18. Generals and Poets

Our Chengdu tour started with the archaeological sites I mentioned before, then a 'hot' lunch (in the Sichuan sense), and in the afternoon, we visited two shrines, one dedicated to a well-known ancient general and the other to a famous Tang dynasty poet.



The first is a shrine to Wuhou, 武侯祠 (http://www.wuhouci.net.cn/). Wuhou is more popularly known as Zhugeliang 诸葛亮, a prime minister of the kingdom of Shu during the Three Kingdoms period. This temple is built about 200 years after Christ, so we are talking about the time of the Roman empire. Walking through it does give me a feeling of history.

If you are wondering why there is a shrine just for Zhugeliang? I believe it is because Zhugeliang has always been considered one of the geniuses in Chinese history. He was not only smart, resourceful, with wide knowledge of both the literature and military strategies, but also he was known for his dedication. He served the king faithfully till his death just because the king took pains to recruit him. The photo shows his image in the shrine.


In the shrine, there are a series of figures of all the well-known generals that I had read about in my youth. But I'll show you a not-so-well-known one: General Liaohua. There is a Chinese saying that is often quoted: 蜀中无大将，廖化当先锋. (Roughly translated: there are no great generals in Shu so we ended up having to have Liaohua be the leader.) This saying is used in modern day to describe how companies that are so short of talent that they'll draft any one to be a leader. Alas, whether Liaohua was a great general or not of course is debatable and our tour guide, you can see his hand there, insisted that he was unfairly treated by history. C'est la vie!


杜甫草堂 (Dufu's Grass Hut)
Tang dynasty is well-known for its great poets and the 300 Tang Poems, a collection of poems from the period is often found in many Chinese family libraries. Dufu is a prolific and well-regarded poet who happened to live in Sichuan and so they have dedicated this shrine to him. What's interesting is that this place is called simply Dufu's Grass Hut - but it has very nice ponds and rows of bamboos. Ah, the serenity of the place, especially since it was raining when we visited, soothed me.

17. Up on a Tree and Down in the Ground

We flew into Chengdu at night and checked into the Kempinski in the center of the city. The Kempinski is a 5-star hotel but incredibly they turned off the air-conditioning for maintenance for a whole week and the day we arrived, it was hot, humid and no air-conditioning! The first night was therefore, shall we say, a sweaty sultry Sichuan night. Even though the air-conditioning came back next day. I must say we did not find the Kempinski as appealing even though it features some very modern room furnishings.

But this sad start in Chengdu is more than compensated by our agenda the next day. Our new tour guide, a very sincere young man, took us to five wonderful places. I'll start with just two for now: a panda bear reserve and an archeological dig that unearthed vases that seem to have come out of a Mayan (i.e., Mexican) site!



Our first stop was the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding. It is here that the first successful artificially-augmented conception and breeding of giant pandas occurred. This is a world-renowned institute that also allows tourists to both see, and on occasion, to touch and post with the pandas.



On this day, no posing with pandas were allowed but we did catch a few pandas up on a tree. At the time, we also saw six pubs in the nursery. They are about the size of a small dog. It has been rumored that a pair of them has been promised to replace the aging pair in a Hong Kong Park.



Our next stop is the archaeological site known as SanXingDui, literally "Three Star Mound", which is about 45km outside of Chengdu. From this photo, you can see the amount of funding that has been spent to make this into a monumental museum. But I thought that the designer of the museum seems to have forgotten that the figures from the dig should be the star rather than his/her architectural design. For details, see: http://www.china.org.cn/e-sanxingdui/jingtai/6.htm


I took only a few not very good photos. This one shows a major find, a bronze human head that is hollow inside. What struck me was how the features shown do not seem to me to be Chinese but more like Mayan. I think I'll want to do some more research on this interesting site that unearthed no written records.

And that was just for the first morning in Chengdu.