In White Dragon valley, a delicately made wooden house stands in snow-covered forest, quietly awaiting the arrival of its host, giant panda Hua Mei, to return from the United States to her home in southwest China's Sichuan Province.

The giant panda, daughter of Shi Shi and Bai Yun, a panda couple leased to the San Diego Zoo in California, was born in the United States in 1999 and arrived in Beijing early Thursday for the first time.

Researchers in Sichuan's Wolong Nature Reserve have almost finished preparations for Hua Mei's scheduled arrival Friday after the panda finished quarantine procedures in Beijing.

The wooden shelter was specially made for Hua Mei, said Wei Rongping, assistant to the director of the Wolong-based China Giant Panda Protection and Research Center.

The 16-square-meter, double-walled wooden house stands 0.4 meters above the ground and connects through a walkway to a 120-square-meter paddock surrounded by an iron fence in White Dragon Valley.

The valley is 1 kilometer from the Wolong Nature Reserve, a world-renowned panda habitat and research base, and is surrounded by mountains over 3,000 meters high. No wild animals frequent the place, said Wei Rongping.

The house, built at a cost of 60,000 yuan (US$7,260), has passed quarantine inspections by Sichuan Provincial Import and Export Inspection and Quarantine Bureau.

Heaters would be installed to help Hua Mei adjust to the lowest temperature of -3 degrees centigrade, almost 10 degrees lower than in San Diego, said Wei.

The temperature in the house will remain at 5 degrees centigrade to help the panda acclimatize.

She will also have to drop her American diet of Golden Arrow bamboo and switch to local bamboo, said Wei.

During her stay, Hua Mei will be attended by a panda expert, two feeders and three guards.

She would enjoy the companionship of other pandas after a month of quarantine, said Wang Pengyan, vice-director of Wolong Nature Reserve Administration.

Experts with the reserve have formulated a detailed schedule for Hua Mei's daily routine and reproduction activities.

Hua Mei is the first overseas-born Chinese giant panda to return.

Her parents went to the United States in 1996 as part of a research cooperation program. Under the contract, cubs of the pair belong to China and should be returned after they are three years old.

Hua Mei is the first giant panda to be born with the help of artificial fertilization technology in the United States and survive.

Her father, Shi Shi, returned to Wolong in January last year. Three giant pandas are living in the San Diego Zoo -- Bai Yun, another male Gao Gao, and their son Mei Sheng born last year.

The giant panda is one of the world's most endangered species. Only about 1,000 giant pandas are estimated to live in the wild, all of them in China, with over 140 living in captivity around the world.

Wolong Nature Reserve is in east of Sichuan Province, 130 km from the provincial capital Chengdu, and covers 200,000 hectares. It is China's largest nature reserve for giant pandas. About 140 pandas live in the wild and over 70 in captivity in the reserve.

(Xinhua News Agency February 13, 2004)