China is encouraging its citizens to come up with names for two giant pandas it wants to give Taiwan as a gift despite Taipei not agreeing to take them yet, officials said yesterday.
"If we choose names that are not acceptable to Taiwan, then that wouldn't be meaningful," a spokesman for the State Forestry Administration's propaganda office said.
So far, the most popular names proposed in contests run by Chinese portals for the two pandas, currently at the Wolong Reserve in southwest China's Sichuan Province, all carry political undertones, such as "Tuan Tuan" (團團) and "Yuan Yuan" (圓圓), which combine to mean tuanyuan ("reunion" in Chinese), the China Daily said.
"Of course, the names should have a good meaning," the spokesman said, adding that they should also be appropriate for pandas.
Other popular names suggested for the bears include "He He" (和和) and "Ping Ping" (平平), meaning "peace"; and "Ai Ai" (愛愛) and "Guo Guo" (國國), which combine to mean "patriotism."
The State Forestry Administration was quoted by Xinhua news agency as saying that the names would ultimately be chosen by the Taiwanese authorities.
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