She just made her debut, and this adorable baby panda is already stealing hearts in Tokyo

Xiang Xiang.
(Image credit: YOSHIKAZU TSUNO/AFP/Getty Images)

Two thousand lottery winners in Japan hit the jackpot this week, when they got to be the first people to see Xiang Xiang, a panda cub at Tokyo's Ueno Zoo.

Tens of thousands of people entered the lottery to get a glimpse of the 6-month-old, NHK reports, and on Dec. 19, the lucky winners gathered at the zoo to see the adorable panda and her mother, Shin Shin, play in their enclosure. The zoo plans on limiting Xiang Xiang's exposure to just two-and-a-half hours a day.

When the public was invited to suggest names for the cub, more than 300,000 people sent in their ideas, with Xiang Xiang proposed 5,161 times; Xiang Xiang can mean "fragrance" or "popular." She is the first panda born at the zoo in nearly 20 years. Catherine Garcia

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Catherine Garcia, The Week US

Catherine Garcia is night editor for TheWeek.com. Her writing and reporting has appeared in Entertainment Weekly and EW.com, The New York Times, The Book of Jezebel, and other publications. A Southern California native, Catherine is a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.