Behind the masks

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June 14th 2007

Published: August 7th 2007

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Jabe

Gold mask at Sanxingdui Museum

Sanxingdui lies about 30km north-east of Chengdu and is the site of a museum chronicling extraordinary archaeological discoveries made there 20 years ago. Excavations revealed a settlement of the Ba-Shu culture, a Bronze Age people whose level of advancement challenged the conventional ideas of Chinese civilisation having arisen in the north of the country.

Apart from finely carved pottery and tools, they also created startling bronzes including masks with leering grins and eyes on stalks, strange figures with oversized hands, "trees" with birds on them, and some alien gold masks. No other mention of this civilisation has ever been found.

We also visited Huanglongxi, a town 40km south of Chengdu and famed for its Qing dynasty streets lined with wooden shops - it also featured in "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon". However I found it inferior to the Old Towns of Zhongdian and even Lijiang, not to mention being packed with domestic tourists. It was the most disappointing trip we did from Chengdu.

Near the end of our stay, we attended a variety show put on mainly for (domestic) tourists but containing interesting traditional Chinese skills, e.g. juggling, balancing, acrobatics, musicianship, and shadow-play, as well as more Sichuan-specific ones

Chuanxi face-changers

Variety show

such as chuanxi, the Sichuanese opera form whose 2 main USPs are firebreathing and face-changing. The latter involves the performer changing their mask in the blink of an eye, usually under cover of either passing a fan or cloak in front of their face or, as in the case of one actor who came into the audience, simply stamping his foot. Each section was introduced by a hostess in Mandarin and English, and some rudimentary English "subtitles" scrolled across an electronic screen to one side of the stage during any spoken/sung parts of the performance - which unfortunately didn't explain why a tedious play about a husband being under his wife's thumb caused such audience hilarity.

Dull but possibly useful info
Getting there: See 2 entries ago.
Stayed at: See 2 entries ago.
Ate at: See 2 entries ago.
Notes: i. There is only one morning bus from Xinnanmen to Sanxingdui, at 8:30AM, costing 14 yuan and taking about an hour. The bus goes to the museum (i.e. don't get off in Guanghan). There are various ways to get back, including flagging down buses to Chengdu from the main road outside the museum, or getting a taxi/bus to Guanghan

Bronze tree

Sanxingdui Museum

and changing there.
ii. There are 6 morning buses from Xinnanmen to Huanglongxi with the latest at 11AM. They cost 13 yuan and take about 50 minutes. Buses return from Huanglongxi when they are full and cost 10 yuan.

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John McCabe

Jabe

I quit the rat race in 2005, after working as an IT project manager for over a decade. I then travelled around the world for 4 years, a period of my life which is covered by this blog. After finishing my trip, I wrote a book about my dissatisfaction with my career, my reasons for quitting my job, life as a first-time thirtysomething backpacker, and finally the lessons learned from being exposed to experiences and people that I would never have encountered if I'd stayed in my office. The book is called "Out Of Office Male" and is available at all the usual eBook outlets. I took a ... full info