For every international tourist visiting Chengdu, a trip to the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding to see those adorable “black-and-white buns” is undoubtedly the most anticipated highlight of the journey. As you leave the base with a heart full of emotion and countless cute photos, don’t you also want to turn this unique Chengdu memory into a tangible keepsake you can take home? In fact, “bringing a panda home” has become an unspoken agreement among tourists. While you cannot take a real giant panda with you, the city uses its endless creativity to infuse panda elements into various cultural and creative products, allowing you to bring this cuteness and culture back to any corner of the world.
Base Direct Hit – Official Treasures from the Panda Home
Evergreen Classics: Plush Toys and Figure Series
Upon entering the gift shops at the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding, the first thing that catches your eye is inevitably the variety of panda plush toys in all sizes. These toys are modeled after real giant pandas from the base, meticulously capturing and recreating everything from newborn “pink blobs” to various postures of adult pandas. For international tourists, choosing a high-quality official plush toy is not only the best souvenir for themselves but also the most popular gift for friends and family.
In recent years, the design of plush toys at the base has become increasingly exquisite and diverse. Beyond traditional lying or sitting pandas, you can also find dynamic poses like pandas rolling while holding bamboo or napping on tree branches. Particularly noteworthy are the specific toys modeled after base celebrity pandas like “Huahua,” which are highly sought-after items among fans. These toys are usually made of soft, skin-friendly short plush fabric, fully stuffed for an excellent feel, with attention to details like hand-stitched noses and eyes, making them remarkably lifelike.
Purchasing Tip: The official gift shops within the base guarantee quality, but prices may be relatively higher (a small plush toy costs approximately RMB 45-180). If on a budget, consider small or medium sizes; if seeking collectible value, limited editions or celebrity panda toys are the first choice.
Practicality Meets Commemoration: Daily Life Cultural Creative Products
Panda elements have long transcended the scope of traditional toys, permeating various aspects of daily life. In the base shops, you will be pleasantly surprised to find panda-themed stationery, home goods, clothing, and accessories that perfectly combine practicality and memorability.
Stationery Series: Notebooks, bookmarks, and ballpoint pens with panda illustrations, as well as panda-shaped erasers and paperclip holders, are ideal for students or office workers. Among these, exquisitely designed panda bookmarks often incorporate elements like bamboo or Sichuan opera masks, symbolizing diligence and good fortune, making them culturally rich small gifts.
Clothing and Accessories: Everything from T-shirts and hats with cute panda patterns to panda-shaped backpacks, coin purses, and keychains is available. A panda baseball cap or a fluffy panda backpack is not only a souvenir but also adds a Chengdu-specific flair to your travel outfit.
Home Décor Items: Panda mugs, plates, refrigerator magnets, and phone cases can bring panda cuteness into your home life. Refrigerator magnets, in particular, are lightweight, easy to carry, and come in various styles, making them a favorite for collectors.
Panda-patterned refrigerator magnet
Pandas on the Tip of the Tongue: Specialty Foods and Creative Ice Cream
Chengdu’s creativity even extends to the realm of taste. Inside the base, you can not only buy panda-shaped cookies and candies as sweet souvenir gifts but also must not miss the highly unique themed ice cream.
Chengdu’s zoos and the base excel at developing food-related creativity that attracts tourists. For instance, the Chengdu Zoo once launched a peculiar-looking yet delicious red orangutan ice cream modeled after its famous “Terry” orangutan sculpture, which was widely loved. Similarly, around the panda base, you are likely to find panda-shaped ice cream or desserts, allowing you to cool off in the hot summer while also taking fun photos for social media.
Furthermore, the base has also launched customized high-mountain mineral water. The bottle labels feature designs with giant pandas, golden snub-nosed monkeys, and other animals in an ink-wash painting style, raising awareness for animal protection while meeting hydration needs. Such products cleverly combine public welfare attributes with merchandise, making them particularly meaningful.
Deep Collecting: Art Crafts and Specialty Souvenirs
For tourists seeking uniqueness and artistic value, the base and surrounding shops also offer more profound choices.
Handmade Sichuan Opera Mask Pandas: Combining two of Sichuan’s major cultural icons – Sichuan opera face-changing and giant pandas. These masks are made into magnets, keychains, decorative hangings, or exquisite ornaments, often handmade with vibrant colors and strong theatrical appeal, making them souvenirs full of cultural character.
Commemorative Coins: Many attractions issue commemorative coins engraved with panda patterns, and the Chengdu Panda Base is no exception. These coins feature fine craftsmanship and superior texture, often accompanied by elegant packaging boxes, making them lightweight, commemorative, and potentially value-preserving choices.
Postal and Stamp Culture: At the base’s post office or specific shops, you can buy panda postcards, stamp them with unique panda landscape postmarks, and send them to friends afar or your future self, allowing travel memories to continue in a romantic way. Many tourists are also keen on collecting stamps at various locations within the base; these stamps typically feature designs of pandas in various poses, making the collection process highly enjoyable.
Beyond the Base – A “Panda” Treasure Hunt Map on Chengdu’s Streets
The panda is an omnipresent cultural symbol in Chengdu. The joy of buying panda souvenirs is definitely not confined to the base. The streets and alleys of Chengdu, especially several famous cultural and commercial districts, are gathering places and creative incubators for “panda cultural creations.”
Kuanzhai Alley: Where Tradition and Creativity Converge
Comprising Kuan Alley, Zhai Alley, and Jing Alley, Kuanzhai Alley is a microcosm of old Chengdu’s alley culture and is now a hub for cultural creative shops and souvenir stores. Here, you’ll find shops selling panda cultural products almost every few dozen meters.
The product range here is extensive, from common souvenir badges, cups, bookmarks, backpacks, and keychains to more design-conscious clothing and hats. Compared to the base shops, Kuanzhai Alley offers a greater variety of goods, and you might find works by independent designers. You can discover products featuring “street-smart pandas” dressed in Sichuan opera costumes, drinking tea from covered bowls, or eating hot pot–designs that deeply integrate pandas with Chengdu’s local life culture, making them vivid and interesting.
Domain Dragon Travel Agency Tip: Our in-depth city walking tours are led by guides familiar with local culture. They will not only explain historical anecdotes but also guide you to discover those unique cultural creative shops hidden in corners, helping you avoid a sea of homogenized products and find truly one-of-a-kind panda souvenirs.
Chunxi Road and Taikoo Li: Pandas Interpreted through Fashion and Trends
As Chengdu’s most bustling commercial pedestrian areas, Chunxi Road and Taikoo Li represent the modern, fashionable side of the city. Here, pandas appear in more avant-garde and artistic forms.
Landmark Panda Art: The huge “Climbing Panda” sculpture on the roof of the IFS International Finance Center on Chunxi Road has long become a must-visit landmark in Chengdu, attracting nearly a million tourists annually for photos. Meanwhile, on the naked-eye 3D screen at YinShi Square, adorable pandas occasionally “pop out” to wave at passersby, creating a strong sense of technological wonder.
High-End Cultural Creatives and Designer Brands: Taikoo Li gathers many high-quality bookstores and lifestyle aesthetic shops. For example, “Fangsuo,” designed with a cave concept, is not just a bookstore but a composite cultural space encompassing aesthetic living, clothing, exhibitions, and coffee. It often collaborates with local artists, selling designer cultural and creative products with strong design sense and fine quality, making it a great place to find high-end panda souvenirs.
Themed Stores and Pop-Ups: The area around Chunxi Road has no shortage of various panda-themed stores, even including the country’s first panda-themed KFC restaurant. Designer brands also often open pop-up stores here. For instance, the brand “PANTTERN,” which reinterprets the panda image with geometric and futuristic sensibilities, once opened a pop-up store in Taikoo Li. Its products, applied to trendy clothing and home decor, were highly popular among young people.
Jinli and Other Cultural Streets: Pandas with Folk Customs
Jinli Ancient Street, as famous as Kuanzhai Alley, is imbued with Three Kingdoms culture and Western Sichuan folk customs. Panda souvenirs here often carry stronger traditional handicraft colors. You might find panda-shaped covered tea cups, panda silk scarves or fans incorporating Shu embroidery techniques, and panda figurines painted with Sichuan opera masks. These products combine intangible cultural heritage with the panda IP, giving the souvenirs greater cultural depth.
Additionally, emerging creative hubs like Dongjiao Memory (a cultural art park transformed from old factories) and the Mengzhuiwan Citizen Leisure Area are also full of young creative energy, occasionally offering surprising panda cultural creative products.
Beyond Toys–An In-Depth Look at Contemporary Panda Cultural Creations
Today’s panda cultural creations have long moved beyond the era of simple figures, entering a stage of diverse development where “everything can be panda.” Behind this is designers’ continuous exploration and innovative expression of the panda IP’s connotations.
Deepening IP Connotation: From Animal to Cultural Symbol
For Chengdu, the panda has long transcended the category of a rare animal; it is a cultural symbol deeply embedded in the city’s fabric, representing an optimistic, unhurried, and friendly urban character. Therefore, cultural creative design is no longer satisfied with imitating the panda’s appearance but attempts to express richer content through the panda:
Guochao Style Pandas: Catering to young trends, many panda images dressed in traditional Chinese attire or integrated with classical patterns have emerged.
Street Life Pandas: Pandas are depicted as Chengdu residents drinking tea, playing mahjong, eating hot pot, or playing the guitar, reflecting the local philosophy of leisurely living.
Spiritual Symbol Pandas: For example, the “Heart Panda” series, inspired by an injured panda that remained standing strong after the Wenchuan earthquake, aims to convey the spirit of “strength, courage, friendship, and tolerance.” Its image has reached many countries worldwide through art tours.
Cross-Border Integration and Technological Empowerment
Panda cultural creations actively collaborate across industries, technologies, and intangible heritage crafts, creating refreshingly new products.
“Cultural Creativity + Technology”: For example, the Panda Landscape Speaker uses artistic panda shapes as outdoor speaker carriers, doubling as public art pieces and cultural narration tools.
“Cultural Creativity + Intangible Heritage”: Integrating panda elements with Sichuan’s intangible cultural heritage like Shu brocade, lacquer art, bamboo weaving, and pottery. A pottery coffee cup with a panda perched on the rim is both practical and promotes intangible heritage culture. There are also products combining panda images with baijiu brands (e.g., Luzhou Laojiao), achieving both copyright monetization and cultural promotion.
“Cultural Creativity + Events”: The mascot “Rongbao” for the 2023 Chengdu World University Games was created based on the real panda “Zhi Ma” from the Panda Base. The related series of cultural creative products successfully showcased the combination of traditional culture and modern technology.
From Tourist Souvenirs to Citizen Life
Excellent cultural creative products are not just souvenirs for tourists; they should also integrate into the daily lives of local citizens. Today, panda elements appear in shared bicycles, strollers, snack shop signs, and other aspects of urban life. This all-around penetration enhances citizens’ cultural identity and allows tourists to more genuinely feel the inseparable connection between the city and the panda.
Souvenir Seal of ‘Hua Hua’, the Most Popular Giant Panda
Practical Purchasing Guide for International Tourists Price Range and Budget Planning
Panda souvenir prices vary greatly, catering to different budgets:
Budget-Friendly Small Items (RMB 10-50): Keychains, refrigerator magnets, postcards, bookmarks, standard phone cases, etc.
Mid-Range Boutique Items (RMB 50-300): Small/medium plush toys, good quality T-shirts/hats, specialty stationery sets, handmade mask pendants, designer cups, etc.
High-End Collectibles (RMB 300+): Large, finely made plush toys, limited edition art ornaments, crafts combined with intangible heritage, designer collaboration products, etc.
Purchasing Strategies and Considerations
Identify Quality: When choosing plush toys, pay attention to stitch tightness, filling uniformity, and fabric comfort. For crafts, observe the fineness of detail work.
Seek Uniqueness: Avoid buying common, rough-looking products found everywhere. Focus more on goods with design stories or those integrating local cultural elements.
Compare Prices and Channels: Official shops within the base guarantee quality but are pricier; scenic areas like Kuanzhai Alley and Jinli offer more choices but require careful searching; large supermarkets or airport shops are convenient but may lack creativity. Some tourists report significant price differences for certain souvenirs between scenic spots and online; consider comparing slightly.
Ease of Carrying: Consider luggage space and weight, prioritizing lightweight, durable products. Consider mailing services for large plush toys.
Cultural Respect: When purchasing crafts related to Tibetan or other minority cultures, understand their symbolic meaning and treat them with respect.
Let the Panda Be Your Cultural Ambassador Connecting You to Chengdu
A trip to Chengdu begins with the yearning for the black-and-white adorable creatures and ends with souvenirs in hand, carrying countless laughs and cultural warmth. These dazzling array of panda cultural creations are not just cute commodities but also epitomes of Chengdu’s innovative spirit, life aesthetics, and cultural confidence. They pack the leisure, friendliness, and optimism of the Land of Abundance into gifts that can traverse thousands of miles.
From the purest plush hugs at the base to the ingenious everyday objects in the streets and alleys, and further to the artworks blending tradition and the future, each panda souvenir tells a different Chengdu story. When you bring them home, display them on your desk, or use them daily, Chengdu’s sunshine, bamboo shadows, and that lazy, comfortable atmosphere seem to linger around you.
Let us help you find not just a souvenir, but a key to unlocking Chengdu’s cultural memories, an emotional connection that allows you to often reminisce about the infinite charm of this “Panda Capital.” We look forward to traveling with you in Chengdu and bringing back a “panda” full of stories, uniquely yours.
