SichuanChinaTraveler

“Snake oil salesman” has a negative connotation to most of us. In America, he’s known as a shill, a salesman trying to pull the wool over our eyes with a product that does little to cure what ails us. He usually skips town before the locals realize he’s a phony. Little did I know that snake oil is a traditional Chinese medicine made from the Chinese water snake and it is used to treat joint pain and inflammation. Snake oil is actually sold in traditional Chinese pharmacies. It can also be found at the outdoor market of Shangli, just a mile or so from the Shangli Ancient Town in the Sichuan Province of China. Walking the dirt-topped streets of Shangli, I came across a young gentleman with a pile of dead snakes on a carpet ... read more

The arcade game introduced in 1981 involved frogs crossing a busy street, trying to avoid getting run over by cars. An episode of Seinfeld featured George Castanza playing a human version. Of course, that was TV. In downtown Chengdu, the capital city of Sichuan Province in China, crossing the street is the real-life game of Frogger. ( http://bit.ly/5nAVMA ) No doubt about it, crossing the street in Chengdu is an adventure and in some cases death-defying. “This is a very challenging place to be a pedestrian,” said Rex Viehman of Houston, Texas. A seasoned traveler to Asia, Viehman was visiting Chengdu for the first time and survived his street crossings, where he said pedestrians are the low man on the totem pole and where “bigger is best on the road.” “You’ve got to watch behind ... read more

You can hear him coming. A metal twanging. It’s the ear-picker and he makes music as he walks around soliciting the unusual business of cleaning out people’s ears. Not sure how well this particular career plays out at parties. My guess is it’s an eyebrow raiser. “What do you do for a living?” “Oh, I’m an earwax remover.” On the streets of many U.S. cities, guys trying to make a buck wash your car windows, oftentimes without asking. In Chengdu, the capital city of the Sichuan Province of China, men wash your ears, though thankfully they ask first. The practice might be unique to us but is quite common in Chengdu, particularly in or around tea houses. “Green tea and an ear-cleaning please.” I first crossed paths with a professional ear-cleaner on my first full ... read more