Beijing’s Summer Palace

Posted on December 11, 2017 by Francis

I had imagined Peking, or Beijing as it is now called, to be a city enveloped by smog and high-rise buildings. I’m sure that these phenomena do afflict the Chinese capital but throughout our visit the weather was beautifully blue and clear and I found a city much more laid back than I ever imagined.

We arrived via our high speed rail link from Xi’an. China now has the world’s longest high speed rail mileage: over 14,000 miles compared to the UK’s less than 500 miles. OK, China’s a bit bigger than the UK but that’s still no excuse for the country which invented the iron horse. George Stephenson would not be pleased.

The empress dowager Cixi continues to be a controversial figure with her mixed support for both traditional values and reforms. Some even accuse her of having put an end, through her ambiguous policies, to the Chinese empire. Certainly, Cixi was the only dowager empress to wield power ruling ‘behind the curtains’ (in mandarin ‘chui lian ting zheng.’)

There are, of course, many other world historical examples of women wielding the real power behind supposed male rulers. (Sisi, Lucrezia Borgia and the Queen Mum come to mind). Cixi, however, remains a supreme example, not least because she was behind the restoration and expansion of the summer palace which is on the outskirts of Beijing and because her death in 1908 left a China in chaos and ready for revolution.

Unlike western palaces, which tend to consist of one main block, Chinese palaces are made up of a variety of pavilions and courtyards. They are, in effect, miniature royal cities.

The origins of the summer palace date back to the Jin dynasty of the twelfth century. The palace gardens were greatly expanded in the 18th century when an entire artificial lake, Kunming, was excavated with its spoil used to create longevity hill crowned by a pagoda.

We walked down a gallery half a mile long and decorated with some beautiful naturalistic scenes.

At the end was a remarkable marble vessel used for entertainments by the empress.

The whole area was delightful and we could have spent much more time exploring the palace’s various pavilions and pagodas.

Only afterwards did I find out that what I had visited was the new summer palace. There had, in fact, been an old summer palace of even greater beauty with matchless artistic treasures. It had been destroyed, together with many court servants, by a punitive English force led by Lord Elgin in retaliation for the murder of two British envoys to the Chinese court. The ruins of the old palace remain a thorn in the side of many Chinese to this day and are certainly a part of British imperial history many of us would wish to forget. The opium wars behind these events are, indeed, a very sorry episode.

A pleasure garden

Spreads its perfumes around me

While an empire falls.

Dulwich College at Southwark Cathedral

Posted on December 10, 2017 by Francis

This year has been, for me, a feast of listening to fine choral singing. And all from educational establishments I attended!

In October I was present at both appearances of King’s college choir in Rome. They sang at a concert in Santa Maria Maggiore and at high Mass in St Peter’s basilica. Needless to say this mythical choir, combined with the location’s magnificent architecture, transported me to a heaven-like universe. (Both occasions may be searched for in posts on my blog).

Another ecstatic universe of quite a different sort was present when I heard the same choir at Evensong in their regal perpendicular gothic chapel at Cambridge.

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Last night I heard my old school choir sing at a carol service in Southwark cathedral, London’s oldest gothic building.

The cathedral continues to inspire, as Renzo Piano’s Shard nearby cunningly attests.

The evening opened with fine organ playing and then followed that magic instance when a lone treble voice starts singing ‘once in royal David’s city’s.

The carols had brilliant splashes of brass and drums but there were also beautiful quiet moments like my favourite Harold Darke setting of Cristina Rossetti’s poem ‘In the bleak mid-winter.’ Here is a sample of that carol sung by the King’s choir:

I also loved the section the choir sang of Rachmaninov’s vespers.

The Dean gave both a witty and profound address. After all, it was this same year that islamic terrorists tried to change Londoner’s lives but were shot dead just outside the cathedral walls.

Edward Alleyn, actor and friend of Shakespeare who had his theatre near the cathedral, founded the ‘College of God’s Gift’ in 1619.

I realise how lucky I was to have attended both Dulwich and King’s college as pupil and student. In both cases it was due to scholarships and grants as my family wasn’t exactly rich.

Listening to and singing along in last night’s Carol concert was for me a celebration, not just of the festive season, but also of fine singing and a recollection of how lucky I was to have been brought up at a time where governments and local authorities actually encouraged young people to further their education through merit rather than through money.

Choirs alight with sound

echoing in vaulted naves:

heaven’s doors open.

Secret Gardens in London

Posted on December 9, 2017 by Francis

Dickens was a passionate walker, both of the Kent countryside but especially of the streets of London, the setting for so much of his writing.

From my present weekday venue in the radiology department of University College London Hospital I have followed the great writer’s example and done some of my own explorations.

Although born and bred in the ‘great wen’ I always discover some little-known, yet fascinating, corners.
Yesterday, for example, I stumbled across St George’s gardens which are located between St Pancras station and Brunswick square and can be reached via the appropriately named Handel street (Handel was a generous benefactor of the square’s Foundling Hospital).

The gardens are an amalgam of two eighteenth century burial grounds belonging to the two St George’s churches in the area: St George’s, Bloomsbury and St George’s, Queen square. Both churches had filled their own grounds to the full with inhumations and these gardens are the first example of a burial ground separated from any church. Indeed, they could be said to be London’s first cemetery.

Opened in 1715 the gardens were closed to further burial in 1854 and were opened to the public as an open space in the 1880’s.
By the 1990’s they had become very run-down and were the den of drug dealers and illicit sexual encounters. A local group was, therefore, set up to recuperate the gardens and, with the help of volunteers and grants, this little gem of greenery has returned to be an oasis of peace set in the midst of its bustling surroundings.

There are some fine trees and delightful garden ‘snugs’ here.

Even in winter the atmosphere is very appealing. Along the wall, built originally to dissuade body-snatchers from supplying nearby medical schools with corpses for anatomy lessons, are placed many, now largely indecipherable, tombstones. (Ps body-snatchers, or ‘resurrectionists’ are now no longer around, I hope).

Still in their original place in the gardens are chest tombs and an impressive obelisk to a certain Thomas Faulkner.

However, what really took my fancy was a lovely terracotta statue to the lyric muse Euterpe, originally from a nearby theatre.

These pretty gardens are an excellent example of the secrets London can reveal to those who will dedicate some hours walking its ever-fascinating streets. They are also a fine example of how the local community (which holds a festival here around St George’s day) can get together and reclaim a neglected space for public enjoyment. Bagni di Lucca take this as an example and do more to reclaim your own lovely gardens around two of your grand but uninhabited villas!

Natale Dickensiano a Londra

Posted on December 8, 2017 by Francis

La casa dello scrittore Charles Dickens che si trova a Doughty Street, Londra, è l’unica rimasta in quella città dove abitò. (Si possono visitare altre sue dimore a Rochester, Broadstairs, Gads hill e Portsmouth). È una tipica casa modesta a schiera dell’era georgiana ma fu qui che scrisse ‘Oliver Twist’, ‘Pickwick papers’ e ‘Nicholas Nickleby’.

È in questa casa che Dickens, da poco sposato, ebbe tra le sue più grandi gioie e le sue più grandi tristezze. Ebbe i suoi primi successi letterari ma subì il dolore della morte di Mary, sorella della moglie Catherine, e che abitava con loro, di mal di cuore all’età di soli diciassette anni.

Oltre ad essere la casa di uno dei più grandi romanzieri che il mondo abbia mai conosciuto è un caratteristico esempio di una dimora inglese del diciannovesimo secolo con sotterrato, dove si trova cucina e lavanderia, piano terra con stanze di soggiorno e di pranzo, e due piani con studio e stanze da letto.

Era veramente un grande piacere visitare la casa l’altro giorno. Addobbata in maniera ottocentesca per il Natale e esponendo i costumi usati nel film recente ‘l’uomo che inventò il Natale ‘, fu per noi un’altra benvenuta tappa verso i sentimenti natalizi così ben esposti nel esemplare racconto dello scrittore ‘cantico di Natale’ (nella sceneggiatura della quale feci parte un’ anno fa al teatro di Bagni di Lucca).

Si, era proprio Dickens che sottolineò il fatto che il Natale non è solo una stagione di festeggiamento nel cupo inverno ma anche una ragione per mostrare generosita a tutti meno fortunati di noi. Se proprio non inventò il Natale Dickens inventò lo spirito di Natale.

Of Wild Geese and High Speed Trains

Posted on December 7, 2017 by Francis

As a former imperial capital there is much to discover in Xi’an. We visited the old town where we found an elegant house which once belonged to a high official of the court, Gao Yuesong. The house compound, complete with ducks, gave us a marvellous insight into upper class life in dynastic China.

Our evening concluded with a spectacular show where dancing, pageant and acrobatics were mixed in a sensational potpourri.

Next day we returned to the classroom where we had a try at chinese pictograms. Needless to say some pupils tried harder than others but the teacher was truly excellent and got order back to a potentially unruly set of students!

The little wild goose pagoda was one of the oldest buildings we visited in China and dates back to the golden age of the Tang dynasty of the eighth century AD. 141 feet high the pagoda has exquisite brickwork and is so-called perhaps because of the wandering monk Xuanzang who travelled along the silk road collecting buddhist texts before returning to Xi’an – just like a migrating goose, in fact. The gardens and the orchestra contributed to the truly delightful ambience of this lovely temple.

We could have spent so much more time in Xi’an but it was now the hour for our next and final stage of our adventures: a journey on the high-speed train to Beijing….

Xi’an’s City Walls

Posted on December 6, 2017 by Francis

Besides its terracotta army Xi’an is also famous for its walls. In ancient times a wall, known as ‘chengqiang’, defined a Chinese city: no wall, no right to be called a city!

Regrettably, many of these walls were knocked down in more recent times. Beijing’s walls, for example, were demolished in the 1950’s. (Incidentally, Italy, which had the highest number of walled towns in Europe, suffered similar vandalism in the nineteenth century when the walls of such cities as Milan and Florence were knocked down to make way for Paris-style boulevards.)

There are still, however, some fine Chinese walled cities remaining today. For example, at Kaifeng, Pingyaio, Shanxi, Dali, Jingzhou, Xingcheng and Xi’an.

We visited Xi’an’s walls on our second day there and found them truly impressive. They are, like other Chinese city walls, built as a quadrilateral and extend, 40 feet wide and high, for almost 9 miles enclosing an area of about 14 square miles. The walls have all the features of feudal fortifications including gates, ramparts, barbicans, archery and watch towers, drawbridge and even a moat surrounding the whole complex.

Living near a walled town in Italy (Lucca), I was interested in a comparison. Lucca’s town walls are two miles long and are not as high or as wide as Xi’an’s. They also do not have machicolations as they were built when firepower had already been invented and their moat has been long since drained.

What the much smaller Lucca walls have, however, is rather greater charm: they support a beautiful avenue of trees and the majority of buildings within their perimeter are old and very picturesque. The city gates, too, are highly attractive. Xi’an’s walls, on the other hand, enclose a largely modern-looking city with ubiquitous high rise buildings and contrast heavily with their surroundings.

What the Xi’an city walls do have, however, is a length almost five times greater than that of Lucca (they used to be even longer in the Tang dynasty) and a more imposing and impenetrable appearance. They also have much better explanations of their features than Lucca’s walls.

We didn’t have the four hours it takes to do a leisurely stroll around Xi’an’s walls but we managed to get a good feel for them in our short time on them:

In the evening Xi’an’s city walls and their features are illuminated with multicoloured lights.

I wonder if Lucca’s walls should follow the same act? I somehow doubt it….

However, don’t forget: at one time Xi’an was at the start of the silk route and Lucca was at the end of the same route. A twinning of two walled cities perhaps?

L’Avvento del ‘Messiah’

Posted on December 5, 2017 by Francis

Ogni paese naturalmente celebra il Natale nella propria maniera, con le sue tradizioni e anche le sue condizioni meteorologiche. Nell’Italia ho goduto la neve invece della pioggia ghiacciata di Londra invernale, il panettone invece dei mince pies, i tortellini in brodo, e l’assenza del tacchino, carne povera in Italia ma piatto tradizionale per il pranzo natalizio in Inghilterra (anche se l’oca, come gustata nel ‘Cantico di Natale’ di Dickens, oppure il fagiano, sono anche molto apprezzati.)

L’Italia da tempo ha adottato l’albero di Natale, in suo turno importato dalla Sassonia dal consorte della regina Vittoria, e l’Inghilterra ha abbracciato il presepe italiano relativamente poco tempo fa.

Manca però, in Italia, un repertorio sufficientemente grande di Christmas carols o canzoni di Natale e questa assenza è, secondo, me, una cosa grave. Dopo il ‘tu scendi’ e qualcos’altro siamo fermi. Non è, poi, soltanto la musica ma la maniera nella quale viene cantata da molti cori in Italia che mi delude.

(Christmas Carols cantate ieri all’ospedale UCLH)

Ogni anno, nella stagione natalizia in Inghilterra, viene cantato quel eccelso capolavoro del oratorio barocco, il ‘Messiah’. La musica di questa composizione di Handel scorre nelle vene di ogni inglese che lo canta dal concerto di scuola fino alla vecchiaia.
Gli italiani conosceranno certamente il coro ‘Halleluia’, che viene massacrato annualmente da loro. Ascoltare, però, l’intero ‘Messiah’ cantato da un bravo coro inglese è come entrare nel Paradiso dal Purgatorio (se non l’Inferno….).

L’altra sera ho sentito il capolavoro Handeliano nella chiesa di Saint Alfege a Greenwich, Londra.

Questo era il programma: (notare la Madonna del Parto, di Piero della Francesca sulla copertina…)

Non mi è arrivato un regalo più bello prima di Natale!

L’esecuzione in ogni reparto era squisita. Dalla sinfonia iniziale attraverso l’annuncio del Salvatore, la Natività, percorrendo la sua Passione fino alla sconfitta della morte e l’ultimo grandioso Amen l’attenzione rimase incantata. Non potevo credere che non avevo sentito ‘Messiah’ dal vivo da più di quindici anni e sopravvissuto!

Coro dopo coro sublime, dei solisti di primo grado e un’interpretazione avvolta in grazia, serietà, sentimento, gioia e virtuosismo. Perfino gli ascoltatori si sono tradizionalmente alzati in piedi per il coro dell’ alleluia (come fece il Re Giorgio II quando lo sentì per la prima volta nel 1742 e rimase stupefatto).

L’ acustica nella magnifica chiesa, ricostruita nel 1714 da Nicholas Hawksmoor, architetto barocco con un linguaggio molto individuale, andava d’accordissimo con la musica.)

Ricordiamoci anche che Saint Alfege è la Chiesa dove fu organista e compositore Thomas Tallis (m. 1585) il padre della musica religiosa inglese. Qui è sepolto e qui esiste ancora la tastiera del suo organo.

Infine, se conoscete il vostro Dickens, è qui che, nel romanzo ‘l’amico comune’, Bella Wilfer sposò John Rokesmith.

Insomma, è stata una serata d’incanto con musica interpretata supremamente, degna, non solo del suo compositore, che confessò di vedere i cieli aprire di gloria davanti a lui quando scrisse il famoso ‘Halleluia’, ma anche dell’inizio dell’Avvento nell’anno liturgico.

The Terracotta Army Marches On

Posted on December 4, 2017 by Francis

As a kid I looked forwards to extracting plastic, free-gift Arthurian knight figures from our packets of breakfast cereals.

Later I was able to collect a few toy soldiers with reinforcements which included a centurion tank and transporter, a military ambulance, jeep, troops vehicle and howitzer.

These toys have long since vanished from my possession which is a little sad as they would certainly have considerable collectors’s value now.

The only soldier I actually managed to put together myself was the Black Prince, (modelled on his funerary statue in Canterbury cathedral), from an Airfix kit. I remember spending hours painting the heraldic symbols on this statuette. I wonder where that has gone to?

These thoughts came back to me as I gazed upon the the world’s largest model army, the terracotta soldiers and officials of China’s first emperor, Qin Shi Huang, dating back to the second century BC and only discovered by chance by a farmer, Yang Zhifa, in 1974.

It doesn’t matter how many pictures you’ve seen of this amazing archaeological discovery, certainly equal to that of king Tut. It doesn’t even matter if you return again and again (new discoveries are always happening): the terracotta army is one of the world’s most spectacular ancient sights. You feel as if the hundreds of individually crafted warriors around might, at any moment, take life and march once more after having stood to attention for over two millennia.

Of an estimated eight thousand figures around two thousand have been uncovered. Some are whole, others are in fragments, like that Airfix kit, waiting to be puzzled together. All were painted but, sadly, exposure to the climate has faded or completely discolored so many of them.

All army grades are represented: from privates to archers to battalion leaders and generals. In all cases the details are stunning, reaching even down to the threaded soles of their footwear.

In addition to the men (no women have as yet been found) there are horses and there were also wooden chariots but these have rotted away, separating riders from their steed.

In a separate building, however, two magnificent bronze chariots are on display and they are simply superb!

The most astonishing fact, however, is that what we see is just the tip of the iceberg. The huge hangar that protects the emperor’s army is merely an advance guard to Qin Shi Huang’s own mausoleum which has yet to be excavated! Archaeology is, in essence a destructive science and the Chinese have, rightly decided, to leave well alone for conservation purposes or, at least, until new techniques can uncover monuments without damage or decay.

What was China’s first emperor like? Accounts differ but one thing is sure: he was one of the powerful and ruthless persons who ever existed. Qin unified China, joined regional defences together to form the great wall, executed scolars he didn’t like and had their books burnt, built a national road network, excavated the Lingqu canal, had the workers who built his mausoleum buried alive so they could tell no secrets, survived several assassination attempts, standardised weights and measures, instituted a international philosophy denouncing Confucianism and went in for a mad quest for immortality, (don’t we all, perhaps?), involving the search for the elixir of life which, when he found it, poisoned him as it contained mercury.

Anyway the emperor’s terracotta army didn’t protect him against his (and our) greatest enemy, death but ensured him, instead, another kind of immortality for what I witnessed at the extraordinary site of Qin Shi Huang’s mausoleum will remain in my mind for ever as it will remain in the mind of anyone else who witnesses this extraordinary monument to mankind’s quest for eternity.

The emperor death
marches inexorably:
all crumbles to dust.

Dove si Fidanzarano Percy Bysshe e Mary Shelley

Posted on December 3, 2017 by Francis

La popolazione del distretto di Saint Pancras a Londra cresceva rapidamente nel nuovo secolo diciannovesimo. La vecchia chiesa non soddisfava più le esigenze dei parrocchiani.

L’edificio non era considerato degno e così gli abitanti costruirono una nuova chiesa a sud nel piu’ puro stile neoclassico.

Eppure la vecchia chiesa continuava ad esistere, costruita sul più antico sito cristiano delle isole britanniche e risalente al secolo quinto.

Attorno la chiesa, come tradizione in Inghilterra, c’e il camposanto, chiuso alle sepolture solo nel 1854.

E che sepolture, e che monumenti e che ricordi!

Per primo si trova il monumento della meridiana (dedicato a profughi francesi) della baronessa Burdett-Coutts, nobile donna ricchissima e grande filantropa, amica di Dickens (che da giovane visse in queste parti). Ella fece così tanto per aiutare i poveri della metropoli costruendo case sane e distribuendo cure mediche durante un epoca dove regnava il re colera e la miseria assoluta.

Attorno il monumento c’è una lapide dedicata alla sepoltura di Johann Christian Bach, il ‘Bach Inglese’, undicesimo figlio del grande Johann Sebastian. Venuto a Londra, dopo essere stato organista al Duomo di Milano, diventò insegnante di musica della Regina Carlotta e con Abel, anch’esso qui sepolto, organizzò tra le prime stagioni di concerti della capitale con molte sue sinfonie composte nel nuovo stile galante così diverso da quello del suo babbo.

Dickens ambiento’ nelle vie circostanti la casa della famiglia Crachit che raffigura nel suo bellissimo racconto ‘canto di Natale’, (eseguito al teatro Bagni di Lucca lo scorso dicembre ).

Quando vennero le ferrovie il camposanto fu ridotto e toccò al giovane Thomas Hardy, prima che diventasse lo scrittore di romanzi come ‘Tess dei Durbeville’, di spostare i corpi e sistemare le lapidi attorno un albero dove tuttora rimangano in un abbraccio mistico con le radici.

La tomba più elegante rimane quella dell’architetto eccelso, Sir John Soane. Tra i suoi capolavori è la galleria d’arte del mio vecchio Collegio con novella illuminazione dalle finestre poste sul soffitto. La tomba da lui ideata fu l’ispirazione, più di cent’anni dopo, della caratteristica cabina telefonica inglese.

Una panchina nel camposanto ricorda che qui, nel 1968, si sedettero i Beatles aspettando a farsi fotografare in attesa dell’uscita del loro nuovo disco ‘Hey Jude’:

Per me, però, la tomba che suscita la maggiore emozione è quella di Mary Wollstonecraft, la madre di Mary Shelley e autrice dei ‘diritti del donne’, che morì dando nascita alla figlia, scrittrice (tra altro) di ‘Frankenstein’.

Fu presso questa tomba che i giovani innamorati, Percy e Mary, si davano appuntamento e si fidanzarano segretamente. Fu qui che decisero di scappare dall’Inghilterra per il continente; un viaggio che li portò in Italia e, per la loro prima estate, a Bagni di Lucca.

(La giovane Mary Shelley)

Accarezzando il muschio in un freddissimo pomeriggio del primo di dicembre, con un vento che dava gelidi schiaffi alle guancia, cercando inutilmente un raggio di sole debole per riscaldarmi, i pensieri si dirigevano a Percy Bysshe e Mary che qui pronunciarono parole che avrebbero legato insieme le loro vite in un amore fortissimo ma così pieno di tragedia. Era qui, nel 1814, così giovani e così pieni di speranze, che dissero ‘si’.

(Casa notata da Sandra vicino al camposanto)

E’ qui anche sepolto John Polidori, figlio di padre italiano e madre inglese. Che notte fantasmagorica quando, sulle sponde del lago di Ginevra, in compagnia dei Shelley e di Byron e in una notte movimentata da una violenta tempesta, si riunirono per scrivere racconti soprannaturali. Da Polidori ne uscì ‘Il Vampiro.’ Si suicidò, bevendo il cianuro, nel 1821, un anno prima della morte di Shelley sul mare Viareggino.

(PS. Speriamo che i nuovi fidanzati reali non incontrino mai tali amarezze e tali contrasti poiché se viene l’inverno può essere lontana la primavera? Il regno unito è felicissimo di un amore che sembra portare unità ad un paese che è stato così urtato dal risultato di un referendum senza senso e che, almeno qui nella distesa di Londra, nessuno vuole).

Pietra gelida:

solo il sole del cuore

ti puo’ riscaldare.

Pandering to Pandas

Posted on December 2, 2017 by Francis

Artist and naturalist Peter Scott, the mastermind behind London’s wetland centre which we visited last month, was also closely involved with the worldwide fund for nature and designed its logo which is, naturally, the giant panda.

Having been deprived of giant pandas in England ever since Chi Chi died in 1972, (although there are two, Tian Tian and Zhang Guang, in Scotland), we were very keen to visit pandas in a research and breeding area near Chengdu.

Our visit there was yet another high point in our China exploration. Who cannot fall in love with this adorable creature (which the Chinese call bear-cat) and is a great example of how an endangered species can be saved (the panda is now described as ‘vulnerable’ instead of ‘endangered’).

We saw pandas playing with each other, resting on trees, having a good slide-down and gorging themselves on their favourite bamboo shoots. Fortunately, we got to the reserve quite early and found the pandas awake and active and the area not too crowded with visitors.

Let these pictures give some feel of our experiences.

A few points about giant pandas:

The panda used to live in the lowland areas around Chengdu but deforestation and loss of suitable habitat have driven them to the hills and mountains.

The panda anciently used to be carnivorous but now 99% of its diet is vegetarian and bamboo-shoot centered although it will accept other foods including meat.

The panda is very finicky about mating especially when it’s in a reserve hence the big problems zoos and centres have which they get around by using artificial insemination and now also frozen semen.

The female panda gives birth to twins, only one of which survives in the wild. There has been one known case of triplets. While we were there we saw a baby panda which had been abandoned by its mum and was under care.

Normally male pandas are the ones who don’t worry about their offspring, leaving it all to mum.

Giant pandas are not usually aggressive except when they are teased. Their bite is very strong, given they demolish bamboo for their diet.

Because of the low energy level of bamboos pandas spend most of their time eating them and, consequently, defecate around forty times a day.

Pandas in the wild have increased from under a thousand to an estimated three thousand in the last twenty years. There are around seventy pandas in world zoos today.

There is another type of giant panda with more brownish colouring and a smaller frame called the Qinling panda.

The panda was first seen by the west in 1916.

Pandas have been the best ambassadors in easing Chinese – western relationships after the difficult period of the 1960’s.

There is no direct species relationship between giant and red pandas although both live mainly on bamboo and have a false thumb called a sesamoid bone with which to hold bamboo. Here is the equally adorable red panda which is also in the reserve.