Chengdu has dozens of new millionaires, Asia's biggest building, and fancy new hotels. But for tourists like me, pandas are its top (attract).
So it was a great honour to be invited backstage at the not-for-profit Panda Base, where ticket money helps pay for research. I (allow) to get up close to these cute animals at the 600-acre centre. From tomorrow, I will be their UK ambassador. The title will be (official) given to me at a ceremony in London. But my connection with pandas goes back my days on a TV show in the mid-1980s, I was the first Western TV reporter (permit) to film a special unit caring for pandas rescued from starvation in the wild. My ambassadorial duties will include (introduce) British visitors to the 120-plus pandas at Chengdu and others at a research centre in the misty mountains of Bifengxia.
On my recent visit, I held a lively three-month-old twin that had been rejected by (it) mother. The nursery team switches him every few (day) with his sister so that while one is being bottle-fed, other is with mum—she never suspects.
