Explore the ancient and storied city of Chengdu, Sichuan province’s capital
Chengdu and the giant panda are inextricably entangled. You can’t escape the black and white creatures: on traffic islands; peering at you from a thousand different items in panda-themed shops; peeking at you from desserts, sweets, drinks, ice-cream and baos; and clambering over giant LED screens in shopping malls, on banners, sculptures, paintings and cartoons. The black-eyed, black-eared rotund creature that awakens the daddy-mummy instinct in the nerdiest to the most withdrawn is everywhere.
Panda-monium
Pandamania is a worldwide phenomenon. Unlike other icons such as Mickey Mouse or Hello Kitty, the comical panda is real, and as clumsily adorable as depicted.
The panda’s natural habitat is the mist-shrouded, highland bamboo forests of Sichuan, of which Chengdu is the capital. In a master stroke of marketing or sheer fortuitousness, Chengdu boasts one of the best places to see pandas up close.
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The officious-sounding Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding is usually sensibly abbreviated to Panda Park or Panda Base. In the public’s imagination, the teddy bear-like giant panda is the only panda, but the red panda can also be seen in the park. Although it shares a name and bamboo diet, it was discovered before the black and white bear and is not genetically related to it at all — red pandas belong to the racoon family.
Panda Park is a 238ha outdoor amusement and recreation centre with the panda as its icon, but sans the painfully manufactured artificiality of a Disney character. The research aspect is an inextricable part of its existence.
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Vendors sell panda trinkets, from keychains and hairbands to purses and bags on the approach to the park entrance. Bright, cheerful and tourist-friendly, with lush bamboo groves, landscaped gardens and ponds, fountains, benches, shuttle buses, cafés, restaurants, museums, theatres, photo-opportunity nooks and rest areas, the park is an ideal venue for family outings.
Pandas are housed in large leafy open-air enclosures separated by a moat from the camera-wielding crowds. They are often sleeping, effortlessly managing to be adorable in slumber.
Pandas need to eat plenty of nutrient-poor bamboo to sustain themselves, and apparently relish mealtimes, chowing down on the fibrous plant as if it were sugarcane. Although the bears have the dental hardware and digestive system of carnivores, they have become virtually full-time vegetarians.
The visitor who comes to Chengdu only to see pandas, however, is missing out on a lot: The vast city of 20 million people, considered China’s most liveable city by the Asian Development Bank, is a Unesco City of Gastronomy.
City essentials
Chengdu offers a contrast to the enormous strides made by the country in recent decades — the modern, vibrant, confident China, versus the old China of people power, drab blue-and-grey outfits, the cult of Chairman Mao and the turbulence of ancient China.
The juxtaposition is evident at Tianfu Square, Chengdu’s equivalent of Beijing’s Tiananmen Square, in the very heart of the city. A towering statue of Chairman Mao with a hand outstretched stands at one end of the vast square, the centre being occupied by a large sunbird logo, the emblem of Chengdu city.
The sunbird was unearthed at the beginning of the 21st century in Jinsha, an archaeological site that yielded a treasure trove from the Ancient Shu kingdom of some 2,000 years ago. Chengdu was the capital of that long-ago kingdom as well.
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From above, one can see the giant yin-yang symbol on the square, with the two circles of the symbol represented by two flying gold dragons.
On one side of Tianfu Square is the Chengdu Museum, a sleekly modern building that resembles a massive, glassy spaceship implanted into the earth.
From the top floor of the museum, the whole of Tianfu Square, and its yin-yang symbolism, can be seen.
The museum is as futuristic as the Chairman Mao statue is retrospective. Within its spacious halls, dioramas, displays of items and pictures depict Chengdu’s many aspects and its rich history, but there are chapters missing, such as the Cultural Revolution and the depopulation of Sichuan in the 17th century. Too sensitive?
A short walk from Tianfu Square is the proletariat-class-sounding People’s Park. Far from being as drab and dull as its name, it is unexpectedly lush, varied and vibrant, with an artificial hillock planted with trees of different-coloured foliage, wending walkways, gardens, lakes and multiple plant sections.
Traditional China is evident here: courtly gentlemen dipping long brushes into water to write beautiful calligraphy on dry paving stones, their writings fading in minutes; ear-cleaning and picking services; anxious parents looking for potential partners for their offspring in the matchmaking section; rowboats for rent at water lily-covered ponds; and tea houses.
In China, the tea house is an institution, a venue for social bonding and gossip. People meet and chat, play mahjong and chess, exercise, nibble melon seeds and drink tea for hours on end here. Chengdu apparently has more tea houses than any city in China, one of the most famous and popular being Heming Tea House in People’s Park.
Shaded by leafy foliage and overlooking the placid lake, Heming Tea House is over a century old, and a victim of its own fame.
You can sit at tables and chairs under an array of umbrellas and partake of a fine selection of teas and “small eats”, but finding a table to relax here can be, ironically, stressful.
Bonus extras
Chengdu’s Wide-Narrow Alley or Kuanzhai Xiangzi is a popular tourist haunt. A residential area during the Qing dynasty period, the area has been reborn as a commercial hub with art galleries, tea houses, shops, cafés and restaurants in its courtyard buildings, and a thriving and lively street of food stalls and vendors.
Throbbing with colour and activity, the narrow streets provide insights into the elegant life of the Qing period, and its graceful architecture and residential design that have been repurposed for 21st-century Chengdu.
Chengdu was the capital of the Shu Han Kingdom, founded by Liu Bei, one of the major characters in the Chinese classic Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Written in the 14th century, this most-admired of Chinese stories was grounded in fact, covering the period of the Three Kingdoms from 184-280AD.
The hugely important novel incorporates many of the values of Chinese tradition: virtue, loyalty, service to the people and the country, courage and morality. In Chengdu, this period of Chinese history and traditional values is commemorated in the most important museum and shrine in the world dedicated to the Romance of the Three Kingdoms.
The Wuhou Shrine in central Chengdu, built in 223AD, is a mandatory stop for Chinese visitors, with a constant stream of schoolchildren and other organised groups.
It is mainly dedicated to one of the towering legends in Chinese history, the military strategist and adviser to Liu Bei, Zhuge Liang, who has been immortalised in countless movies, books, TV series and novels. The building comprises a series of halls and shrines, erected next to the Temple of Liu Bei. The undisturbed mausoleum of Lu Bei, where he was laid to rest 1,700 years ago, is located here. Next to Wuhou Shrine is one of the oldest shopping streets in Sichuan, the 2,000-year-old Jinli Old Street. It is a 500m stretch of shops, restaurants, tea houses and entertainment spots featuring Shu-era food, snacks and souvenirs in a lively reimagining of ancient Chengdu.
There are other traditionally important institutions, such as the Daci Temple and Wenshu Monastery, to visit, as well as modern Chengdu, best exemplified by the 21st-century fashion and razzle-dazzle shops at Tai Koo Li along Chunxi Street.
The distinctive cuisine of Sichuan is famous throughout China for its multitude of dishes, the unique tingle of Sichuan peppers rendering an unforgettable experience at the vast variety of restaurants, spanning Michelin-starred establishments to roadside outdoor hotpot eating venues.
The extensive and inexpensive public transport system makes getting around the city easy. The hundreds of kilometres of highway in Chengdu are plied by six million cars. High-speed trains allow day visits to nearby attractions such as the Leshan Buddha, the Unesco-listed Dujiangyan irrigation system and the bizarrely interesting Sanxingdui archaeological museum.
Chengdu today is a modern metropolis of over 20 million people, a rich mélange of culture, history, a unique cuisine, 21st-century infrastructure and, of course, the giant panda.
