I just saw this article about Měilán’s (美兰) return to China and had to mention it. If you’ve got a good command of Chinese and English, no infectious diseases, and a bachelor’s degree or higher, you might want to consider applying.
Although, I guess you’d have to be in Chengdu and know some Sìchuān huà 四川话:
“[The panda] will be taught Chinese with a Sichuan dialect because people here all speak Sichuan dialect…For example, she will be taught the phrases for going back to the cage or coming out from the dormitory.”
I couldn’t find the sina site that was mentioned but I did find this article that gives you the phone number to call if you want to apply.
Teaching Chinese to a Panda would be an AWESOME job. Id love to know more about how this is done and what the results are…. 🙂
Ni hao!
I have some background in Mandarin. I’m intermediate level. Is Mandarin close to Sichuan hua? Are they mutually intelligible to each other?
Xie xie!
I am certainly not qualified to apply but I wonder how many commands a Panda is capable of learning. It’s not so implausible because dogs can learn the meaning of dozens of phrases; though that makes sense because they have to communicate together when they are hunting. I thought Panda’s only sat around munching so this is much more mysterious!