Japan's Panda capital loses her pandas-what happens now?

Japan's Panda capital loses her pandas-what happens now?

Shirahama, Japan - people came in black and white, wore fluffy hats and held banners and soft toys in their hands. With tears in their eyes and sobs in the throats, they patiently waited for one last glance in a snake under the brooding sun before everything was over.

pandas as stars in Shirahama

pandas have become great celebrities in the Japanese city of Shirahama. Over three decades, her presence in the local Adventure World Zoo attracted hundreds of thousands of visitors, whose love for the sweet creatures has given them cult status and put the city on the map.

Farewell to the pandas

But now the four pandas from Shirahama - Rauhin, 24 years old, and her daughters Yuihin (8), Saihin (6) and Fuhin (4) - leave the city. Although they were born there, they ultimately belong to China. China started lending Pandas to Shirahama in 1994, but decided this year not to extend the agreement and recall it to her home country. It is not planned to put new pandas in your place.

in Japan's Panda capital, where you can see a future without the bears, people are in mourning. "Being here wakes up so many memories," cried Shiori Sakurai, one of many Panda fans who appeared on June 27 for the farewell ceremony. "And I realized that I really don't want you to go. Let's see us again, okay? I will love you every day."

emotional farewells

"It's just sad," said Mihoko Ninomiya, while for the last time she was in Adventure World with her daughter and granddaughter-"Three Generations of Panda Fans". "We have been here since my daughter was a little girl," she said. "We will miss them terribly."

The economic effects

The separation from the bears will be hard for Shirahama, a holiday destination on the south coast of Japan, which is only 90 miles south of Osaka. Everywhere in the city you will encounter memories of their fluffy black and white faces, from trains and buses to Restaurants and souvenir shops.

known as the "Panda City", Shirahama has long received people who are looking for panda-related vacations, whereby the highlights are to watch their favorite bears in their enclosures when hugging trees, eating bamboo and tapping.

The bears - also called "Panda" in Japan - have been an economic lifeline for the city's approximately 20,000 inhabitants for decades. With the departure of the last four pandas, the city is in an uncertain location.

Katsuhiro Miyamoto, an emeritus economist at the Kansai University, estimates that the city has generated around 125.6 billion yen ($ 870 million) from the panda economy in the past three decades. "The pandas are the biggest attraction for tourism, and without them the number of tourists will decrease," he says to CNN. Without the animals, the city could lose up to 6 billion yen ($ 41 million) annually, which corresponds to 40 % of Shirahama's annual budget.

The endangered tourism industry

"There will be a decline of 200,000 tourists per year," he estimates, and this decline will cost jobs and the emigration, so that younger generations will be forced to move to other cities to find better job opportunities.

A tour of the city shows how much the tourism industry depends on these bears borrowed from China. Hotels offer panda theme rooms, sales machines are covered with manga versions of the bears, and restaurants serve bowls ramen and desserts with panda-inspired accents.

a legacy of the pandas

Satsuki Kitai operates a souvenir shop near the Shirahama train station, where she sells plush pandas and panda topics snacks. She says that the family business, which has existed for almost 80 years, achieves 40 % of its sales by selling panda souvenirs. "If something had a panda, it was easy for customers to lift it," she says Cnn.

"We have not yet decided whether we gradually take these products out of the range or keep them as a 'panda reminder'," she adds. Other business owners in the city are also faced with the same decision.

The path of panda diplomacy

It's not just about finding another source to replace the bears. China gives Pandas on states, including the United States, as an ambassador for good will and to strengthen trade relationships. In Shirahama this " panda-diplomatism " now.

Typically, pandas are awarded for 10 years, while kangaroos born abroad are brought back to China before they are four years old. Beijing's decision to offer or extend existing panda agreements is based on various factors-a decision that, according to experts, can be linked to deteriorating diplomatic relationships.

Although it is unclear why China rejected the extension of the contract with Shirahama, Masaki Ienaga, an extraordinary professor of international relationships at Tokyo Woman's University, believes that political reasons could play a role. Last year, Shirahama chose Yasuhiro Oe, a politician with a Pro-Taiwan posture.

that could have annoyed China, says Ienaga. Relationships between Taiwan have long been a sensitive topic, since the prevailing Communist Party of China considers the self -governing democracy Taiwan as its own. "China thinks that it cannot ignore the Taiwan question," says Ienaga.

future without pandas

oe told CNN that he was aware of the possibility, but rejected it. "I am the head of a small town with 20,000 people," he explains, "and only because I have relationships with Taiwan will China ask for all four pandas to be brought back?"

In his answer to inquiries from CNN, the Chinese Foreign Ministry confirmed that Taiwan was "an inner matter of China". "Some Japanese politicians should keep the teachings of history in mind and be careful with their words and deeds for the Taiwan question," it said.

The spokesman's office added that China and Japan maintained the exchange in the field of panda protection. But even if Beijing should decide to send more pandas to Japan, it is unlikely that you will return to Shirahama if the current decision is shaped by politics.

oe has some solutions for the upcoming tourism crisis in mind, one of them is to attract more travelers from Taiwan. "What is easy to understand is that I ask for help from the people in Taiwan to whom I have a relationship," he says.

The after-effects of the Panda departure

Despite the departure of the bears, the Japanese railway company JR West has explained that it will maintain a panda-inspired service that connects the city with Kyoto and Osaka. But like the souvenir shop owner Kitai, who fights with the remaining traces of the pandas, is also unsure about the future.

At the entrance to the seat of the government is a sign: "Shirahama, the city of the Pandas." "We are also not sure what to do with this sign," he says.

Japan still has two pandas in the Ueno Zoo in Tokyo, whose contract expires next year. Many visitors to the farewell ceremony in the Adventure World had the feeling of a personal relationship with the pandas in Shirahama.

The director of the zoo, Tatsuko Nakao, who has looked after the pandas since her first day, remembered her first encounters with the bears while leafing through an album with old photographs. "I never thought that she would become such a great mother," she said when she looked at a picture of Rauhin. She believes that it is the best thing that can retire with her daughters in China, where she is better supplied with bamboo.

Eimei, the father-panda, was "my teacher," she said. Before the time of the Internet, as information about the species, Nakao spent a lot of time to watch him. He was brought back to China in 2023 and died there at the beginning of the year at the age of 32.

among those who also say goodbye was Tomomi Miyaji, who said that she had to struggle with the idea of motherhood until she saw a documentary about the Pandamutterschaft from Rauhin. "I felt encouraged that I could do it too," she said to Cnn.

to honor Rauhin, Miyaji even let Yuihin, one of the descendants of Rauhin, inspire her when she gave her own daughter a name. "I could cry. Only the thought that this place will be empty from tomorrow brings tears to my eyes."