【瑞安市】Is the Popularity of Asian Elephants just A Coincidence?

蔡莹莹 2021-07-29 17:38:57

Since early June, Asian elephants’ migration from Yunnan to north area has become a true phenomenon on the social media both at home and abroad. Netizens all over the world have been paying continuous attention to them. The popularity of Asian elephants is really out of many people’s expectation. But digging deeper into it, is the prevalence truly a coincidence? The answer is ‘NO’.

Firstly, the success of their migration can’t do without the well-considered protection measures elaborately taken by the government of Yunnan Province. The Asian elephants, as one of the endangered animals, enjoy Class-A protection in China, same as that of the giant panda as the government has acted in every single possible aspect to preserve them, including expanding habitats, launching alert system, recruiting expertise and so on. Due to it, the number of Asian elephants in Yuan has doubled to 300 in the past three decades. This is the first step in the series of the hot news. Secondly, the Asian elephants, as a kind of symbol, cater to people’s various mentality. For one thing, the charmingly naive image of the elephants rouses people’s emotional resonance especially when they are personified by the media. For instance, the turning point of the news is a photo depicting the herd of elephants sleeping together, with adult elephants circling around the calf for protection, jus like what the human mother will do for their babies. For another, the topic of the news is closely related to the theme of biodiversity which has been deeply rooted in westerners, leading to the current heated discussion of handling the conflicts between wildlife and human beings. Under such situation, these Asian elephants work as a perfect solution example, drawing a blueprint of the peaceful living of man and animals. Lastly, the story of Asian elephants is also one of the Chinese stories, which Chinese media have been seeking and trying to narrate to the whole world for a long time. Currently, the international community’s impression on China still remains largely on economics and technology, comparatively less on the Chinese culture in depth. Therefore, cultural connotative stories of China are badly needed for conveying the new Chinese values and ideas to the international community. This time, the Asian elephants is a vivid example, in which China has made its voice of attaching importance to wildlife conservation worldwide heard. Chinese government is always shouldering its responsibility of realizing the harmony of man and animals.

In short, it’s the unremitting efforts from various aspects that contribute to the success of the Asian elephants’ famous migration where the values of wildlife conservation and harmonious co-existence between man and nature have been profoundly internalized in people’s heart. China, in this case, has shown the whole world its duty and remarkable advancement in the aspect. What’s more, China, as the biggest developing country, will undertake its responsibility and draw its own image with more Chinese stories told to the entire world in the near future.