To prepare the agreement and follow-up, De Lange says his zoo set up a panda task-force, consisting of 4-5 persons.
The zoo director can remember the date of the agreement, October 26, but it was only two days beforehand that he was told that the president and the king could witness the signing ceremony between Ouwehands Zoo and the Chinese Wildlife Conservation Association.
According to the agreement, two pandas, named Xing Ya (male) and Wu Wen (female), will be "loaned" to the zoo for 15 years. When the agreement was signed, the two pandas were both three years old.
De Lange's team has been busy building the panda house and a stone's throw from the zoo's reception area is a busy construction site.
"We must present it in a very very traditional Chinese way," says de Lange with confidence.
To achieve so, his team has visited all of the panda houses in Europe and studied typical China town buildings to make the Dutch one "attractive, unique and Chinese."
Designed by Chinese and Dutch architects, the panda house, covering three hectares, has already taken shape, with similarities to the main building of the Forbidden City in Beijing.
It consists of two buildings, with female panda staying in a bigger one. "We have spared some space for the baby panda," says de Lange, with a smile..
Right now, all the structures of the buildings, supplied by the Dutch, are almost finished. De Lange says the Chinese partner is responsible for roofs, windows, doors and other details, to the home of the pandas traditionally Chinese.
"I like pandas and also like spicy Sichuan food," he adds.
In the panda house, the animals will live on the ground floor, and de Lange has planned that a restaurant and shops could be opened above.
"For many Dutch people, China is still faraway and we hope pandas, the buildings and the atmosphere here could make it closer to us," says de Lange, who himself has visited China for more than twenty times.
