The most famous 4-year-old in Washington is leaving town, hopping a direct flight to a new life in Beijing.

Tai Shan created quite a stir when he was born. After years of false hope, it seemed like the National Zoo’s resident pandas would never conceive a cub.

And then Tai Shan happened, and the zoo was overwhelmed with visitors trying to catch a glimpse of the the little ball of fur.

As a graduate student I was able to do a story on Tai Shan for our television station. It was probably the easiest story I did the entire semester, thanks to really helpful public affairs people at the zoo.

You’ll see one of them interviewed in the story, I believe her name is Sarah Taylor, but can’t be 100 percent because this version doesn’t have any graphics. Actually, I bet I can use the Internet to find out. Hold please…

Yes, Sarah Taylor. She not only ushered us into the panda area (past crowds of people who had to wait in line with tickets) but also gave me some tapes of great footage to use. Tai Shan was really, really lazy the day we were there, so it was pretty key to be able to get those tapes.

It was also slightly cold, which is pretty evident in my standup. But at least doing a story at the zoo meant I didn’t have to wear a tie.

So here it is, the story from February 2006: