Once a year the Spring Festival is approaching. Every family is busy for the Reunion Dinner. As the poem goes, “the past year ends after the Dinner and the new year is coming next morning”. All family members gather together and have their Reunion Dinner, which carries the best wishes for the incoming year. Our national treasure, the giant pandas, also have their Reunion Dinner. What do they eat? Let’s find out.

Look, what’s this? You all may know that it’s bamboo! But what kind of bamboo? We will see.

Look carefully, the bamboo which the pandas eat grows in mountains and forests at an altitude of above 1,000m. The edible bamboos of the pandas in the Base are picked mainly from Mianyang, Ya'an, and Dujiangyan.

On the morning of the day before New Year’s Eve, the staff came to the mountain early and started the preparation work for panda’s Reunion Dinner–bamboo cutting. The picture above shows the pleioblastus amarus keng, one of the panda's favorite bamboos. There are hundreds of kinds of bamboo, but the pandas only favor some of them, such as arrow bamboo, fargesia robusta, pleioblastus amarus keng, etc.

Staffs were dividing and packing bamboos for transportation. Looking the huge amount of bamboos they get, they were filled with happy smiles. They said they are really happy to prepare food for the pandas and wish pandas a healthy life.

Transporting Bamboos Down the Mountain

After the bamboos were transported to the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding, staffs began to prepare for cleaning the bamboo. Why do such natural bamboos need to be cleaned? That's because the dust in the transportation and the bug eggs on bamboo leaves need to be washed away. Besides, pandas like to eat watery bamboos, for which staffs often spray water on to keep moist.

Bite … bite … bite harder …

Are they making moon cakes? No, it is actually the panda bread, one of the favorite foods of pandas, made of grains. If you are interested, you can come over to the “Panda Kitchen” for a bit of panda bread.

Putting Breads into the Oven

Transporting Panda Breads

When seeing the keeper holding a stick, the panda can’t wait to come over!

Yummy! I’m gonna finish this very quick!

The Spring Festival is definitely the best time to visit pandas since they are gathering to enjoy their delicious food and family reunion. So, pick up your luggage and bring your family and friends here!