Chengdu: Wenshou, Wuhou, Sichuan Opera, Laziness, Qingyang Gong, Wholesale Market, Brits/Scots/Irish
October 22:
I slept late again; I think I'm getting sick. Maybe the mosquitoes here backwashed some infected blood into me or something. I found the computer electronics market and bought a plug converter for only 5 kuai. I didn't bother bargaining at that price.
PIC (above): Thousand Buddha Pagoda at Wenshou temple
PIC (below): Garden pool at Wenshou Temple
I went to Wenshou temple, which is close by, and Wuhou temple, which isn't. Both are done in local style, where the temple buildings are done in black and the eaves and details painted in brighter colors. So much color contrast looks really cool with the architecture, and the black wash effect on the roof tiles makes it even cooler. The roofs have really high upturns on their corners, and lots of little details on the posts. One gross thing: in China, worshippers rub the bronze and stone statues for this or that benefit the statue is supposed to bestow. For the kilin statue, some elderly chinese women were picking their earwax and putting it in the ears of the Kilin...
PIC (above): Temple hall detail with lamps, Wenshou
PICS (below): Temple hall, incense burning, temple side hall, kilin statue.
Both places were bustling; Wenshou is a chan (zen) buddhist temple full of worshipers and pilgrims, and Wuhou is a temple to Zhuge Liang, the strategist of the Shu dynasty in the three kingdoms period of China (3rd century CE), but the temple has more images of Liu Bei, Guan Yu, and Zhang Feng than Zhuge Liang. These characters are found in the video game Dynasty Warriors for playstation, so it was cool to see how the character developers used the temple depictions to base their visages in the video games. They did surprisingly well! Liu Bei, the emperor of Shu, is supposedly buried on the site in a mausoleum under a walled mound. The museum at the temple held lots of items from the three kingdoms period, including weapons and art. The statues of Zhuge Liang, Liu Bei and crew were mostly from the 17th century.
PIC (above): Wall around Liu Bei's burial mound, Wuhou
PIC (below): Wuhou Ci water gardens and pavilion
Both temples had exquisite gardens and wonderful bonzai, some shaped like pavilions, jars, animals, in addition to the usual twisted forms. I ate some mouth-numbing spicy snacks on Jin Li, a snack street by Wuhou. The Sichuan peppercorn has an additional effect of numbing/tingling in addition to being spicy; an effect that one has to feel to understand.
PICS (above): The Three Sworn Brothers: Liu Bei, Guan Yu, Zhang Fei
PICS (below): Temple Screen, temple rock and bonzai fountain, Three Kingdoms history exhibit entrance
During the evening, I went to the Sichuan Opera performance, a show which had little opera in it at all, unfortunately. The opening opera, "Fighting Lu Bu" (another figure from Dynasty Warriors), featured terrible actors with sloppy movement. I've never seen such a poorly done Chinese opera scene. The rest of the show included hand shadows (cool), acrobatics (funny), an erhu performance (boring), and three other opera scenes. The second opera was an entertaining physical comedy about a wife extracting punishment from her cheating husband. The third opera was just a display of fire-breathing and face-changing, the two distinct features of Sichuanese opera that for some reason the opera show decided to feature by themselves rather than in context. While the fire-breathing and face-changing impressed me, particularly the latter which involves the actor changing their mask or face makeup simply by turning their head or some fast prestidigitation, I wanted to see a Sichuan Opera that employed these features rather than these features by themselves. The fourth opera transitioned into the end of the show, and the actors took bows while the man sang about travelling across the countryside attracted by the scent of flowers even though...something I don't know because the English subtitle cut off. Anyway, I was a bit disappointed by the poor performance; I wish my hostel would have chosen a better opera to recommend.
PIC (below): Sichuan Opera, "Fighting Lu Bu"
October 23:
I did nothing today. I went out to eat, tasted some tea, had spicy rabbit hotpot and peanut juice to kill the fire, then came back and uploaded pictures.
PIC: Spicy rabbit hotpot and peanut juice!
October 24:
I went to Qingyang Gong, or "Green Ram Temple," today, a Taoist temple. I believe it was the last known destination of Lao Ze during his journey into the west.
PIC (above): Goat Statue and Bagua Pagoda, Qingyang Temple
PIC (below): Main prayer hall, Qingyang Temple
The temple was similar in style to the other two temples in Chengdu, black with bright highlights, an even more exquisite garden and bonzai than the other temples, and lots of ginkgo trees. The statuary was lower quality than the other temples, but the gardens, architecture, and teahouse set the mood and drew me in. Elderly Chinese enraptured in conversation or reading newspapers surrounded me. I had a no-name green tea that was dark and vegetal, and it seemed that I could have brought my own, as many people grabbed empty gaiwans and used their own tea. At the temple's vegetarian restaurant I had fragrant spicy eggplant and stir-fried bitter melon with soy glaze, both very tasty.
PIC (above): Bagua Pavilion, Qingyang Temple
PICS (below): Goat Statue (regular), Goat Statue (combo of zodiac animals), bonzai/topiary, yinyang sign, back prayer hall
3 days here and I really like Chengdu. It's so relaxed, even if it's not that pretty to look at. I find it very easy to spend and waste a lot of time here.
I tried and failed to find the local tea wholesale market. Edward wrote down a good lead for me on a sheet of paper, a produce market in the northern suburbs. I took a taxi, which dropped me off a kilometer away from the place, which he described as being under something else. I walked over a bridge and looked below to find the produce market was under the bridge in a slummy area. I backtracked to the pedestrian street under the bridge and walked by 10 sex shops before reaching the place. The first thing I saw was meat hanging on outdoor racks. I walked inside and saw produce, and asked about tea. I was directed to two stores at the back who sold tea piled on straw mats outdoors. Disgusted and eager to leave the slum, I took a cab back to the hotel, swearing never to drink the tea at the hostel again knowing where it came from.
At night, I had drinks with a Scot and his English wife and two Irish travelers. One of the Irish, Gary, I had seen at the hostel in Xi'an. He's gorgeous, friendly, charming, and straight. Good for him! I felt a bit silly talking with them after a while, because I had so little to say. They were friendly and tried to involve me in their conversations, but often they drifted to Irish/British subjects that excluded me, so it was more interesting to listen.
October 25 (today):
I am definitely sick, so I slept in until 11:00 a.m. I need to get new pants today, but all I've done so far is have lunch (spicy expensive hotpot) and update my journal. So easy to be lazy here: it's so comfortable!
I slept late again; I think I'm getting sick. Maybe the mosquitoes here backwashed some infected blood into me or something. I found the computer electronics market and bought a plug converter for only 5 kuai. I didn't bother bargaining at that price.
PIC (above): Thousand Buddha Pagoda at Wenshou temple
PIC (below): Garden pool at Wenshou Temple
I went to Wenshou temple, which is close by, and Wuhou temple, which isn't. Both are done in local style, where the temple buildings are done in black and the eaves and details painted in brighter colors. So much color contrast looks really cool with the architecture, and the black wash effect on the roof tiles makes it even cooler. The roofs have really high upturns on their corners, and lots of little details on the posts. One gross thing: in China, worshippers rub the bronze and stone statues for this or that benefit the statue is supposed to bestow. For the kilin statue, some elderly chinese women were picking their earwax and putting it in the ears of the Kilin...
PIC (above): Temple hall detail with lamps, Wenshou
PICS (below): Temple hall, incense burning, temple side hall, kilin statue.
Both places were bustling; Wenshou is a chan (zen) buddhist temple full of worshipers and pilgrims, and Wuhou is a temple to Zhuge Liang, the strategist of the Shu dynasty in the three kingdoms period of China (3rd century CE), but the temple has more images of Liu Bei, Guan Yu, and Zhang Feng than Zhuge Liang. These characters are found in the video game Dynasty Warriors for playstation, so it was cool to see how the character developers used the temple depictions to base their visages in the video games. They did surprisingly well! Liu Bei, the emperor of Shu, is supposedly buried on the site in a mausoleum under a walled mound. The museum at the temple held lots of items from the three kingdoms period, including weapons and art. The statues of Zhuge Liang, Liu Bei and crew were mostly from the 17th century.
PIC (above): Wall around Liu Bei's burial mound, Wuhou
PIC (below): Wuhou Ci water gardens and pavilion
Both temples had exquisite gardens and wonderful bonzai, some shaped like pavilions, jars, animals, in addition to the usual twisted forms. I ate some mouth-numbing spicy snacks on Jin Li, a snack street by Wuhou. The Sichuan peppercorn has an additional effect of numbing/tingling in addition to being spicy; an effect that one has to feel to understand.
PICS (above): The Three Sworn Brothers: Liu Bei, Guan Yu, Zhang Fei
PICS (below): Temple Screen, temple rock and bonzai fountain, Three Kingdoms history exhibit entrance
During the evening, I went to the Sichuan Opera performance, a show which had little opera in it at all, unfortunately. The opening opera, "Fighting Lu Bu" (another figure from Dynasty Warriors), featured terrible actors with sloppy movement. I've never seen such a poorly done Chinese opera scene. The rest of the show included hand shadows (cool), acrobatics (funny), an erhu performance (boring), and three other opera scenes. The second opera was an entertaining physical comedy about a wife extracting punishment from her cheating husband. The third opera was just a display of fire-breathing and face-changing, the two distinct features of Sichuanese opera that for some reason the opera show decided to feature by themselves rather than in context. While the fire-breathing and face-changing impressed me, particularly the latter which involves the actor changing their mask or face makeup simply by turning their head or some fast prestidigitation, I wanted to see a Sichuan Opera that employed these features rather than these features by themselves. The fourth opera transitioned into the end of the show, and the actors took bows while the man sang about travelling across the countryside attracted by the scent of flowers even though...something I don't know because the English subtitle cut off. Anyway, I was a bit disappointed by the poor performance; I wish my hostel would have chosen a better opera to recommend.
PIC (below): Sichuan Opera, "Fighting Lu Bu"
October 23:
I did nothing today. I went out to eat, tasted some tea, had spicy rabbit hotpot and peanut juice to kill the fire, then came back and uploaded pictures.
PIC: Spicy rabbit hotpot and peanut juice!
October 24:
I went to Qingyang Gong, or "Green Ram Temple," today, a Taoist temple. I believe it was the last known destination of Lao Ze during his journey into the west.
PIC (above): Goat Statue and Bagua Pagoda, Qingyang Temple
PIC (below): Main prayer hall, Qingyang Temple
The temple was similar in style to the other two temples in Chengdu, black with bright highlights, an even more exquisite garden and bonzai than the other temples, and lots of ginkgo trees. The statuary was lower quality than the other temples, but the gardens, architecture, and teahouse set the mood and drew me in. Elderly Chinese enraptured in conversation or reading newspapers surrounded me. I had a no-name green tea that was dark and vegetal, and it seemed that I could have brought my own, as many people grabbed empty gaiwans and used their own tea. At the temple's vegetarian restaurant I had fragrant spicy eggplant and stir-fried bitter melon with soy glaze, both very tasty.
PIC (above): Bagua Pavilion, Qingyang Temple
PICS (below): Goat Statue (regular), Goat Statue (combo of zodiac animals), bonzai/topiary, yinyang sign, back prayer hall
3 days here and I really like Chengdu. It's so relaxed, even if it's not that pretty to look at. I find it very easy to spend and waste a lot of time here.
I tried and failed to find the local tea wholesale market. Edward wrote down a good lead for me on a sheet of paper, a produce market in the northern suburbs. I took a taxi, which dropped me off a kilometer away from the place, which he described as being under something else. I walked over a bridge and looked below to find the produce market was under the bridge in a slummy area. I backtracked to the pedestrian street under the bridge and walked by 10 sex shops before reaching the place. The first thing I saw was meat hanging on outdoor racks. I walked inside and saw produce, and asked about tea. I was directed to two stores at the back who sold tea piled on straw mats outdoors. Disgusted and eager to leave the slum, I took a cab back to the hotel, swearing never to drink the tea at the hostel again knowing where it came from.
At night, I had drinks with a Scot and his English wife and two Irish travelers. One of the Irish, Gary, I had seen at the hostel in Xi'an. He's gorgeous, friendly, charming, and straight. Good for him! I felt a bit silly talking with them after a while, because I had so little to say. They were friendly and tried to involve me in their conversations, but often they drifted to Irish/British subjects that excluded me, so it was more interesting to listen.
October 25 (today):
I am definitely sick, so I slept in until 11:00 a.m. I need to get new pants today, but all I've done so far is have lunch (spicy expensive hotpot) and update my journal. So easy to be lazy here: it's so comfortable!