Pandas are kind of like the Dutch. They like to hump, just not each other.
by Linda Chacko

If pandas were a 90s scandal, they’d be Vili Fualaau because at a young age they make lady pandas pregnant. If Giant Pandas were one of the Beatles, they’d be George because they’re quiet and gentle and their wives leave them shortly after becoming pregnant. If pandas walked around the dance club with their shirts off, it would most certainly come off as artificial posturing. There are many panda fanatics in the world because, let’s face it, they’re intriguing animals. If pandas were any more interesting, there would surely be social problems in their Chinese homeland.

In my panda research I stumbled across Panda Magic For Kids by Kathy Feeney. According to the book’s protagonist, May, the panda is China’s flagship animal (like America’s bald eagle). May thinks they’re awesome, too. She saw some at the zoo with her granddad. (He used to see them in the wild as a boy, back before he became a full-fledged Chinaman, and he considers himself a bit of an authority on the subject.) May went on to say that “Giant Panda” is a bit of a misnomer because pandas only weigh between 200 and 350 pounds. She had an illustration in her book of a teeter-totter with a large stack of pandas weighted evenly with just one elephant. It was a pretty asinine drawing, to be honest, but I guess it got the point across. It’s hard to believe that pandas would put up with this shit. They’re supposed to be rock-solid loners, steady rocking to a brand new beat. A little funky, cute to the nines and slaying us with that soft-ass fur. But when they start Uncle Tomming around on teeter-totters, it gets a little ridiculous.

Hey, May, if your blessed pandas are so remarkable, why do they walk right past their food sometimes, never even noticing it? Why do they choose to remain in Third World poverty, when there’s clearly demand for them on the world stage? Why do so many of them (nearly 3%) fall out of trees and impale themselves on bamboo? Maybe because they’re retards? There’s an old Chinese proverb about the one-armed panda: It was hanging in a tree and someone waved to it. Ha ha! Fuck you, pandas!

No, wait(!), don’t! May claims that there are maybe only a couple thousand pandas left because her ancestors ground them all up into a fine powder to take with their magical herbs and roots. Her grandpa thought it was why they all did so good on their SATs, until panda dust was illegal and they kept on ruling at Math. Grandpa felt guilty about all the pandas he’d needlessly consumed, and he made his son stay in China to become a biologist and try to save the bears that aren’t bears at all. Koalas? No buddy! Pandas! They’re not even bears either! Nobody really knows what they are. These days, scientists are mostly busy trying to find nerdy ladies on the internet. They haven’t even bothered to figure out what pandas are exactly. They think maybe they’re related to raccoons.

So, it’s our job to help save these adorable, bumbling bastards. They’re essentially extincting themselves. There’s lots of room for them and plenty of bamboo; they’re not hunted; there’s no disease threatening them. They just don’t like to fuck very much, it seems. A panda forest is like a fifth grade classroom—all that beautiful ass just gone to waste! But it’s hard to want to get involved with making pandas horny, when it’s people like May’s family of uppity panda geniuses in charge of the project. May’s uncle knows shitpiles about pandas, of course. That’s his job. But he’s always rubbing it in everyone’s face, and sending his niece long letters, where he goes all ballistic and riffs on pandas. He’s like the fucking Neil Cassidy of biologists—Sure, dude, you’re great to hang out with. I mean, I’m psyched that you’re psyched. Life is awesome; let’s just eat it all up! But that seventy-page manuscript about your wild ride from Beijing to Xinjiang with Ling-Ho, third generation Highland Giant, was a bit much to take.

Judging from May’s family, getting into Pandas is a lot like getting into jazz. You can’t just like them, you have to fucking talk about them all the time and force your friends to listen to their records and discuss their honorable, salt-of-the-earth history. So, for some more easily tolerable insight on why pandas take such a lackadaisical view on producing offspring, I spoke with Lauren Kuester, whose mother has a Bachelor’s degree in Marine Biology:

So, Lauren, why do you think pandas aren’t getting together more often?
Hmm, perhaps it’s because boy pandas and girl pandas look exactly alike. With other species you can tell the difference, you know? But with Pandas…shit I once dated a guy who looked a lot like me and it was just…creepy. Maybe we should tie bows on all the lady pandas. I’ll bet that would work.