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Thursday, February 1, 2007
What’s in a name? Funny you should ask
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
You could say that Mei Lan, Zoo Atlanta’s baby panda cub, is one in a million. You’d be wrong, too.
Technically, the tiny growler growing under her mama’s protective gaze is two in a million. Another panda, a bruiser from Chicago, had the name Mei Lan first.
“I felt like the girl who comes to the party and sees another girl there wearing the same dress” when he discovered the cub had a used name, said Dennis Kelly, Zoo Atlanta’s president and executive director.
In 1938, a young panda with big ears, a short fuse and sharp teeth debuted at Brookfield Zoo in Chicago’s suburbs. His name — it was a he, though zoo officials thought otherwise — was Mei Lan. Translated loosely, the name meant “lovely flower.” (Zoo Atlanta officials say their Mei Lan’s name means something else. More on that in a bit.)
History shows that never has a panda been so poorly named. The first Mei Lan was more livid than lovely, more Venus Flytrap than flower.
“He was always snapping at people,” said former Brookfield Zoo employee Ralph Small.
Small, 85, would know. In 1946, Small, while working as a relief keeper at the panda exhibit, looked away from Mei Lan at just the wrong time. The panda shoved a sneaky snout through his barred cage and bit off Small’s right hand. “He left scars all up my arm, too,” said Small.
Was he left-handed when Mei Lan bit him? “Well,” said Small, “I am now.”
Some folks would have damned pandas for all time, but not Small. He stayed at the zoo, retiring in 1983 to Arizona. Mei Lan remained at Brookfield until he died in 1953. To the end, the bear with the pretty name remained as mean as a Chicago winter. When he died, his name passed into history — but not forever.
In December, Zoo Atlanta unveiled the name of its baby giant panda in a ceremony marking the 100th day of the cub’s Sept. 6 birth. Online voters from around the world had chosen one name from among 10 candidates — Mei Lan.
The name, Kelly said amid cheers and music, meant “Atlanta Beauty.”
How can one name have two translations? Yinping Yu, the zoo’s conservation biologist and a native of China, traces the discrepancy to the passage of time. As more Westerners have visited China, and vice-versa, words that meant one thing have come to signify new meanings, he said.
Translated: “Lan” has become synonymous with Atlanta. “Mei” still means “beauty.”
OK, but what about that name? That other panda just about wore it out, didn’t he?
Kelly, who learned about the first Mei Lan not long after the naming ceremony, says no. The moniker, like the cub, has plenty of life in it, he said.
“She is gorgeous,” Kelly said. “She is, in my heart, and in the rest of Atlanta’s, what her name implies — an Atlanta beauty.”
Small, whose prosthesis is a daily reminder of his close encounter with Mei Lan I, agreed — to a point.
“They’re cute,” he said. “But they can be dangerous, too.”
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Mei Lan, another winter storm
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Take one little tornado. Give it some toys and a warm place to snooze. Wrap it in black-and-white.
What have you got?
Mei Lan the panda cub, a whirlwind of activity as she strolls, rolls and gambols toward the 5-month mark. Zoo Atlanta’s baby giant panda is docile no longer, her doctor said Thursday.
“She was, uh, roly-poly,” said Dr. Maria Crane, the zoo’s chief veterinarian, who gives the cub weekly checkups. “She is much more active now.”
Crane, like most scientific types, does not like to exaggerate. If she did, Crane would probably compare Mei Lan, born Sept. 6 to Lun Lun, to a furry billiard ball — round and fast, bouncing off just about everything.
Not only is she fast, she’s growing. According to the zoo, Mei Lan now weighs 18.9 pounds. Last week, she made the scales groan at 18.2.
Length? Crane tried stretching a measuring tape from Mei Lan’s nose to tail, but it was like trying to measure an excited Labrador retriever. Crane reverted, instead, to the method grandma used. She eyedballed the kid, then declared: “She’s growing.”
How much? “She’s about the same length as last week.” That’s 34 inches, more or less.
While she may not be certain how long her young charge is, Crane knows Mei Lan is thriving. She gnaws on her toys. She rolls on her back. Her shadow bounces like a ball when the winter sun shines.
And, no matter the weather, she is a tempest, wrapped in black and white.
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