A ceremony was held on Monday at Tokyo's Ueno Zoological Gardens to mark the upcoming public debut¹ of giant panda cub² Xiang Xiang.

 

本周一，东京上野动物园为大熊猫幼仔香香首次向公众开放举行了一项庆祝仪式。
 

 

Some 130 special guests, a group of local school children as well as some selected media were invited to watch the panda cub through a glass shield after the ceremony.

 

"Xiang Xiang's birth coincided with the 45th anniversary of the normalization³ of the diplomatic relationship between China and Japan. I hope she will grow in good health and become an envoy⁴ of peace and friendship," Wang Wan⁵, wife of Chinese Ambassador to Japan Cheng Yonghua, said at the ceremony.

 

"I also hope that children in areas affected⁶ by the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake will have the opportunity to meet Xiang Xiang," she said, adding that she hopes the female panda cub will bring joy to those children.

 

She also presented a gift of a panda figurine made by a Chinese artist to Yutaka Fukuda, head of the Ueno Zoological Gardens.

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