Pandas Cai Tao and Hu Chun have gained much attention from Indonesian children since they settled in Indonesia two years earlier.

“I’ve been here three times in two years for the pandas. I loved them when I first met them. They are so cute when they are eating bamboo or rolling on the ground. I never felt bored when I looked them,” Said Nowita Vardani, a 12-year- old boy from South Jakarta.

The pandas live in a wildlife zoo in Maowu town of West Java province. Cai Yaxing, the manager of the zoo, said they especially built a panda house for them on the top of a mountain 1,400 meters above sea level, with a cooler climate that is closer to that of the pandas’ home in Wollongong, Southwest China’s Sichuan province.

Buses take visitors to the panda house. Seen from afar, the buses look like cute pandas. Buses ascended the narrow path, with dense tropical trees and bamboo on each side. At the top of mountain stands the panda house, built in the style of a Chinese building. It was lunch time when we arrived. Hu Chun and Cai Tao were having their lunch, making all the children around them excited and amazed.

On holidays, many tourists drive from other Indonesian provinces to see the pandas. Leo Vicaksono, from Central Java, said his family was curious about the pandas. “We’ve all seen pandas for the first time. It’s a good chance for our kids to get to know pandas. Pandas are cute, and although fat, they are agile, like the giant pandas in Kung Fu Panda.”

Cai said the zoo has bred pandas. “We hope two pandas could have their own babies within five years.”

Cai said the number of visitors to the zoo has increased since the pandas moved in, and many children in Indonesia wanted to see them during holidays. “They brought lots of joy for us, and established a bridge linking Indonesia and China,” Cai said.