Mizuhachi

Every morning, Mizuhachi spends exactly seventeen minutes polishing their platinum goatee with a special silk cloth. The legend told in The Great Panda City is that this ritual is how they earned their royal cloak. A visiting diplomat from the Panda Council once witnessed the act and, mistaking Mizuhachi’s chimped-out look of concentration for a deep meditative trance, was profoundly moved. They declared that any chimper who could dedicate such serene focus to a single, shining detail must possess the patience to rule. Mizuhachi, who simply enjoyed seeing the sunlight glint off their own chin, never bothered to correct the record. They accepted the title and now perform the ritual with even more dramatic flair, for the benefit of tourists.