, classes resumed in the school on May 23.

The school is near Baishuihe, a national nature reserve devoted to the conservation of the giant panda. More than 20 types of bamboo have been planted in an area of 27 hectares in the reserve as the staple food for both wide pandas and captive pandas in Chengdu. But most students have never seen the country's national treasure.

Yesterday, the base hired three buses to take 80 students, who were representatives of the school, and 20 teachers accompanying them to it.

After a bus ride lasting more than three hours, the teachers and students arrived in the base at 11:30 am, one hour later than planned, because of the traffic jam.

In the wake of a brief welcoming ceremony in the base which sent a notebook computer to the school, a toy panda to each student and flowers to teachers, the students were divided into four groups and guided by base employees who had received training in psychology counseling to visit swans, lesser pandas, pandas, the cinema and museum before and after a free sumptuous lunch provided by the base.

All the students cheered and screamed at the sight of pandas, and students who looked restrained also had smiles and asked about pandas' habits.

Yang Lu, who is in grade one of the school, lives in a tent with her parents because their house collapsed in the earthquake. The eight-year-old was timid and spoke little. But she burst into laughter when she saw pandas eat bamboo and apples and play on a swing.

Her most exciting moment came when she and the other students were divided in eight groups to visit the delivery room where they enjoyed the privilege to touch four-month-old female panda Xing Ya with plastic gloves and had pictures taken with it.

"I will tell Mom I have seen and touched the cute panda whose hair is so soft,"she told China Daily.

According to Liu Dawei, a sports teacher who was the team leader of the 100 students and their teachers, most of the students had never visited Chengdu before and were so excited that they chirped on their way from their home town to the base.

"Touching pandas and posing for pictures with them is a privilege for distinguished guests only and it is the first time so many visitors have touched a panda and have had pictures taken with it on a single day,"said Fei Lisong, deputy base chief.

He disclosed that the base would donate 2 yuan (29 US cents) from each admission ticket which costs 30 yuan (US$4.3) to children in earthquake-hit regions from May 31 to August 31.

Deputy base chief Wang Chengdong said all the pandas in the base are safe although the earthquake has caused damage to walls and the surveillance system.