The pandas Tian Tian and Mei Xiang touched down at Dulles International Airport near Washington at 3:00 pm (2000 GMT) aboard a white, purple and orange FedEx MD-11 cargo jet decorated with 15-foot-high (4.6-meter) pictures of the animals over the wings.

Twenty minutes later, Tian Tian peered briefly out of his steel cage at the more than 100 reporters and invited guests watching the arrival, but quickly ducked out of sight amid the clatter of camera shutters and the whine of motor drives.

"The last thing we want with all these cameras is to make a mistake," joked David Yost, a FedEx ground agent who helped transfer the pandas onto waiting trucks, which ferried them through rush-hour traffic to the zoo.

Tian Tian (pronounced t-yen, t-yen), a three-year-old male whose name means "more and more," and two-year-old female panda Mei Xiang (pronounced may syong), which means "beautiful fragrance," were placed aboard the plane late Tuesday at the Chengdu airport, accompanied by two Chinese keepers, National Zoo director Lucy Spelman and three zoo staff members.

The pandas ate normally, played and slept during their 17-hour journey by air, which included a stopover in Anchorage, Alaska, for a customs inspection, said Benjamin Beck, the zoo's associate director.

After a 30-day quarantine, the pair will go on display in January in newly-renovated quarters at the zoo that have been empty since Hsing-Hsing, the male partner of the zoo's original pair of pandas, died in 1999 at age 28.

The zoo will receive them on loan for 10 years in exchange for a 10-million-dollar contribution to panda conservation in China. Only about 1,000 pandas remain in the wild in China, and about 100 others are in zoos around the world.

Zoo officials hope the pair will contribute to knowledge about their species through research on how they adjust to their new environment and on their diet, which consists mainly of bamboo.

Officials also hope Tian Tian and Mei Xiang's playful, cuddly nature and rarity will make them as attractive to visitors as the zoo's first pandas. Hsing-Hsing and his mate, Ling-Ling, who died in 1992, were among the zoo's most popular attractions from the time they arrived here in 1972.

"The National Zoo has had 28 years of experience in keeping pandas, so we believe we're starting at the top of the curve," Beck said. "This is going to work. We are going to save some pandas."

(China Daily 12/07/2000)