Started 2026 how I mean to go on – with pandas! I spent the 1st of January 2026 visiting the pandas at Shanghai Zoo, yep, there’s 2 places in Shanghai that you can see pandas^ The Shanghai Zoo currently has 2 pandas on show, but over the years have hosted many pandas, including some that have gone on to live internationally. Let’s get on in to see the pandas:
The pandas are at the far side of the Shanghai Zoo – which is overall a very peaceful and relaxing park, with a huge size! There weren’t many visitors in the zoo as a whole when I was there, the pandas were definitely the busiest, but at peak there were still only around 30 or so people viewing, it wasn’t difficult to get a view. I suspect being the 1st of January may have had a role there.
All panda viewing here is through glass – there are two outdoor yards, one for each panda, and then one indoor space that one of the pandas can use. When I was there I only saw the pandas outside, and they were put into their off-show spaces when the staff went in to replenish the bamboo and treats.
Here the panda signage was only in Chinese, but luckily I know enough now to pick up names! However lots of the education information, with the general facts about pandas, was all in both English and Chinese, and there were plenty of signs all around the panda area. I thought the education was really good. There was also a window into the ‘panda kitchen’ so you could see staff preparing panda snacks which I really liked, and here there was information about their diet and foods they eat. Most of this was only in Chinese, but I was able to interpret the specific feeding times (quite a few times a day when I was there, this is impressive and now I know to get there earlier in the day for that first feeding session!) and hung around to make sure I saw this. It was completely worth it, I definitely recommend making at least one of the feeding times because it was great to see and I got some fantastic photos!
The panda area also had a shop and cafe with of course, plenty of panda themed items to buy! I was only there a few hours so I didn’t get anything to eat but lots of cute options, although lots of ice cream and it definitely wasn’t ice cream weather. The shop had lots of generic panda items, but I did find the specific zoo panda magnet and some very nice notebooks – these were very affordable and being quite small and flat, make for good gifts to bring back (I think I bought 10!).
Compared with other places I’ve been to outside of panda bases, there were fewer specific panda fans here – but I had come prepared! I had some keychains on my bag and got chatting to two ladies from Chongqing, it was nice to be able to tell them that I had been to see the pandas there! While they spoke some English, it was nice to also try out my Chinese and interactions like this definitely give me motivation to keep working on it.
Xing Guang 星光
Xing Guang 星光 was the first panda that I saw when I got to the panda section of Shanghai Zoo – of course, asleep! Xing Guang was staying in the ‘north’ outdoor yard on my visit, and he moved here to Shanghai Zoo in 2019. I arrived around 9:40AM, with an 8:30-9:00AM breakfast feeding time, I caught the post-breakfast nap! Xing Guang was born on the 23rd of June 2016, making him 9 years old on my visit. He’s not a panda that I’ve heard of before but when I eventually did see him (he woke up just before the 10:30AM feeding time), I thought he looked very similar to Hua Hua. Xing Guang was born at the Chengdu Panda Base to mum Xing Ya and I’m pretty sure I’ve not seen her before, he also has a twin sister Xing Chen and I also don’t think I’ve seen her either. His dad however, is Mei Lan – Mei Lan was born in Zoo Atlanta in 2006 and moved to China in 2010. I’ve seen him twice now, in both May 2024 and February 2025 – and he is also the father of famous Hua Hua! So, the family resemblance is strong, both of these two look very much like their father! In time for the 10:30AM feeding slot, the keepers took him inside so they could replenish his snacks and place some treats. They went to a good effort in hiding treats, and putting bamboo shoots and carrots in some high up and harder to reach places so that Xing Guang really had to work to get them. When he was let back into the yard he went for the easy treats first, before heading over the sit in his hammock and enjoy the bamboo shoots that were in the ball hanging above it. These didn’t last long and he headed towards his tyre bridge, finding the hidden shoots inside some of the tyres, but also a very nicely designed ‘dream catcher’ of carrots, apples and bamboo, and he made short work of that! It only took about a minute for it to disappear! A while later when I went back to his yard he had settled on a platform to work on his bamboo. Super cute and easy to see him when he was sitting up here as there is plenty of window space – all of the viewing in this yard is through glass and you are at a raised level from the ground, so more in line with the height of the tyre bridge. This viewing area is also completed covered over with a roof, so if it’s raining you can easily view under cover. Behind the viewing for this ‘north’ outdoor yard is the viewing for the indoor space, but Xing Guang didn’t have access to this space.
Having been born in the Chengdu Panda Base in 2016, it’s very possible that I saw Xing Guang in the nursery on my very first trip there.
He Feng 和风
He Feng 和风 is the second panda living at the Shanghai Zoo – he also moved there from the Chengdu Panda Base in 2019, and being born in 2016 he was also 9 years old on my visit. He was living in the ‘south’ outdoor yard on my visit and I only saw him use this space, I didn’t see him in the inside area that he had access to. He was born at the Chengdu Panda Base to mum Cheng Gong, and he also has a twin sister, He Yu. Funnily enough, He Feng and Xing Guang are half brothers, they share dad Mei Lan! He Feng has definitely inherited his mum’s looks, as I wouldn’t have guessed these two were related. And actually, a further relation – Hua Hua, and her twin sister He Hua, share both mother and father with He Feng, making them full siblings. So it’s a small panda world! What is clear in some of the photos I took of him, is that he is a recognisable panda for his white toes – on both of his back paws, his outer few toes are clearly covered with white fur instead of the typical black fur. This makes him very standout, and I suspect I also saw him on my 2016 trip to Chengdu Panda Base because I remember seeing pandas with white paws on those early trips.
When I first got to the yard He Feng was also deep in a post-breakfast nap, but he woke up to go in and let the keepers refresh the treats – he got a similar treatment to Xing Guang, with a ‘dream catcher’ of carrots, apple and bamboo along with bamboo shoots hidden away for him to work at finding. He came outside and immediately headed to the platform to get down his carrots and apples. He found a few bamboo shoots up on the platforms before taking on the tyre bridge – what an absolute cuties! He came from underneath it and climbed through after investigating the first tyre for any treats inside. He then settled himself down in a tyre to enjoy snack time! In total there were at least 4 or 5 shoots hidden in the tyres because he spent ages on the bridge and carefully looking for them, and settling on a tyre to eat them once he had found them. The treats really were hidden all over the place, because he spent a good hour looking in different spots and always coming up with at least a few bamboo shoots to enjoy.
