Volume 2, No. 14. July 26, 2002
New Arrivals
It’s
a China exhibit!
The Memphis Zoo in Memphis, Tennessee, announces the arrival of CHINA, July
13, 2002. Measurements: 3 acres (1.2 hectares), 11 exhibits, 15 species, one
carousel, one retail store, one restaurant, one 120-capacity orientation theater
and guest hall and one traditional teahouse. Delivered by Carousel Works, Design
Consortium, MCDR Construction and Ming Fung.
The
mission of the Memphis Zoo’s spectacular new $16 million geocultural exhibit
was hammered home during a transoceanic flight by the zoo’s President Roger
Knox. He sat next to a Chinese citizen who had a rich knowledge of the United
States, to the point he could even recite the Gettysburg Address. How many U.S.
citizens would have equal knowledge of China, Knox wondered?
CHINA intends to immerse Memphis residents in an authentic Chinese experience,
with its native animals and the architecture and culture. “When you walk
through this exhibit, you’ll feel you are in China,” said the zoo’s
communications specialist Carrie Strehlau. So attuned to authenticity were the
designers that the original four-tired pagoda in the plan added a fifth tier
when they discovered that four is an unlucky number in China. The roof tiles
and ornamentation for the buildings were manufactured in Hong Kong. And the
Nine Twisting Bridge that spans a pond housing ducks on one side and small-clawed
otters and gibbons on the other is crooked; that is in keeping with Chinese
legend that evil spirits won’t follow people on a crooked path.
The exhibit has other unique touches, like the Garden Teahouse that will serve
as a group rental space and an endangered species carousel custom built to mirror
some of the animals in the exhibit and include Chinese stylings on the housing.
What CHINA does not have yet is its true raison de existence: giant pandas.
In 1999 the Memphis Zoo won a letter of agreement from the People’s Republic
of China to receive a pair of pandas. Before the zoo could get the pandas, however,
it had to build an exhibit for the animals. Memphis went beyond building merely
a panda exhibit to constructed a full-scale China experience. Though the exhibit
is completed, and two young pandas in China have been chosen for the exhibit,
the Chinese government has yet to finalize the arrangements.
Nevertheless, the zoo opened the exhibit to the public with appropriate Far
East flair, featuring Chinese acrobats, dragon dancers, a calligrapher, a feng
shui expert and an ice carver who created a dragon sculpture in the midsummer
Memphis heat. Lan Li-Jun, the minister and deputy chief of mission from the
People’s Republic of China’s embassy in Washington, D.C., presided
over the ribbon-cutting ceremony with Memphis Mayor Willie Herenton, Knox and
Jim Sasser, the former U.S. Senator from Tennessee and former U.S. ambassador
to the People’s Republic of China who was instrumental in establishing
the Memphis Zoo’s link with Chinese officials. The grand opening concluded
with a fireworks show in neighboring Overton park.
Even without the giant pandas, the public turned out for the new exhibit. Strehlau
said the exhibit inspired “heightened attendance” over the weekend,
and on the following Tuesday afternoon, the weekday the zoo offers free admission
to Tennessee residents, “we had an extended line.”
©2002, Minton Enterprises
LLC
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