Chengdu

Chengdu

Dujiangyan

The flight from Lhasa to Chengdu is short, about one hour and forty minutes, but we had to leave the hotel early because this was the first domestic flight where each individual in our tour group was responsible for their own overweight luggage fares. This had become an issue beginning in Beijing where a number of the tour members routinely skipped planned events for shopping. Some miscommunication regarding baggage weight restrictions led to the group being over weight by more than a thousand kilograms. Tianjiao paid half the penalty and a collection took up the other half, however following flights were discussed and it was decided that a voluntary levy would cover the penalty from Xi’an to Lhasa, allowing a group check-in procedure to occur but the following two flights (Lhasa to Chengdu and Chengdu to Shanghai) would be individual. If your luggage exceeded the limit you paid your own penalty. The consequence of this is about an additional hour at the airport hence the rush on departing the hotel in Lhasa. We still had time to stop and photograph yaks in Tibet on the way to the airport.

Our arrival in Chengdu presented me with my first personal meltdown. James had arranged another government meeting and after consulting me and the other members on the Organizing Committee, decided it should be shortly after our arrival and before the Sichuan hotpot dinner. My stress came from not finding my luggage with a change of clothes suitable to a meeting with government officials. I did not want to attend wearing shorts and a t-shirt and represent myself as a member of the committee and of the newly created CCEA Canada-China Education Association. My luggage was eventually located and the meeting went ahead as planned.

The Chengdu Education Ministry already partners with a large number of American and Canadian educational institutions but the need for English language training in a city of eleven million people is substantial so the contact is still worth making for future consideration. We exchanged cards and took photos and expressed warm greetings.

After the meeting the committee members joined the rest of the tour group at the Hotpot restaurant. They had just started and I joined in the feast, dipping pork, beef, chicken, greens, and mushrooms into the two boiling broths in the centre of the table. The outer broth was less spicy and the inner broth very spicy. I got up to videotape the feast and upon my return learned that crab had been dumped into the outer broth. I am allergic to crab and carry an epipen for emergency use so I was limited to the inner, spicy pot. I enjoy spicy food and had a dozen more skewers before my tongue and lips could no longer take it. I contented myself with the sweet bun and flatbread and several glasses of Snow beer.

The following day the group departed early for the two-hour drive from Chengdu to the Dujiangyan irrigation system. The journey took us through the beautiful farming districts of the Sichuan basin. We passed rice fields and vegetable gardens and blooming Calla lilies and Hibiscus shrubs. The area closer to Chengdu is built up with a very modern business park with many high tech firms, Chinese and foreign, recently established in Sichuan. The whole area appears prosperous agriculturally and commercially. There doesn’t seem to be large numbers of heavy industries and our guides told us the heavy mist or fog was just that and not pollution. The city itself feels clean and prosperous and was delightful to walk around when we had the chance.

When we arrived at Dujiangyan the bus climbed into the hills that surround the town. When we stopped and got out we looked down at the river and irrigation works. From that vantage the immensity of the project was apparent. We descended a series of stairs to platforms where temples and shrines were dedicated to various ancestors and Buddhas. The irrigation system is two thousand years old and is an ingenious system of water diversion to feed the canal network that has been built across the Sichuan basin that lies meters below the diversion. The original construction was done in heavy bamboo logs and matted and woven surfaces that used the flow of the river to divert from the leading “fishes nose” that thrusts out into the centre of the flow of water. Everyone was thrilled with the opportunity to see this magnificent engineering feat. During the Japanese invasion the site was saved by simply opening all the barriers and flooding the town so the aircraft overhead could not find the target.

We lunched beside one of the main channels in the town and learning that Lao-Tzu, the founder of Taoism, was from the area, Joy and Jennifer decided to do a TaiChi set. Gary joined them and I filmed it.

We departed for Chengdu with a promised stop at a brocade factory. This kind of silk weaving is world famous in Chengdu. The Southern Silk Road to Burma and India originated in Chengdu. The factory is just a show place and has four weaving looms set up. We were late arriving and the staff stayed on just for us. The process is very intricate and the product stunningly beautiful. Jen and I bought several items to decorate our home or give as gifts.

On the bus our guide, affectionately dubbed ‘Harry Potter’ for his look-alike, told us about a possible evening entertainment. There is a street in Chengdu recreated in the ancient fashion, Chingli Street, and it terminates at a large teahouse that has a stage show for entertainment. The whole group decided to attend and take supper outdoors in the teahouse grounds afterward. The show was delightful, more like a variety show although it had been referred to as an ‘Opera’. One act was a knife thrower whose assistant pretends to be cowardly and selects an audience member to be the victim. He chose Stuart. It was a hilarious setup with Stuart blindfolded and no knives really being thrown. Great fun! The concluding act was the famous mask-changing act. The actors change from a white mask, signifying evil, to a red mask, signifying good and loyal, to a black mask, perhaps signifying the terror of everyone, in a flash. You cannot see the hand change the mask. It is so fast!