The Feel-Good Bulletin: Week Of 13 April

This article originally appeared on VICE Indonesia.

Another day, another 24 hours of quarantine to endure. Give yourself a break from the news of rising death tolls and tasteless remarks from politicians, and relax with some uplifting news.

Ying Ying and Le Le, two pandas at Hong Kong’s Ocean Park Zoo, have mated for the first time ever. The pair, who have lived together since 2007, had worried zookeepers with their lack of intimacy.

This news is especially significant because it is notoriously difficult to get pandas to mate. Female pandas ovulate only once a year, providing just a 36 to 40-hour window for the male to inseminate her. Zookeepers previously attempted to artificially inseminate Ying Ying, but she had a miscarriage.

Without the usual crowd watching their every move, Ying Ying and Le Le started cuddling and eventually mated.

The pandemic didn't stop Japan’s Business Breakthrough University from hosting a ceremony for its graduates, with students receiving diplomas and posing for photos as robot versions of themselves. Students rolled into the ceremony, which was attended only by a few professors and a cameraman, on Newme robots draped in graduation gowns.

Graduates controlled the robots from their respective homes, with their faces appearing in real time on a tablet attached to the robot.

Residents of pollution-heavy cities in India and Indonesia are reporting clear skies and views that are usually obstructed by haze.

In India, Punjab residents shared online that the Himalayas were visible from their homes for the first time in 30 years.

In Indonesia, a netizen shared a screenshot of Jakarta’s new position on Airvisual. On June 25, 2019, Jakarta had the worst air pollution in the world but statistics from last week indicated that Jakarta’s air quality index, which measures the amount of particulate matter, had fallen from 60.3 to 31.2 since October 2019.

This may be good news, but it’s important to remember that even though carbon emissions are down, we are still contributing to climate change due to our increased use of electricity in quarantine.

On April 8, China officially lifted the lockdown on Wuhan, a city of 11 million. The government reactivated public transportation, which had been banned for 76 days. Citizens declared “healthy” via a monitoring app are now allowed to leave the city. Upon the reopening of Wuhan’s borders, 55,000 people left the city.

Wuhan companies are now scrambling to send much-needed surgical masks overseas. Although workplaces have reopened and transportation is back to normal, the government warned Wuhan residents to remain cautious.

Danes have apparently been stocking up on sex toys for quarantine, with Denmark’s largest sex toy website, Sinful, reporting a twofold increase in sex toy sales. The website noted that sex games and toys for couples were particularly popular. The nation’s biggest sex toy review website, Erotik.dk, has also reported three times more traffic than usual this month.