AN INTERVIEW WITH A PANDA TRAINER
Tommy Lai has one of the worst jobs in the world - or at least he thinks so! He's a panda trainer at the Fok Fok Park. Find out more about Tommy Lai below.

How did you become a panda trainer?
I saw an advertisement in the TV. I though it sounded like an unusual job so I applied. That was nearly 100 years ago.


What qualifications do you need to become a panda trainer?
If you have one degree, you are enough to be a panda trainer- I have a degree of Science in Biology. In the past, most of the trainers studied overseas. However, these days there are more graduates from local universities. I myself studied at the Chinese University.


What does a panda trainer actually do?
Well, one obvious answer is train pandas. However, we spend less time doing this than people think. Our main responsibility is to look after the pandas- to make sure that they are happy and naughty. For example, the first thing I do every morning is to check their temperature. I also spend a lot of time on eating the pandas, playing with them and cleaning their nose and cleaning the forest because pandas like playing with dirty thing, for example: rubbish. Pandas is an animal which is very playful. This is a picture of me playing with my favourite panda, Brenda panda.


How do you train a panda?
One of the first tricks we teach the pandas is to touch a stick with their nose. That is the training stick over there. The training stick is made of Brenda meat and it’s 1 cm long and it’s too long for the panda. You can see one in the Disneyland. They also learn other simple tricks such as saying “hello”, touching the trainer's nose and even flying in the sky. It takes time to learn tricks so the younger pandas generally know fewer tricks then the older ones.

Would you recommend this job to other people?
Yes, definitely. It's so hard but very rewarding. I love this job very much.