It’s the most anticipated match-up since croissants versus salted egg yolk.
More exciting than Batman V Superman: Dawn Of Justice, where the Man of Steel and Jennifer Garner’s soon-to-be ex-husband are pitted against each other by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.
More primal than Mr Murali Pillai of the People’s Action Party versus Dr Chee Soon Juan of the Singapore Democratic Party in the Murali-Chee by-election in Bukit Buttock.
Of course I’m talking about Jia Jia versus Liang Teh, also known as Kai Kai.
Can’t wait for the 50 Shades Of Grey movie sequel? Book your tickets online for the sequel to 50 Shades Of Black & White.
Drop the kids off at Kungfu Panda 3 and bring your own 3D glasses to watch some real R21 animal behaviour.
As you may recall, last April, Wildlife Reserves Singapore (WRS) — which apparently isn’t very reserved at all — released some rather explicit images of pandas Jia Jia and Kai Kai attempting to mate.
There wasn’t even a NSFW warning.
And since Jia Jia was six and Kai Kai was seven at the time, could I be arrested for watching child porn?
Where’s the Media Development Authority to shield us from such lurid zoophilia when we need them?
We cut US President Barack Obama’s remarks on the gay community from The Ellen DeGeneres Show on Channel 5 and yet we let such critter smut go uncensored?
Wait, isn’t Ellen DeGeneres a lesbian? How is she still on Singapore TV?
It’s a slippery slope. Next thing you know, we’re allowing panda sex.
But does it count as sex if the animals couldn’t, uh... let’s say, close the deal?
I mean, Jia Jia and Kai Kai didn’t really get to Netflix and chill last year despite WRS’s best efforts.
But that was before Netflix was officially launched in Singapore, which could be why they couldn’t get “connected”, so to speak. Maybe their VPN wasn’t set up properly.
As usual, it was the guy’s fault. Kai Kai was blamed for choking in the clutch.
“He just didn’t know what to do,” said Dr Cheng Wen-Haur, the WRS chief life sciences officer, about Kai Kai. “I think he’s just too young. He’s just a boy.”Way to kick a guy when he’s down, doc.
Instead of sending Kai Kai for counselling to rescue his shrivelled self-esteem, WRS sent Jia Jia for artificial insemination.
I’m surprised our Government hasn’t used this method on Singaporean women to reverse our falling birth rate. Just put them to sleep and stick a needle in them whether they want it or not.
But the artificial insemination may not take, which was the case with Jia Jia.
So here we are now, a year later and panda mating season is back again. WRS is mounting the sequel, 51 Shades Of Black & White.
In a statement released last week, WRS said:
“In the coming weeks, visitors (to the River Safari) can expect to see male panda Kai Kai bleating in his exhibit and scent-marking more frequently.Ooh, sexy. What female can resist a curled-back upper lip?
“He may also display the flehmen response, a behaviour whereby an animal curls back its upper lip to sniff for pheromones to assess the breeding readiness of its mate.”
And Kai Kai has been training hard for his upcoming sexathon with Jia Jia as well. WRS said:
“To enhance his performance ahead of the breeding season, Kai Kai has been dutifully doing his ‘sexercise’ in his den for months.Hey, can I sign up for that too?
“Panda keepers get Kai Kai to stand up on his hind legs for a few seconds at a time to strengthen his hind quarters.
“The exercise also serves to improve his stamina which would help to improve success rates during mating.”
I also need to strengthen my hind quarters and build up my stamina to prepare for my, uh… let’s say, participation in The Straits Times Run in May.
But despite all the “sexercise” Kai Kai is doing, WRS doesn’t seem to have much faith in the boy. The organisation said:
“Vets have also collected Kai Kai’s semen for artificial insemination to increase the chances of breeding the pandas should natural mating be unsuccessful.”So WRS isn’t putting all its eggs in one basket, so to speak.
After all, the last thing we want is for WRS to fail to get Jia Jia pregnant again and become a symbol of Singapore’s own failure to produce more babies.
And like Singapore, WRS also brought in foreign talent — ironically, Jia Jia and Kai Kai themselves.
WRS said that once the pandas are “deemed ready” to get it on, they “will be taken out of their respective exhibits for three days to allow natural mating in the dens”.
I hope they get Netflix there.
Season two of Daredevil is pretty good. They can binge-watch it in those three days.
- Published in The New Paper, 27 March 2016
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