Three year-old sisters Meilun and Meihuan are said to be experiencing “culture shock” since their arrival at the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding on November 5.

As it were, the giant pandas are finding it difficult to fit in during the month-long quarantine because, like any new expat to China, they don’t speak the language and they don’t like the food.

As the China Daily reports, Meilun and Meihuan cannot understand the Sichuan dialect spoken by trainers at the research base. Aside from their names, the pandas don’t respond to the phrases “Have you eaten?” and “Did you have a good time?” spoken by panda trainer Luo Yunhong. Instead, the wild animals understand basic English phrases such as “come here.”

Settling down for the pandas is especially difficult since they are fussy with their food, choosing only to eat “American-style” biscuits instead of Chinese steamed corn bread (wowotou).

In fact, Luo said the new arrivals prefer to eat biscuits so much that everything they eat – from bamboo to apples and even water –must be mixed with the biscuits.

“It hasn’t been easy feeding them local food,” said Luo. “The ingredients are the same, but they still prefer the flavor of biscuits to wowotou,” he said, adding that they have “similar nutritional ingredients but different flavors result from different preparation methods.”

However, the concept that two panda bears have been “Westernized” may be due to the cultural biases of the Chinese newspapers reporting the story.

Meihuan and Meilun are like any youngster who has a preference for “American fast food”, as China Daily puts it. And yet, the “biscuits” they prefer aren’t Oreos, but something called “leafeater biscuits”, a type of prepared food that zoos use to feed leaf-eating animals.  It resembles neither American fast food nor Chinese food, because it’s animal food.

It looks something like this:

And while it seems logical enough for Chinese news media to think that the national mascot of China should understand Chinese, it remains that pandas have their own language – something discovered at the same place where Luo works.

After a five year study, Chinese scientists decoded 13 vocalizations used by the giant panda that include “baa-ing” like sheep by male pandas during courtship and bird-like twittering by females to signal their readiness to mate. Panda cubs have a vocabulary that includes “Gee-Gee” (I’m hungry), “Wow-Wow” (Not happy!) or “Coo-Coo” (Nice!).

Since 2006, China has released seven pandas back into the wild after undergoing “survival training” in which the pandas are taught to be less reliant on humans, something that usually doesn’t involve taking orders from a human, like in a circus.

Despite the latest release last month, many pandas raised by the research base are destined to live in zoos where they are a huge tourist attraction. Visitors at a number of Chinese zoos can interact with pandas by posing with them in pictures, or feeding them treats on the end of sticks.

As a lucrative asset, Meilun and Meihuan will probably be worth even more due to their status as Westernized sea turtles. And yet, these pandas are in fact not Chinese by birth, despite being owned by China.

The twins were born on July 15, 2013 at Zoo Atlanta in Georgia, USA. Meihuan and Meilun received their Chinese names through a multiple-choice online poll of various Chinese names. Before last month, they have never been to China.

The twins have the distinction of being the first surviving pandas born in the US. As part of the agreement, any pandas born in captivity belong to China, and must be sent back upon adulthood where they will take part in breeding programs.

With Meihuan and Meilun both destined for motherhood, we can only hope that their cravings for “American fast food” during pregnancy won’t be too pronounced.

The post Pandas Sent Back to China Criticized for Having Lost Touch with their Roots appeared first on The Nanfang.

The survey included 14,000 respondents living abroad in 67 countries. Taiwan ranked first in a host of categories including Friendliness, Quality of Life, Job & Career, Quality of Medical Care, and Medical Finance. Over a third of expats living in Taiwan said they were completely satisfied with their jobs, double the global average of 16 percent.

Taiwan ranked second among the best countries for working abroad. Comparatively, China ranked #21, and Hong Kong came in at #33.

Taiwan also did much better than other countries when it came to “Ease of Settling In”. Many foreigners in China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong complained that it was hard to fit in with locals due to language and cultural barriers. Foreigners in Taiwan rated it 10th for Ease of Settling In, while foreigners in Hong Kong and China rated their new homes much lower in the same category (#48 and #60 out 67, respectively).

Hong Kong, which ranked 10th overall in 2014, slipped to 26th position last year, and fell to a dismal 44th position this year.

The malaise expats have with Hong Kong has a lot to do with money. The city’s ranking in the Personal Finance index dropped from 24 to 42nd position this year.

China ranked 48 out of 67 countries. The majority of expats in China are enjoying their careers, with over two-thirds viewing their professional prospects positively while another two-thirds say their disposable income was “more than enough“. However, foreigners in China say the cost of living is rising faster than salaries, and that working hours are long, coming in at 45 hours per week compared to the 41.4 world average.

Foreigners in China and Hong Kong say they are largely content with issues of personal safety and transportation; but, foreigners in China are concerned about pollution. 84 percent of respondents rated China’s environment was bad or very bad, while none rated it as “good”. Foreigners in China also said that quality healthcare in the country was unaffordable and of poor quality.

Check out the infographics comparing China and Hong Kong below:

The post Taiwan Named Top Destination In The World For Foreigners appeared first on The Nanfang.

The man repeatedly tells the woman that cut in front of him, in flawless Mandarin, “Hello? Hello? Can you please line-up in the queue behind?” The woman pretends not to understand him, and ignorantly says in a Wuhan dialect, “What is this ‘zebra’ talking about? I don’t understand a word you are saying.”

The man responds in the Wuhan dialect, “Don’t cut in line. Do you understand me now?”

The woman tries to gain the upper hand by responding in a Dongbei dialect. “What do you want? When did you see me cut in line?” and used a common Chinese insult meaning “You must be sick.”

Without breaking a sweat, the man answers in the Dongbei dialect, “Go stand in line, otherwise everyone here will criticize you. What do you mean ‘What do you want?’ Your cutting in line should have a rational reason.”

The woman, clearly (and rightly) giving up, said “Are you sick? I’m not eating, not eating!” as she walked away from the line.

We applaud this unnamed man for not only calling out someone for jumping the queue, but also for calling out her ignorant comments with dignity. Good on you, sir!

Watch the video here.

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Thanks to a new app, passengers can pre-order food and drink from Starbucks as well as more traditional items. However, despite the new addition of Starbucks and WiFi, arguably the most important update high-speed trains have received this year, is the ability to book tickets online. Although some Chinese still have great difficulty using the internet to buy train tickets, the new policy has proven to be immensely popular, accounting for 83 percent of all train tickets sold.

However, foreigners are still finding train travel difficult due to a lack of English-language services both online and at railway stations. And of course, there are the bureaucratic hurdles. All foreigners, regardless of their status in China still have to produce their passport or similar travel documents in order to purchase a ticket.

At least there’s Starbucks.

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