At San Diego Zoo, Well-Wishers Bid a Fond Farewell to Hua Mei

San Diego’s No. 1 celebrity has been in the spotlight all year. A surveillance camera broadcasts her on the Internet, 24 hours a day. Her face lines billboards across California. A few feet away from her residence, strangers stand in front of a video camera and wish her a safe trip back to China.

Probably the only one who hasn’t been touched by the hype is the star herself: Hua Mei, the 3-year-old panda born at the San Diego Zoo.

“Their responses to people are like so many other captive wild animals,” Don Lindburg, the zoo’s giant panda team leader, says about pandas. “After a while, they get pretty blase about it. She would be aware if there was something really new, but body movements of people--they see such a variety of them, nothing in particular attracts their attention.”

So maybe as hundreds of visitors pass by her cage every day, Hua Mei has no idea that they’re waving to her. But that hasn’t stopped her fans--both kids and adults--from thinking of her as a friend.

Hua Mei, who was born at the San Diego Zoo in 1999, will be heading back to China sometime after Labor Day, when her contract with the zoo expires. Until then, her handlers are seeing to it that she receives a fond farewell.

At the videotaping booth next to Hua Mei’s cage, well-wishers from all over stop to record their goodbyes. A pair of Londoner sisters chime in unison, “We came all the way from England just to say goodbye to Hua Mei!” Later, a Canadian woman and her 5-year-old son offer their message in French. “The out-of-state ones are good,” says cameraman Adam Klarer. “They say things like, ‘We’d take her over to Mrs. Wilson’s house and take her swimming.’ ”

For an adult, saying goodbye to a panda may be bittersweet, but kids may take it more seriously. According to Karen Anderson, a psychologist at the Center for the Family in Santa Ana, young children see animals less as critters than as peers. “I’m sure it was an adult that came up with the notion that animals don’t have souls and people do,” Anderson says. “Kids see animals as having feelings, as having concerns, as having preferences like us. There’s also something about the shape and fur on a panda--it’s a big, stuffed, cuddly animal. So if you took a child and didn’t give them any info about the panda and said, ‘Would you like to go in the cage with the panda?’, they wouldn’t think about the fact that the panda could be dangerous.”

When children reach about the age of 7, Anderson claims, they can understand that not all species are friendly or humanlike. Before then, however, the family cat may seem no different than another brother or sister, and losing a pet can be especially difficult.

Learning to say goodbye--even to a panda at the zoo--is an integral part of any child’s development. “It’s hard to explain to them,” said Rod Jiu, a San Diego high school counselor who recorded a farewell message with his two small kids. “I told them, maybe there’s a zoo in China that doesn’t have a panda. They’re taking it all right, but they’re sad.”

San Diego Zoo, Park Boulevard, Balboa Park, San Diego. Giant pandas can be viewed daily, 9 a.m.-7:30 p.m. Call hotline for viewing updates: (888) MY PANDA. Zoo open daily, 7:30 a.m.-9 p.m. $19.50; children 3-11, $11.75.