Hello everyone, I am learning from history.
A few days ago, I went to Shijiazhuang and visited the Hebei Museum, where there happened to be an exhibition of the past and present lives of giant pandas, which mentioned a story: the first time Westerners saw a live giant panda, it was an American woman who smuggled it out of China.
Picture note: Ruth Harkness and the panda cub
So I was curious to check the information of this woman named Ruth Haknes, and found that she had entered And Leaving China twice that year, smuggled out two giant pandas, sold them to zoos in the United States, made a lot of money, and later wrote her story of smuggling pandas into a book, making another profit.
After reading her information, I can't help but sigh that the country was poor and weak at that time, not to mention pandas, even the people were struggling to survive; However, the Western world has not been ashamed of plundering the animals, plants, and cultural relics resources of other countries through theft and deception, and it is also deeply felt that they have a thick skin when they publish books in a dignified manner.
Therefore, @Take History as a Mirror decided to share this story and let more people know.
Pandas have lived in China for thousands of years, and were previously also called iron-eating beasts, white cats (pi), tapirs, white bears, flower bears and other different names, and we did not think it was unusual at that time.
But when the East and the West ushered in the collision of the great changes that had not occurred in three thousand years, the decaying Qing Dynasty was crushed by the industrialized powers from all aspects, and all kinds of explorers, missionaries, animals and plants, archaeologists in the West... They all regard China as an unknown treasure trove of resources, and they have come to China to carry out predatory exploration and discovery.
It is in such a big environment that pandas are re-recognized by Westerners.
In the eighth year of Tongzhi, in March 1869, a French priest and naturalist, Father Armand David, discovered this species he had never seen before during an expedition to Sichuan, China.
Photo note: French priest
He mobilized local officials and civilians to hunt a "black and white bear" and made it into specimens to be shipped to France for display.
At that time, French scientists identified this "black and white bear" as a completely new species and named it Ailuropoda melanoleuca.
The discovery by the French priests directly excited the Western world, who planned to capture a living panda and take it out of China.
But since 1869, many expeditions in the West have caught pandas, but either they died of injuries while catching them, or they did not know how to feed them, and the final result was that none of the living pandas left China.
It wasn't until 1936 that an American woman came to China.
Picture note: Ruth wearing a Chinese costume to take care of the panda
The woman, Ruth Harkness, was not from a very well-off family, her father was a carpenter in Pennsylvania and her mother was a tailor. But Ruth, inspired by jazz, fled to New York and took a job as a fashion designer.
In New York, she met William Hakness, a rich Harvard graduate, and the two married after a year together. William was an avid adventure enthusiast who once made a name for catching a living Komodo dragon from the Indonesian island of Komodo.
Then William set his sights on the Chinese panda, and he intended to be the first to take the living panda out of China.
William, who spent 13 months in Shanghai, China, keenly judged that the giant panda was only found in a few regions of western China, but just before he was ready to leave, he died of throat cancer after three surgeries in Shanghai.
After receiving the news of her husband's death, Ruth Haknes immediately came to China, not only inheriting her husband's inheritance, but also intending to inherit her husband's legacy. She took over William's materials and team and set off from Shanghai to the Sichuan region.
Note: A team of Chinese porters hired by Ruth
Among her team was a Chinese-American explorer named Quentin Young, who was only 22 years old but already familiar with pandas, and the young man's brother was said to have helped former U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt capture an adult panda.
Ruth described her team in her book, writing: "Despite desperate efforts to leave with very little luggage, we hitched a ride in a real caravan. Sixteen porters, six cars, a cook, Quentin and I. ”
Ruth also described the daily routine of their expeditions camping and hunting: "We camped in a beautiful place — as far as I could see — there was a stream at the bottom of the valley, and we had 600 or 700 feet of snow above our heads. Quentin shot a impala, some kind of sheep, this morning we ate his liver as a snack. ”
Picture note: Ruth, 36, and Quentin Young, 22
There is gossip that throughout the expedition, Ruth, 36, and Quentin Young, 22, have had a relationship.
On November 9, 1936, when the expedition arrived in the Wenchuan area of Sichuan, Ruth had a great harvest, and she found a panda cub about 9 weeks old, a living panda cub, in a tree hole.
Although Yang prefers to capture an adult panda, Ruth is extremely excited about being able to capture a panda "female" cub, feeding the panda cub through a bottle she carries with her, and naming it "sulin", which means "precious thing", and then bringing it back to Shanghai alive.
Next, Ruth is faced with how to bring the panda back to the United States.
Picture note: Ruth is feeding a panda
Although the Chinese government at that time did not protect giant pandas, customs also made regulations prohibiting the departure of live wild animals.
Moreover, Ruth's expedition along the way has long been concerned by the media, and she was surrounded by the media as soon as she arrived in Shanghai.
Under such circumstances, how Ruth and "Su Lin" got out of China became a sensitive matter, and Chinese customs felt deep pressure from the US side.
Later, ruth was given the idea to fill in the declaration form with "a strangely shaped pug" worth $20, and then Ruth, with the help of her American friends, successfully passed through customs with a wicker basket containing "sulin", boarded the "President McKinley" passenger ship, and left China.
Others say ruth got through customs through a $2 bribe, but for whatever reason, Ruth became the first person to take a live panda out of China.
Photo note: Media reports at the time
The giant panda "Su Lin" that Ruth took out was the first time in the Western world to see a living giant panda, and after Ruth returned to her manhattan apartment with "Su Lin", she received a number of zoo transfer applications, and Ruth directly offered 20,000 US dollars.
Chicago's Brookfield Zoo later sold ruth for $8,750 (another way of saying it was $14,000). After the giant panda "Su Lin" arrived at the Brookfield Zoo in Chicago, it began to be exhibited in public.
On April 20, 1937, the Brookfield Zoo in Chicago exhibited live pandas for the first time to the public, which attracted the attention of the whole United States, and finally the crowd was so large that the zoo was forced to open for two hours a day.
Then dolls, clothes, food and other pandas are all on fire in the United States, and even the famous blind writer Helen Keller came to the zoo to touch the pandas.
Ruth Haknes suddenly became a star, known as "Lady Panda".
Figure note: Ruth and the sulin being examined
The zoo sees Su Lin so hot, so it finds Ruth and hints that if Ruth can catch another male panda, she will receive an "amazing reward".
Ruth could not resist the temptation after tasting the sweetness, so she came to China again.
With the first experience, this time Ruth formed a larger team, and they also captured a male giant panda again, ruth named him "mei mei".
After returning to the United States, Ruth handed both pandas to the same zoo, leaving behind this famous group photo.
Photo note: Sulin and Meimei meet for the first time
Ruth also published her experience as "The Lady and the Panda", which was a hit in Western countries.
But unfortunately, the Americans at that time did not understand what the pandas wanted to eat, and even gave the pandas boiled radishes and vegetable leaves.
Soon "Su Lin" was stuck in the throat by a branch while biting the oak branch, and although the branch was taken out urgently, "Su Lin", whose wound was infected, died in 1938.
When the zoo dissected the body of "Su Lin", it was discovered that Su Lin was not the legendary female giant panda but a male.
By 42 years, the giant panda Meimei also died, and the autopsy found that Meimei's gender was not wrong, it was also male.
With the death of "Su Lin" and "Mei Mei", Ruth Harkness also suffered a heavy blow, and she began to drink heavily, who originally liked to smoke and drink.
At one point, she could not accept city life and planned to go to the Andes in search of silver-gray bears, but without success.
The world situation entered World War II, and the "Panda Lady" was no longer cared, and in 1947, the 47-year-old Ruth was found dead in a half-full bathtub in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Alcoholism is said to have been an important factor in her death.
Two years after Ruth's death, a new China was founded in the land where she had unscrupulously smuggled pandas. In May 1950, New China promulgated the Measures on the Protection of Rare Animals, which prohibited the arbitrary hunting of rare animals such as giant pandas.
In 1961, the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) was established, and the giant panda was chosen as its symbol. In 1963, the former State Forestry Department established the first nature reserves to protect giant pandas.
On May 7, 2022, Cui Shuhong, director of the Department of Natural Ecology and Conservation of the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, announced that the number of giant pandas in the wild has reached more than 1,800, and the level of threat has been reduced from endangered to vulnerable.