【永嘉县】The Odyssey of China’s Wandering Elephants Charmed the World

蒋杭波 2021-07-29 17:32:38

These days, China’s wandering elephants are attracting global attention. A herd of 15 Asian elephants wandering over 300 miles from their home in Xishuangbanna National Nature Reserve, near China’s border with Laos. Authorities marshalled extraordinary resources to monitor the herd and keep it away from residential areas. The Yunnan forest fire brigade said that a team of eight people were tracking the elephants, 24 hours a day, both on the ground and by drone from the air. Then, a lot of images and videos of the wandering elephants shot by drones were uploaded to the Internet. Even Twitter and YouTube are full of clips of their various antics, particularly the video of the wandering elephants sleeping soundly in the woods.In the video, one elephant can be seen stepping on the back of another, and the baby elephant stretches out to step on the trunk and face of a nearby elephant. On the way north, a baby elephant passed out after ingesting 200 kilograms of distiller's grains. A Yunnan singer-songwriter wrote a song for the drunken baby elephant. People all over the world are talking about these clumsy animals.“We should be more like the elephant and be more family oriented, take family vacations and help and care for and protect each other,”read one comment on YouTube whose ID is Mr Deterministicchaos.

The odyssey of China's wild elephants have attracted the attention of major Western media outlets such as CNN, BBC, the Associated Press, The Times, the Washington Post and the New York Times. The Washington Post reported that "after 20 years of conservation, the wild elephant population in Xishuangbanna and two neighboring areas has nearly doubled to about 300." The BBC even quoted Chinese netizens as joking: "They were on their way to Kunming to attend COP15, the 15th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity, but the elephants misremembered the date and arrived early." Over the past week, a team of journalists from TV Asahi, Fuji TV and TBS and other Japanese media have rushed to Yunnan to report "the Yunnan Elephant Herd heads northwards", which has caught great attention. A team of 360 people, 76 vehicles and nine drones to track the elephants has also shocked Japanese Internet users. The Japanese media's footage inadvertently showed a real China that many Japanese people are not familiar with. The police who protected residents from dangerous areas were polite and friendly, and the young people interviewed were generous and confident. China's achievements in ecological and environmental protection, the friendly attitude of the Chinese are all presented to the world. These, in fact, are part of the real and comprehensive China.

The Chinese government's propaganda about the migration of elephants in Yunnan has been dubbed "Elephant Diplomacy" by the Western media, in contrast to the so-called "Wolf Warrior Diplomacy". In contrast to the hard-line "Wolf Warrior Diplomacy", "Elephant Diplomacy" shows a softer, more inclusive side of the Chinese government. Although the mystery of the elephants' northward migration remains to be solved scientifically, it seems that their experiences have made them unwittingly itinerant ambassadors for China's cute image. Their stories provide a special opportunity to deepen the outside world's understanding of China, and touch and warm people's hearts. To some extent, this is a reminder: we should cherish and protect China's national image as well as we treat the elephants. In order to build a credible, lovely and respectable image of China, we also need more words that are warm, rational and resonant with the world.