It's normal for philosophers to ask 'why are we here'; it takes a boogeyman to ask where 'here' is.
All things are relative, of course, so in most cases 'here' is meaningless unless some context -- implicit or explicit -- is present. We know San Diego is on the west coast of the US. However, this means different things to different people. To those of us in Europe, 'in America' would suffice. To an American, 'in California' could well be the description. To a Californian, 'over there, dude' is the most likely location. In all cases, we think of San Diego as being somewhere relative to where we are; to 'here'.
The nature of Place is brought immediately to mind as we see Ndbag recline in a hamper. The hamper looks familiar; but is it? Is it in Mylene's closet, or in San Diego? Has the closet moved, or just the hamper? Or is it even the same hamper? And if not, does it matter? One might think that one hamper is as good as another, but a few moments' thought will reveal that that's not the case at all. Ndbag may be in a hamper, but he's not in The Hamper. For our boogeyman, the displacement means that while 'here' may be a place that's superficially familiar, it is in fact 'there'; a hamper that's not where it should be.
This confusion of 'here' and 'there' is expanded on in the second panel, where we see an umbrella on the beach. The placement seems odd; it's pointing away from the sea, in a position that logic tells us would have it easily blown down under the influence of the sea breeze. Could the beastie whom we first saw in Episode Ten have anything to do with this unusual positioning? Or could it simply be that Ndbag is visiting the beach in the morning? Pandaman gives us a hint, but it's only in the third panel that we realise the true importance of the umbrella.
As we see the pandas in the zoo, we realise that the sea isn't what's important; it's the fact that the umbrella is pointing to the east. The east, as we know, is synonymous with Asia, but in San Diego China is to the west. Flying almost due west from San Diego will bring you directly to the land of crouching pandas, but a geodesic will have one heading in a more northerly direction. One could make a case, therefore, that China is to the north, east and west. Obviously, given that we all live on an oblate spheroid, one could try adding a southerly component to one's vector, but that would be silly.
By showing us that all roads lead to pandas, Ndbag is reminding us of something that we learned from both Confucius and Buckaroo Banzai. No matter where you go, there you are.
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