Crate training and comfort food are part of preparations for two pandas headed from mainland China to Taiwan in a highly anticipated exchange signifying warming ties between the longtime rivals, state media reported Friday.
In return for the pandas, China will receive two of Taiwan’s unique Formosan serows, which are goatlike mammals.[/quote]
This is a great deal. Serows are ugly and taste terrible. Pandas are cute and hopefully taste great.
Pandas are a guarantee tourist attraction. Can you imagine the plane loads of people coming from the Mainland to see something they don’t have in the PRC. Pandas living in a free Chinese society.
We have so out maneuvered the PRC if this deal goes through.
[quote=“ac_dropout”][quote=“tommy525”]I think the one place the Mainlanders wont go is the TAipei Zoo, home of the panda.
SunMoonLake is the new Capital of Taiwan for Mainland Tourists.
By the way, pandas in Taiwan zoos or mainland zoos, still zoos and still captive DUH . for real.[/quote]
Oh? are you trying to imply people, like panda, cannot distinguish between Taiwan and the mainland.
SunMoonLake is over-rated. I think that’s where I had eaten Serow meat for the first time now that I think about it. Hmmmm…panda by the lake…yummy.[/quote]
Well the Chinese pandas will have to get used to the Taiwanese accented Mandarin thats for sure. Especially since they will be used to the Santong accent . And not a whole lot of people understand what anyone from Santong is saying.
Fear not, panda lovers. Long ago the PRC authorities decided to give the pandas Hoklo lessons, so no doubt by now the hao ke’ai agents of reunification are already set to have their own talk show here.
The pandas are a big waste of tax-payer money. The government has already spent an enormous amount of money building their housing (if someone has the actual number, please post) and will spend some where around NT$5000 a day to feed these animals.
In these times of economic despair (or any other time for that matter), the money could be better used to feed the homeless or children who have no money to pay for lunches at school. NT$5000 per day could by lunch for at least 150 children per day. Wouldnt’ that be a better use of our tax money?
[quote=“ABC-Law”]The pandas are a big waste of tax-payer money. The government has already spent an enormous amount of money building their housing (if someone has the actual number, please post) and will spend some where around NT$5000 a day to feed these animals.
In these times of economic despair (or any other time for that matter), the money could be better used to feed the homeless or children who have no money to pay for lunches at school. NT$5000 per day could by lunch for at least 150 children per day. Wouldnt’ that be a better use of our tax money?[/quote]
The trouble with that argument is that if we followed it nothing fun would ever happen. Do we really need the MRT when the busses are fine? Do we need the HSR? Do we need fireworks at 101 or any other thing.
Sure there are poverty problems here, as with anywhere else but things like this aren’t measured in monetary terms but in terms of PR.
I personally don’t think they should come but thats because of political reasons and not financial.
[quote=“StuartCa”]
The trouble with that argument is that if we followed it nothing fun would ever happen. Do we really need the MRT when the busses are fine? Do we need the HSR? Do we need fireworks at 101 or any other thing.
Sure there are poverty problems here, as with anywhere else but things like this aren’t measured in monetary terms but in terms of PR.
I personally don’t think they should come but thats because of political reasons and not financial.[/quote]
No, because the MRT and HSR serve other positive purposed, both environmentally and economically. I would agree with the fireworks at 101 and hope those would be scaled back this year, but apparently they won’t be.
[quote=“ludahai”][quote=“StuartCa”]
The trouble with that argument is that if we followed it nothing fun would ever happen. Do we really need the MRT when the busses are fine? Do we need the HSR? Do we need fireworks at 101 or any other thing.
Sure there are poverty problems here, as with anywhere else but things like this aren’t measured in monetary terms but in terms of PR.
I personally don’t think they should come but thats because of political reasons and not financial.[/quote]
No, because the MRT and HSR serve other positive purposed, both environmentally and economically. I would agree with the fireworks at 101 and hope those would be scaled back this year, but apparently they won’t be.[/quote]
The pandas can also provide economic benefits. As long as they draw constant crowds (after the initial surge of excitement over them) then they could pay for themselves and then some.
$5000 per day is cheap propaganda. Goebbels would have a hard-on about it. Mao tse Dong is probably turning in his grave at the bargain of it. I mean, we’re talking NT, right? Either way, it’s very economical.
Well, it costs $5000 a day just to keep me in champagne and caviar, but I’ve had to give up truffles. Poor harvest this year, in case you didn’t know.
the only PR winners out of this are the PRC, and economic winners too.
Look we’re saving the pandas (never mind the fact that wild pandas are dying out due to habitat loss and fragmentation, and the fact that the captive breeding program is scientifically and conservationally a total farce, but it DOES make valuable PR dollars for the politicos in the PRC).
I think it’s $50 or $60 for an adult to go to the zoo, so there only needs to be an extra 80-100 people a day to cover the feeding costs. At least initially, there will be thousands of people a day going - the zoo will make all its money back and then some.
I wonder if that accounts for those like myself who will NOT go to the zoo anymore with our children - at least now while there are massive crowds there.
I like the zoo as it is. It is family friendly and I have never found it to be overly crowded in the times I have brought my children there. Who needs the Trojan Pandas?
Crate training and comfort food are part of preparations for two pandas headed from mainland China to Taiwan in a highly anticipated exchange signifying warming ties between the longtime rivals, state media reported Friday.
In return for the pandas, China will receive two of Taiwan’s unique Formosan serows, which are goatlike mammals.[/quote]
This is a great deal. [color=#FF0000]Serows are ugly and taste terrible[/color]. Pandas are cute and hopefully taste great.
Pandas are a guarantee tourist attraction. Can you imagine the plane loads of people coming from the Mainland to see something they don’t have in the PRC. Pandas living in a free Chinese society.
We have so out maneuvered the PRC if this deal goes through.[/quote]
Could we somehow wrangle it that we can send them 阿扁 instead of the Serows?