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Published: January 17th 2008
Chengdu: Sex, Drugs and Hot Pot
Beyond Langmusi, hemmed inside a narrow valley cutting south past sleepy villages, the road weaves into north Sichuan. After Songpan, the road climbs higher and higher into the western reaches of the Tibetan plateau, a spectacular drive made all the more enjoyable by the enforced no-smoking policy. In fact, one beligerent old man is booed off the coach for refusing to extinguish his cigarette. The policy holds until the last hour of the ride when stuck in traffic on Chengdu's outer ring road, the driver can contain himself no longer. It was fine weather when we left Songpan, the sunlight creeping over the hills. I kick myself for not staying another day to hike into the grasslands or find a horse trekking tour. The weather is changing and I know there'll be few other occasions to use my tent and camping stove.
Chengdu is crowded and noisy and strung together with the most aggressive roads. The traffic lights are a mere suggestion and bus drivers, taxis, automobiles, rickshaws feel no qualms in careening through a busy
zebra crossing. Using one's breaks is to admit defeat. Chengdu, China's top tourist city reads a colossal
jade ornament, Jinsha Site Museum, Chengdu
Jinsha Site was discovered in Chengdu in 2001 and was opened in 2006 in an imperially beautiful and expensive museummonument, a testament to the nearby Giant Pandas and Giant Buddha, the world's cutest and largest respectively. The Chinese have no shame and in Chengdu this fact is amplified where spitting, littering, talking ten metres louder than necessary, staring, leaving young children to dump or urinate on the curb, easily executed through crotchless trousers are common sight. Sichuan is world famous for its cuisine and I soon discover the three secrets of which are peppers
lajou, oil and MSG, hot, fast and dehydrating.
The advantage of a big city, 11 million strong in this case, is the new class of urban dwellers thirsting and striving for all things sleek, sexy and European, including an abundance of cafes. These watering holes are put to good use during my stay, filling the downtime between tourist sights and offering reclusion from the hectic flow of wheeled and foot traffic. Wrapped in a second floor arm chair I am afforded a little distance from the scene and realize how odd I must appear in that black haired current. I spy a middle aged westerner in a bright dress trying to ford the current of hondas and cycle rickshaws, tip-toeing frantically towards the curb.
Panda Research Centre, Chengdu
i didn't see him doing much research Like all provincial capitals in the PRC, the ring road map highlights temples, tombs, museums and risen from the ashes psuedo-antique Qing dynasty neighbourhoods. In the city's north-west lies a curious museum, newly opened and constructed on a grand scale. Old neighbourhoods fall to the wrecking ball, tall cranes erect high rises and twinkling shopping malls along wide boulevards unearthing in the city's renovation, the "Jinsha Site".A futuristic glass and steel stadium protects the scrubbed archaeological remains among a landscaped park of flagstone paths meandering through alien looking bamboo groves to a children's playground, a classical fountain and to the museum proper, a vast space of concrete, gift shops, elevators, water closets and a couple exhibition halls displaying jade ceremonial pieces and gold masks worn by shamans. The skill of the Shu Kingdom's sculptors was highly advanced. Though fewer pieces were unearthed compared to he nearby site of Sanxingdui, the colossal new buildings suggest the government's pride in Sichuan's bronze history, distinct and foreign to Ancient China's Middle Kingdom civilization. Throughout the city I begin to notice hotel and department store emblems and high rise designs using familiar symbols and images of the Shou dynasty, in particular a gold disc
captivity, Pandas in Chengdu
Pandas in the wild have proven less capable of procreation. this year alone 4 cubs were born in captivity in Chengdu cut at the centre with an incised spiraling sun bordered by four or five phoenixes. Today, the luxe society of Chengdu is found in cafes, bars, shopping malls and a swank cinema, where for 5$, I am ushered out of a red light lounge to a small theatre with fewer than a dozen rows of chairs, black leather over-sized arm chairs, each with its own side table. I treat myself to a bag of goodies from the basement Carre-Four, a French supermarket stocked with neither cheese nor pastries, and take in an easily forgettable American romance, the only undubbed film on offer, starring Catherine Zeta-Jones as a control freak French Chef opposite a string of cliches. No visit to Chengdu is complete without a visit to the nearby Giant Panda Breeding Research Centre. Mid-October, although the tour groups know full well to visit late morning at feeding time, the park is not too crowded. They file past in Thai, in Russian, in Alabama drawl, under the charge of guides their arms raised aloft waving bright yellow flags. I enjoy the moments alone with the bears believing they are watching me watching them munch euphorically on bamboo shoots. It’s true what
I overhear a group of confederates commenting, that these Pandas look unreal. They proceed to humanize the bears, dubbing their breakfast as a couple of couch potatoes sharing a six pack, bamboo sheaths piling on their bellies. I detest TV shows with human voice over to adorable animal antics. I consider the unreality of the scene and wonder just how true to nature are these captive bread beasts. The media bombards us with panda images, whether cartoon or WWF, such that encountered with the true form, the experience lacks conviction. I spend the next few hours hunched over the bars never ceasing to be amazed.
A return to urban life offers a chance to investigate the local gay scene courtesy an informative English language website the CCP doesn’t seem to mind much. Gay clubs are well disguised in most of mainland China apart from Shanghai. Even with the site’s directions it takes me an hour circling the glitzy new shopping district and its darker nooks and crannies. I find the correct complex and show a few shopkeepers the address written in Chinese characters no less and they all seem to think it is around the next corner. The fact
lesser panda, Research Centre, Chengdu
one of twenty or so in a large compound seperated from viewers by a low hedge and moat - and no fencing! they point in opposite directions doesn’t seem to diminish their sense of authority and confidence. So after several similar conversations in the book store, the bowling alley, the noodle shops, the taxi stand, parking attendants, the news shops, waiters, confident I’ve met nearly everyone in the neighbourhood, I find a security guard who eyes my slip of paper and quickly rushes me to the back elevator of the complex. Urban gays the world over shop from the same catalogue and I recognize a group of youths in tight tops and gelled hair waiting at the lift as a sure sign I'm at last headed in the right direction. Down a dank third floor hall with rusting pipes and wet walls, a chase scene out of a kung fu flick, a curtained doorway leads to swanky club with glass partitions, tall glass cocktail tables and lower tables surrounded by black leather sofas all facing a raised catwalk and light with red neon and hidden glazed bulbs. I take my position at the bar to one end of the party and watch the crowds filtering in, the usual effeminate hugs and kisses and high pitched glees, a handful of quiet lesbians or
fag hags keep to them selves. Drag queens serve drinks and sculpted fruit trays. A few dancers take the stage, anorexic young twinks dressed like Asian Britney Spears working out a poorly choreographed hip hop number saved by two handsome youths whose abs have most of the spot light. The show drags on for some two hours, at times painful, comedic, verging on pornographic but all the while strangely entertaining, the more so when I'm invited to join a table of locals whom despite their lack of English skills want to share a fun evening with a stranger. One of the fellows speaks some Japanese and introduces me to the gang. A young man approaches him and my hand instinctively reaches for his face and graces his smooth cheek. His face is very attractive. They pour me glass after glass of beer then whisky cokes, forbid me to pay, offer smokes or fruit slices and forgive me my poor skills at their game of dice. I hit it off with the young handsome face who works in television, some kind of trendy current affairs show. I had judged the Chinese a greedy society who respected money and for that reason
first act, Sichuan Opera
a lot of spinning, tumbling, costumes and fire breathing but absolutely no singing alone would ‘befriend’ a foreigner. And here was a group of my peers who’d invited a stranger into their circle and shown him a grand time for free. I couldn’t imagine the same occurring back in Canada. The drag queens continue to serenade their partying clientel, many of them regulars and in this small community, good friends. Mama, the MC of the night’s show, well past her prime but like a good wine finding better taste with age, clinks glasses with us between sets. “Gambei!” we all shout with raised shots, seat swapping, dice playing and steeling hidden caresses. A drunken Kosan, the Japanese translation of my young TV announcer host, drives us back to his apartment near the South train station aboard his electric scooter, both of singing and me screaming at taxi cabs as he swervs along the early morning pedestrians malls. I never head to the bars intending to pick up. Such an attitude leads to disappointment or disaster. And what with the expensive lighting, flashy entertainment and alcohol, either too much makes for a pair of beer goggles or too little leaves you with a sobered and dog faced surprise the moment you step out the
bar into the dawn glow and it’s slap in the face fresh air. Zipping through a red light I blow a traffic cop a kiss good night. Being a bit of a mincer I'm surprised Kosan is not out to his two roommates, two young women also from his native Yunnan, one a hotel receptionist, the other working for the same TV network. And nobody in the room questions the appearance of a stranger he’s brought back from the bar. Kosan is neither muscular nor slim, but a beautiful average, graceful and strong and self possessed. My only qualm is his smoking which he treats like an Olympian does sport.
I spend all next day with Kosan and Sophia, enjoying a home cooked brunch of fried rice, chicken, ham, an ocra dish that doesn’t taste half bad. Most of the day is finished before we start out. The Art Museum will have to wait for another day, its bookstore full of gorgeous prints too cumbersome for a backpacker. We meet up with a couple of their mates, two stocky guys, one with a scar of a knife wound where he’d had his mouth sliced open, the other toting a heavy
Kosan & Sophie, Chendu
my hosts for a fun-filled weekend digital camera. They lead us to People’s Park, filled to capacity on a late Sunday afternoon, every bench, every gazebo, every trail, teahouse and square occupied with loud groups of gamblers, extended families, old friends, dancing, singing. I'm encouraged onto a stage and made to dance with a half dozen middle aged house wives, their husbands cleverly absent. For dinner we catch a bus across the river to a block of flashy restaurants specializing in hotpot. A ceramic pot is placed on a sunken burner in the table’s middle. A whole duck is boiled while we sip beers until the meat can be pulled easily from the bone with chop sticks. Several smaller dishes follow, wood ear mushrooms, greens, bamboo, pork balls, tofu, lotus root, each then dipped in various hot sauces. The evening continues on Jinli folk street, a refurbished Qing dynasty back road of swanky watering holes aglow with red lanterns. Fifteen of us squish around a corner table sipping gin and tonic. I watch in amazement a strange Chinese version of charades, the opponents watching the silent scene and required to piece together a five syllable phrase.
Later that week back in the dorm in Traffic
People's Park, Chengdu
dragged onto stage to dance with several women Hotel, I recognize Christine, a Swiss nurse I first met in Chitral near the Afghan border. Over whiskey and cokes she recounts her trip across Tibet, from its treacherous west entry on the Xinjiang border. Despite the official reports that foreigners are not permitted on this route, she spied several western cyclists making the climb. Christine made a pilgrimage to Mount Kalash just before the first heavy snows closed it down. She fetched her permit in Alia where an unleashed dog had bit her and she was forced to seek medical treatment for fear the hound was rabid. She tells me Lhassa was big and Chinese and left the small town Tibetan pilgrims in awe. She made a few visits to outer lying temples aboard public buses but ran into increasing problems with travel agents and officials and permits for this and that. Tibet is quickly losing its charm to over-priced permits, tour groups and a mass influx of visitors aboard the new rail line. She went thinking it would only get worse in the future. We find a Spanish bar down Renmin Nan Lu and drink until closing time seated in a booth next to two young men plying
their dates until both girls puke under the table, pass out and have to be dragged out to the curb. Christine isn’t doing much sight seeing. Instead she's preparing the next jaunt in her Asia tour, determined to finish on a high note, having lost much of her enthusiasm confronting China’s processing line tourism industry, she’s found herself a decent mountain bike and panniers and will set off for Vietnam and Cambodia. She plans to pack her bike aboard the rails to Nanning from where two long days of cycling will bring her to the border. I admire Christine’s patience and perseverance and faith in her ability to solve each day’s new problems. She speaks not a word of Chinese and does not consider this a hindrance, merely a challenge.
While dealing with the PSB who arrange visa extensions, I bump into Sean, a Kiwi I toured with in several Pakistani towns and in Kashgar. The one week wait dissuaded him but I figure I can visit Leshan or keep myself occupied in the big city for a few more days. Together we spend the late afternoon exploring the halls and gardens of Wuhou Temple, a series of courtyards,
a lily pond shifting with decaying stems, several Qing dynasty structures, a bonsai garden and a simple mausoleum to honour Emperor Liu Bei, his son, grandson and Zhugeliang, his military aid, a famous scholar and strategist, each of them represented with life like painted statues frozen behind glass. With a buddy of Sean’s, Thomas, a slim dark Goth from the Paris banlieu, head to toe black fashion with a V neck revealing tattoo art, long black hair and glassy eyes and wrists adorned with silver dragon bracelets, a curious sight in China, the three of us treat ourselves to a feast of strange street stall food. When the temple closes the side street buzzes with tourist traffic jostling for a plate of dragon’s toe, eight treasure porridge, puve and nutvicious soup, three big bombs, well received black rice, dragon’s hair and myriad dishes lost in translation. Thomas leads us to the riverside past a hotel in the shape of a beached cruise ship to a reggae bar, Jahba, named for the Rastafarian god. After a second round of Tsingtao enjoyed on low couches in a cozy loft and serenaded by garage band talent, we join some of Thomas’ buds. Terry
People's Park, Chengdu
... okay, can we stop now? No? I have to sing? and Carl, an Irishman and a fellow Canadian, the former busy rolling a joint, invite us to lounge on rattan furniture in the car park. Stoned or not I can't understand half of what the Mick is trying to say and by Carl’s wide grin, I guess he spends most nights with Terry understanding very little. I will be turning thirty by week’s end and look on the evening as a celebration. Inside, the open mic musicians take a rest to play dice where I seize the opportunity to at last learn to play this ever popular game. We dance to reggae tunes and the young barmaid rolls herself and I a joint while her girlfriend fetches a tea set so I can serve us all some ginseng-oolong tea I bought earlier in the day on a side street filled with religious kitsch and Tibetan paraphernalia. Not a bad birthday. I wish Sean a good night and safe trip and leave him chilling with the two barmaid ‘Marys’ as he calls them.
Leshan: Further Studies in Buddhism
Leshan, inhabited by some three million and pilgrimage of a half dozen historical sites dating to the Qi, Han and Tang
you are here
The People's Park Unimpedient Alleyway Sketch Map dynasties, including Dafo, the world’s largest stone Buddha image, ensuring a year round tourism trade, is not, however, worthy of a Starbucks outlet nor any other café much to the chagrin of my recently rewired caffeine addiction. Coach stations have moved and a local ferry shuttle has disappeared in the years since my guide was published. Much has changed and the ever growing skyline over which perch construction cranes suggests the local economy will only continue to boom after already a millennium of relative wealth. The labyrinth of tall tree lined avenues sloping down to the Min and Dadu Rivers is pleasurably unlike most other Chinese cities. Nor are the trees only recently planted in anticipation of the much advertised Beijing Olympics. The canopied curbs appear lived in and remind me of my hometown, Vancouver. But that’s where the similarities end. Not a single café nor restaurant terrace invites customers to sit, dine, relax, people watch or fend off beggars. Not a single tea shop or noodle shop interrupts the monotony of little boutiques selling frilly ladies wear. Simple canteens are relegated to side alleys. As night falls a crowd gathers in a square hidden beyond a row of trees
hot pot, Chengdu
definitely not to be missed while visiting Sichuan, we began with a whole duck, followed by other thin cliced meats, veg, tofu and finally dark red cubed blood sausage. and a wide slumbering fountain to watch an 80s kung fu flick on a blurry digital screen, each pixel the size of my hand. The rest of the populace when at leisure are to be found strolling along the riverside where they’ve option to join a chorus group or hip-hop or traditional dance in pairs or en masse. Leshan is charming if you go out for these things.
Across from the hotel strip park tour buses emptying their contents through a ticket booth where each is vested in a bright orange life preserver and corralled onto the top deck of a tour boat. The engines rev and a caravan of two or three cruisers takes to the current, the white ships glistening with man-sized mandarins in an otherwise grey landscape. A quick ride brings the tourists across to the world’s largest Buddha, yet another commission of Empress Wu, whom after conspiring and murdering a hundred plus members of the court, including her own sister, so to ensure her lineage would remain on the throne, erected countless religious edifices that might attest to her piety and safeguard her entry into heaven. At the foot of Dafo the boats chug menacingly
People's Park, Chengdu
I asked them to strike a pose but Madonna hasn't entered their vocabulary yet against the strong current allowing each bright orange tourist ten minutes of blissful photo snapping while a megaphone triumphs over the din with an informative lecture on the history and dimensions of the great world wonder. Today’s China owes a great deal to Empress Wu considering all the tourist sights she once erected as holy pilgrimage sites. Alone the boat ride to Dafo provides enough income to manage a small country. At 50RMB a pop, twenty-five tourists to a boat, ten boats each hour, ten hours in the day - and all this calculated from a day midweek in late October, without deducting fuel, maintenance, and labour costs, oner day generates 125,000RMB, or roughly 16,000$US. I took a local bus for 1RMB. At the last stop a ticket booth awaits me leading to a hilltop prayer halls reached on a stone path climbing lush slopes, plum scent garden, river flow pavilion, a rockery. English signs enlighten western visitors as to the four ferocious guardians seen everywhere by temple gates, both in China and Tibet.
At the last stop a ticket booth awaits me leading to a hilltop prayer halls reached on a stone path climbing lush slopes, plum scent
garden, river flow pavilion, a rockery. English signs enlighten western visitors as to the four ferocious guardians seen everywhere by temple gates, both in China and Tibet. The four heavenly kings safeguard the four corners of the world, to the east resides a black bearded fellow playing a pipa, something like a mandolin, which I presume he plays loud and poorly to ward off enemies of sensitive hearing; to the south stands a menacing swordsman; in the west a heavenly king holds sway with a dragon, in the north he holds a loft an umbrella, a rather practical fellow I imagine something of a Mary Poppins. Wuyou temple appears something of a monastery with a half dozen red robed men scurrying to and fro, cleaning altars, sweeping, chanting, eating, watching me watching them. The main hall houses a gold plated statue of Mituo, or in Sanskrit, Amitabha, “the Buddha of immeasurable long life and fortune or glory”. Apparently one cannot have both. Buddhism is strange, at least the Chinese version, confusing and self contradicting. The simple basic truth states that life is suffering, and therefore we ought to seek detachment from material and sensual pleasure. However, pilgrims bow before images
of Buddha or Boddhistavas, guardians, kings or angles, to pray for wealth or success, health or long life. Perhaps this is only logical though, for who would wish a loved one, may you escape your withering body and end this dillusional world. Next door, Luohan Hall, a twentieth century addition, houses a thousand Arhats posed in meditation around a central Buddha. Each and every Arhat is depicted unique in pose, dress, age and expression, some scowl, others laugh and one or two break into dance moves. Below Wuyou Shan, descending the path through palms and ferns and moss covered rock faces, a delightfully oriental bridge as would be expected in Xanadu, spans a river overgrown with vegetable plots, leading beneath tiled pavilions along dragon carved railings to the Mahao Cave tombs dating to the East Han dynasty of the first and second century A.D. The few caves within the museum grounds, their rock carvings, sarcophagi and collection of artifacts reveal that some two thousand years ago a wealthy class emerged, owners of the local salt and iron mines. Carved in the rock face like rooms, the burial chambers, six to ten metres deep, three metres across and two metres high,
once housed stone, wood or ceramic coffins as well as bowls, cups and carved depictions of daily life, pet animals, fishing scenes, musicians, all to ensure a pleasant nonexistence in the afterlife. Four curious figures emerge as a common theme, all of them familiar to me from Xián’s stele museum, each protecting his corner of the world, the rosefinch or scarlet sparrow, white tiger, black dragon and Xuanwu, a divine leviathan, its head and tail that of a snake and a body of a tortoise. Few visitors venture as far as the tombs, fewer still to the mountain perched Wuyou temple but descending a path hewn into the cliff face leading to the Grand Buddha, I meet the seething cargo of the tourist buses in a snaking trail of metal girders guiding the sightseers like sheep to a slaughter, the sort of tourist’s maze found at world expositions, Neueschwanstein or Disney Land. Beyond the crowds I bide my time wandering the extensive gardens of Dafo Temple, also dating to the Tang Dynasty, pavilions dedicated to whispering dragons, lotus blossoms, a poet, and gazebos, tea houses, prayer halls and courtyards hidden in bamboo thickets, a measured distance from the ticket booths
Sky Road: the train arrives in Lhasa
Sichuan Provincial Art Museum - BS propoganda in the guise of fine art where one might still contemplate the tranquil beauty of the centuries old Buddhist paradise. Within Dafo’s splendid sanctuary I study the names and symbols of those to whom so many sinners flock with flowers and incense.
Sakyamuni is said to have three bodies named Fashen, Baoshen and Yingshen, each in turn refers to images of Buddhist doctrines, intelligence and virtues. Fashen, or Pilushena, symbolizes Mahavairocana, Buddhism illuminating all over the world. Baosehn, or Lushena, symbolizes vairocana, intelligence in saving oneself. Yingshen, or Sakyamuni, the most common image, advocates social virtue or good deeds.
Buddha Wenshu, one of the four most common Buddhas in Chinese temples, from the Sanskrit,
Manjusri, means virtues or good fortunes. Because of his great wisdom, he is regarded as mother and teacher of Buddhas according to Huayan scriptures. He abides atop sacred Mount Wutai.
Buddha Puxian, as well a common Buddha to Chinese temples, derived from
Samantabhadra, means universal philanthropy. In scripture, he represents actions or hard work, as he is devoted to Buddhism and its education. His sanctum is found in Sichuan, atop Mount Emei, a short bus ride away.
Buddha Guanyin, whom I find the most interesting for her centuries prolonged sex change
when introduced and fused with native Chinese philosophy, known in the Sanskrit,
Avolokitesvara, one of the the three saints of the west, is the Buddha of Mercy, who can magically change into thirty-three different images depending on what circumstance necessitate, and save people and bring them to the western paradise. He/ she is found among the jeweled palaces on Mount Putuo, a weekend getaway from Shanghai.
Buddha Dicang, or
Ksitigarbha, means to bear tortures deep in the heart and tobe calm as the earth. Asked by Sakyamuni to save the people, Dicang vowed not to be a Buddha until he had successfully led everyone to act without sin. For this he is regarded as a Buddha who saves people in life and in death. His address is atop the chilly peaks of Jiuhuashan.
Dashizhi,
Mahasthamaprapta, means most powerful. He illuminates the entire world with his wisdom and makes the three evils, greed, ignorance an anger, powerless. Dashizi together with Guanyin and Amithaba are seen as the three saints in the west.
18 Arhats are the disciples of Sakyamuni, whom he asked to remain on earth to safeguard Buddhism and serve humankind.
I stand in line, bumping and jostling with
bar staff, reggae bar, Chengdu
a wonderful place to celebrate my 30th the tour groups, and spy two German girls who after descending to the first viewing platform are overcome with fear of being squished in the crowd and wriggle their way back up a narrow slippery staircase. Study carp in a pond and you will better understand how to navigate Chinese crowds, whether queuing for cultural relics or commuting in heavy traffic. Carp do not brake, they swerve and sometimes brush each other. At 71m the Grand Buddha is the world’s largest, at least until the Taliban make inroads to the far east. A sign posted along the staircase states that a visiting UN commissioner compared th Great Buddha at Leshan to the Pyramids of Giza, calling it one of the eight great wonders of the world. I can only assume the diplomat was Chinese and had never set foot in Egypt. There are no dromedaries, no desert landscape, no hidden vaults, no baffling tales of its engineering. A trip to Giza completely enraptures you while a visit to Leshan, passing stall after stall of cheap trinkets, I can’t help but think, bin’ there done that.
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lucy
non-member comment
help please
hi, your blog is really useful thank you. I wonder if you may be able to help. I'm in china this summer and want to seethe terracota army at xian (have you been - how long should we stay in xian?) and then want to come to chengdu and leshan national park for a bit. What is the best way to get from xian to chengdu? then chengdu to leshan? We want it cheap and we're only in china for 1 month. If you could help that would be great as you seem to be a right expert! I'd appreciate it if you could e-mail me back. Thanks so much.