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Lin Ping, the giant panda born last year at Thailand’s Chiang Mai Zoo<\/a>, continues to be treated like royalty in her birth country. For Valentine’s Day, a zoo veterinarian even presented her with her very own plush rose toy. (We can’t help but think from the expression on Lin Ping’s face that she’s a bit disappointed that her gift is a toy<\/em> plant rather than an edible<\/em> one, but maybe we’re projecting.)<\/p>\n After Lin Ping’s birth — the first successful birth of a giant panda in Thailand’s history — the Thai public became so enchanted by the cub that elephant keepers felt their charges had been relegated to also-ran status. To draw attention back to Thailand’s elephant population, the keepers tried an unorthodox tactic, painting the pachyderms to resemble giant pandas<\/a>, using water-based paint.<\/p>\n Lin Ping’s name, which was selected by her fans in a contest that received more than 20 million votes, is representative both of her Thai birthplace and her Chinese heritage — Lindsay Barnett\n<\/p>\n Don’t miss a single adorable animal:<\/strong> Follow Unleashed on Facebook<\/a> and Twitter<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n Photo: Pongmanat Tasiri \/ European Pressphoto Agency<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Lin Ping, the giant panda born last year at Thailand’s Chiang Mai Zoo, continues to be treated like royalty in her birth country. For Valentine’s Day, a zoo veterinarian even presented her with her very own plush rose toy. (We can’t help but think from the expression on Lin Ping’s face that she’s a bit […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4172,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-323822","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323822","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4172"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=323822"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323822\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=323822"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=323822"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=323822"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n(her parents are on loan to the Chiang Mai Zoo from China). The name honors the cub’s mother, Lin Hui, calls to mind the name of Thailand’s Ping River<\/a> and translates to "forest of ice" in Chinese.<\/p>\n