Chengdu, China – October 23, 2010
We arrived in Chengdu and went directly to our main destination, the Giant Panda Breeding and Research Base. It seemed strange flying in for just one thing but it was indeed well worth it. The Base is very large and their sole purpose is to protect and breed giant pandas and red pandas. They have had close to 100 babies born since they opened so seem to be doing well. The only problem is that they cannot seem to find a way to release them back into the wild. Once at the base they seem to stay or go to other locations.
The park itself is beautiful and peaceful with lots of trees and plants and flowers and water features. White Swan Lake was the largest lake and it seemed to be just on the edge of the panda area and there were other buildings and activities on the other side of the lake. I don’t know if they were part of the panda research. There was a 20-minute movie at the end of the tour (or the beginning depending on your route I guess). It was really interesting and went through all of the life stages of a panda. Basically pandas live alone and mark their own territory, as opposed to living in family units. When the season is right, the adult males and females mate but apparently they are very picky about their mates. The female then goes back to her territory and has her baby and raises it on her own. A baby panda is 1/1000 of the weight of an adult panda and the mother must be with the baby for 3 consecutive months before it can really move about on its own. The mother can only handle one baby at a time so when twins arrive, the mother generally just picks one and lets the other die. And not all mothers have motherly skills so the babies often do not survive the first few months, or even the first few days. The one video was of the mother pawing at the baby and slapping it around the floor of the compound as if it was a foreign object. The staff members distract the mother and then rush in and rescue the baby and raise it from that point.
The nursery area was very crowded but there was one big crib we could see and there were three little pandas sleeping in it. These pandas look like pandas and have hair and the correct colouring so they must be at least a couple months old, but probably no more than a year. (Pandas are hairless when born and it takes about three months for them to get the black and white colouring.) They seemed to be sleeping very peacefully despite all the racket going on outside their window. People were crowded 4-5 deep trying to catch a glimpse of them. I wanted to suggest that they put a mirror over the crib and then everyone would be able to see them but I didn’t know who to talk to.
The slightly older pandas were out in one of the nearby compounds putting on a real show for us. There were at least four in the one area and they were fighting and playing and rolling around the grass and climbing over the wooden structures. They were having a wonderful time playing with each other – just like typical kids – and they were so cute to watch. There was a camera crew out there filming them but the crew members had to frequently jump or run out of their way because the pandas, especially one of the lively playful ones, tried to grab their legs. I’m sure that one was a male because he was a real trouble maker. He was after everyone and just demanded to be watched. Within the compounds they have wooden structures for the pandas to climb and play and sleep on. This guy would start roughing it up with the others and eventually one of them would start slipping through the structure. They would tumble lightly to the ground and roll. A couple times they would get up and then just kept rolling, like a kid rolling down a hill side or doing summersaults. They were a lot of fun to watch.
The older pandas were indeed giant pandas. They were huge – not that we ever saw one of them stand up. They were either in a tree or on one of the wooden structures or on the ground sleeping or eating. Pandas eat for about 17 hours per day and consume over 20 kg of bamboo each day. The rest of the time they sleep, and they certainly get into some strange positions to sleep but obviously they are comfortable.
The centre also has red pandas. The first one we saw was walking through the ditch area and by its colour I thought it was fox. The next time I saw one though, I thought it was a raccoon. When you see it up close you can tell that it is related to the panda in some of its facial features but it is definitely also related to the raccoon. In fact it is also related to the bear and even resembles the cat family. It seems to be a mixed up creature with red fur, shorter front legs, a long bushy striped tail, round face and ears, and very black eyes on a white face with black tears on it. He’s a strange creature but cute nonetheless.
Chengdu has a population of 12 million people. According to our local tour guide it is always cloudy and foggy (it’s not smog) and they average about 3 hours of sunshine per day. It used to be a very smoggy city but the factories have all moved out of the main city area and they all have new environmental standards to meet. The taxis and buses all now run on natural gas and cars are encouraged to do the same. The city is surrounded by mountains on all sides so any fog (or smog) gets trapped in the valley. The surrounding area is very productive agricultural land and produces enough food to feed all of China for a year. The main products are rice, tea, wheat and corn. Because there are over 100 rivers in the area it is very humid and farmers can often get four crops per year.
Our local tour guide says Chengdu is famous for five things. 1 – Sichuan food, 2 – Tea, green and jasmine specifically, which they have indoors, outdoors, at home and at the opera, 3 – Sichuan Opera, which I’ll discuss in more detail later, 4 – Rice wine, and 5 – Medicine, both Chinese herbs and western medicine. One of their hospitals has 4,000 beds and handles 20,000 outpatients (dah, I don’t have a period of time by that one so don’t know if it’s a miraculous “per day” or a much slower “per year” number. Sorry!)
Okay, let’s talk about the evening’s activity. Some of us decided to go to the opera and it was absolutely fabulous. I’m not going to be able to do it justice but I will try. The show we went to is basically for tourists and it was at the Shu Feng Ya Yun Teahouse. Right away you can probably guess that we had tea during the show, well at least those of us in the first few rows had tea. Those in the cheap seats many not have had any. We also had peanuts to munch on. The hostesses came around with a tea pot with a long 3-4 foot spout several times during the show and poured us tea. They could stand so far away from you and the show was so interesting that most of the time you didn’t even know your teacup had been refilled.
There were many different acts in the opera so I’ll try and describe each one separately. The first was a traditional orchestra or band of about 10 people. They played traditional instruments but basically it was percussion and strings or as they say, gong and frums. It was interesting but a bit high pitched and twangy for my liking. There were two other musical numbers which were great. The one was a man playing the ancient two-string guitar and he played a very melodic song to start with which I think was something to do with Romeo and Juliet. After that he did a quick contrast and suddenly he was a galloping horse and then horses. That was very impressive. The other musical presentation was another man playing a traditional instrument that was much like a wooden flute. He also started with a very melodic song with the sound of birds involved. Then he switched to something called Conversations and it was hilarious. He played the flute instrument and another much shorter instrument that was really just a mouth piece, and he also used just his mouth to make the sounds. With these three different instruments he actually managed to carry on what sounded like a conversation and it was very entertaining.
They did perform a bit of actual opera and the costumes were beautiful and bright. As they were singing in Chinese I didn’t have a clue what was going on but it was interesting to watch the antics on stage. And judging by some of the laughter in the audience I guess it was a comedy. There was another part in Chinese as well which seemed a bit more serious and more masculine, almost army-ish in nature. The announcer would introduce each acct and I think this one was about someone finally going home from battle. I should also say that the announcer was a young lady who came out in the most gorgeous outfits and she was absolutely beautiful and had the most wonderful voice. She was such an integral part of the show that we just kept waiting for her to appear again.
One of the comedy sketches involved a husband and wife and it was all mimed. She was punishing him for staying out too late playing majong and he apparently agreed to whatever she wanted. She had him wandering around the house with a lit candle in a candle stick holder on his head and everyone once in a while she told him he had to do something specific like go under two benches without touching the candle. The antics he went through were hilarious but he did manage to make it. Then she wanted him to blow the candle out while it was on his head and he even managed to eventually do that. It was quite an entertaining skit and he certainly carried the whole routine with his antics and his expertise of moving the candle around and not dropping it.
One of the acts involved a stick puppet. The stick puppetry comes from the Han Dynasty from 200 BC to 200 AD. The puppeteer is on stage and fully visible and holds a puppet on a stick in front of him. With his two hands and his mouth at times, and maybe even his feet or ears for all I know, he maneuvers the puppet in incredible ways. The puppet in this case was a lady in a traditional costume. She would twirl plates on one hand then the other and then both together. She passed objects between her hands and behind her back and over her head. Her lips moved. She batted her eyes. She even blew us a kiss at the end of her performance. She was incredibly life like and we just couldn’t figure out how he was moving all the different parts at one time. It was really impressive.
Another act was a hand-shadow show and it was amazing to watch. The person sits behind a screen and uses his hands, arms and even his whole body to reflect images on a screen. It started off with the simple things we have all tried like a duck or a bunny but from there it got very intricate. At various times on the screen we saw an owl, a horse that first just stood there eating and then walked and then ran, a butterfly, and many more. The amazing one was the bunny and then the fox came along behind him. At first the fox or wolf or dog or whatever just looked at the bunny and then it bit off the bunny’s ears. Then it ate the bonny and we literally saw it doing so. The whole bunny went into his mouth and then the big bulge went down his neck. It was a little gross and cruel to watch but it was still amazing. And all the time you could see the guy behind the screen actually doing all the hand movements so you knew it wasn’t a trick.
And just when you thought it couldn’t get any better they got into their specialty, which is the changing faces and spitting fire. The latter was impressive and we felt the heat right out into the audience. There were dozens of people on stage at the time so obviously they have it timed well enough that no one is in the way of the flame, which shoots 10-12 feet. It happened many times during this segment and there was a lot going on everywhere so I really didn’t figure out how it was happening. The changing faces act was like magic. A character would be on stage with a white face and suddenly they would turn around or put a fan or their sleeve in front of their face and instantly they would have a red face or a black face and it would happen over and over again. A couple of the actors even came down into the audience and stood right in front of us and with the flip of a fan or by turning around they changed their face mask. It seemed impossible but it happened. The only explanation was that they had multiple masks on and just flipped the one up under their head piece. Alternatively they could have a lot under their head piece and just pull them down one at a time. They make quite an impression anyway and I bet some of them changed 10 times in a very short time frame.
The entire show was good so those of us who went were very pleased we had attended. One of the bonuses of attending was that we also got to see Qintai Road at night. Every inch of the street was lit and all the buildings were fancy detailed Chinese buildings and pagodas. There were large gates into the street and large pedestrian sidewalks for strolling – and there were a lot of people out strolling. The stores are mainly restaurants, bars and theatres of one form or another. It was a beautiful part of the city and one we hadn’t seen before so we were pleased to see it at night. That street alone and the Sichuan Opera were definitely trip highlights. I guess that means that flying into Chengdu one day and out the next was indeed a good decision.
We arrived in Chengdu and went directly to our main destination, the Giant Panda Breeding and Research Base. It seemed strange flying in for just one thing but it was indeed well worth it. The Base is very large and their sole purpose is to protect and breed giant pandas and red pandas. They have had close to 100 babies born since they opened so seem to be doing well. The only problem is that they cannot seem to find a way to release them back into the wild. Once at the base they seem to stay or go to other locations.
The park itself is beautiful and peaceful with lots of trees and plants and flowers and water features. White Swan Lake was the largest lake and it seemed to be just on the edge of the panda area and there were other buildings and activities on the other side of the lake. I don’t know if they were part of the panda research. There was a 20-minute movie at the end of the tour (or the beginning depending on your route I guess). It was really interesting and went through all of the life stages of a panda. Basically pandas live alone and mark their own territory, as opposed to living in family units. When the season is right, the adult males and females mate but apparently they are very picky about their mates. The female then goes back to her territory and has her baby and raises it on her own. A baby panda is 1/1000 of the weight of an adult panda and the mother must be with the baby for 3 consecutive months before it can really move about on its own. The mother can only handle one baby at a time so when twins arrive, the mother generally just picks one and lets the other die. And not all mothers have motherly skills so the babies often do not survive the first few months, or even the first few days. The one video was of the mother pawing at the baby and slapping it around the floor of the compound as if it was a foreign object. The staff members distract the mother and then rush in and rescue the baby and raise it from that point.
The nursery area was very crowded but there was one big crib we could see and there were three little pandas sleeping in it. These pandas look like pandas and have hair and the correct colouring so they must be at least a couple months old, but probably no more than a year. (Pandas are hairless when born and it takes about three months for them to get the black and white colouring.) They seemed to be sleeping very peacefully despite all the racket going on outside their window. People were crowded 4-5 deep trying to catch a glimpse of them. I wanted to suggest that they put a mirror over the crib and then everyone would be able to see them but I didn’t know who to talk to.
The slightly older pandas were out in one of the nearby compounds putting on a real show for us. There were at least four in the one area and they were fighting and playing and rolling around the grass and climbing over the wooden structures. They were having a wonderful time playing with each other – just like typical kids – and they were so cute to watch. There was a camera crew out there filming them but the crew members had to frequently jump or run out of their way because the pandas, especially one of the lively playful ones, tried to grab their legs. I’m sure that one was a male because he was a real trouble maker. He was after everyone and just demanded to be watched. Within the compounds they have wooden structures for the pandas to climb and play and sleep on. This guy would start roughing it up with the others and eventually one of them would start slipping through the structure. They would tumble lightly to the ground and roll. A couple times they would get up and then just kept rolling, like a kid rolling down a hill side or doing summersaults. They were a lot of fun to watch.
The older pandas were indeed giant pandas. They were huge – not that we ever saw one of them stand up. They were either in a tree or on one of the wooden structures or on the ground sleeping or eating. Pandas eat for about 17 hours per day and consume over 20 kg of bamboo each day. The rest of the time they sleep, and they certainly get into some strange positions to sleep but obviously they are comfortable.
The centre also has red pandas. The first one we saw was walking through the ditch area and by its colour I thought it was fox. The next time I saw one though, I thought it was a raccoon. When you see it up close you can tell that it is related to the panda in some of its facial features but it is definitely also related to the raccoon. In fact it is also related to the bear and even resembles the cat family. It seems to be a mixed up creature with red fur, shorter front legs, a long bushy striped tail, round face and ears, and very black eyes on a white face with black tears on it. He’s a strange creature but cute nonetheless.
Chengdu has a population of 12 million people. According to our local tour guide it is always cloudy and foggy (it’s not smog) and they average about 3 hours of sunshine per day. It used to be a very smoggy city but the factories have all moved out of the main city area and they all have new environmental standards to meet. The taxis and buses all now run on natural gas and cars are encouraged to do the same. The city is surrounded by mountains on all sides so any fog (or smog) gets trapped in the valley. The surrounding area is very productive agricultural land and produces enough food to feed all of China for a year. The main products are rice, tea, wheat and corn. Because there are over 100 rivers in the area it is very humid and farmers can often get four crops per year.
Our local tour guide says Chengdu is famous for five things. 1 – Sichuan food, 2 – Tea, green and jasmine specifically, which they have indoors, outdoors, at home and at the opera, 3 – Sichuan Opera, which I’ll discuss in more detail later, 4 – Rice wine, and 5 – Medicine, both Chinese herbs and western medicine. One of their hospitals has 4,000 beds and handles 20,000 outpatients (dah, I don’t have a period of time by that one so don’t know if it’s a miraculous “per day” or a much slower “per year” number. Sorry!)
Okay, let’s talk about the evening’s activity. Some of us decided to go to the opera and it was absolutely fabulous. I’m not going to be able to do it justice but I will try. The show we went to is basically for tourists and it was at the Shu Feng Ya Yun Teahouse. Right away you can probably guess that we had tea during the show, well at least those of us in the first few rows had tea. Those in the cheap seats many not have had any. We also had peanuts to munch on. The hostesses came around with a tea pot with a long 3-4 foot spout several times during the show and poured us tea. They could stand so far away from you and the show was so interesting that most of the time you didn’t even know your teacup had been refilled.
There were many different acts in the opera so I’ll try and describe each one separately. The first was a traditional orchestra or band of about 10 people. They played traditional instruments but basically it was percussion and strings or as they say, gong and frums. It was interesting but a bit high pitched and twangy for my liking. There were two other musical numbers which were great. The one was a man playing the ancient two-string guitar and he played a very melodic song to start with which I think was something to do with Romeo and Juliet. After that he did a quick contrast and suddenly he was a galloping horse and then horses. That was very impressive. The other musical presentation was another man playing a traditional instrument that was much like a wooden flute. He also started with a very melodic song with the sound of birds involved. Then he switched to something called Conversations and it was hilarious. He played the flute instrument and another much shorter instrument that was really just a mouth piece, and he also used just his mouth to make the sounds. With these three different instruments he actually managed to carry on what sounded like a conversation and it was very entertaining.
They did perform a bit of actual opera and the costumes were beautiful and bright. As they were singing in Chinese I didn’t have a clue what was going on but it was interesting to watch the antics on stage. And judging by some of the laughter in the audience I guess it was a comedy. There was another part in Chinese as well which seemed a bit more serious and more masculine, almost army-ish in nature. The announcer would introduce each acct and I think this one was about someone finally going home from battle. I should also say that the announcer was a young lady who came out in the most gorgeous outfits and she was absolutely beautiful and had the most wonderful voice. She was such an integral part of the show that we just kept waiting for her to appear again.
One of the comedy sketches involved a husband and wife and it was all mimed. She was punishing him for staying out too late playing majong and he apparently agreed to whatever she wanted. She had him wandering around the house with a lit candle in a candle stick holder on his head and everyone once in a while she told him he had to do something specific like go under two benches without touching the candle. The antics he went through were hilarious but he did manage to make it. Then she wanted him to blow the candle out while it was on his head and he even managed to eventually do that. It was quite an entertaining skit and he certainly carried the whole routine with his antics and his expertise of moving the candle around and not dropping it.
One of the acts involved a stick puppet. The stick puppetry comes from the Han Dynasty from 200 BC to 200 AD. The puppeteer is on stage and fully visible and holds a puppet on a stick in front of him. With his two hands and his mouth at times, and maybe even his feet or ears for all I know, he maneuvers the puppet in incredible ways. The puppet in this case was a lady in a traditional costume. She would twirl plates on one hand then the other and then both together. She passed objects between her hands and behind her back and over her head. Her lips moved. She batted her eyes. She even blew us a kiss at the end of her performance. She was incredibly life like and we just couldn’t figure out how he was moving all the different parts at one time. It was really impressive.
Another act was a hand-shadow show and it was amazing to watch. The person sits behind a screen and uses his hands, arms and even his whole body to reflect images on a screen. It started off with the simple things we have all tried like a duck or a bunny but from there it got very intricate. At various times on the screen we saw an owl, a horse that first just stood there eating and then walked and then ran, a butterfly, and many more. The amazing one was the bunny and then the fox came along behind him. At first the fox or wolf or dog or whatever just looked at the bunny and then it bit off the bunny’s ears. Then it ate the bonny and we literally saw it doing so. The whole bunny went into his mouth and then the big bulge went down his neck. It was a little gross and cruel to watch but it was still amazing. And all the time you could see the guy behind the screen actually doing all the hand movements so you knew it wasn’t a trick.
And just when you thought it couldn’t get any better they got into their specialty, which is the changing faces and spitting fire. The latter was impressive and we felt the heat right out into the audience. There were dozens of people on stage at the time so obviously they have it timed well enough that no one is in the way of the flame, which shoots 10-12 feet. It happened many times during this segment and there was a lot going on everywhere so I really didn’t figure out how it was happening. The changing faces act was like magic. A character would be on stage with a white face and suddenly they would turn around or put a fan or their sleeve in front of their face and instantly they would have a red face or a black face and it would happen over and over again. A couple of the actors even came down into the audience and stood right in front of us and with the flip of a fan or by turning around they changed their face mask. It seemed impossible but it happened. The only explanation was that they had multiple masks on and just flipped the one up under their head piece. Alternatively they could have a lot under their head piece and just pull them down one at a time. They make quite an impression anyway and I bet some of them changed 10 times in a very short time frame.
The entire show was good so those of us who went were very pleased we had attended. One of the bonuses of attending was that we also got to see Qintai Road at night. Every inch of the street was lit and all the buildings were fancy detailed Chinese buildings and pagodas. There were large gates into the street and large pedestrian sidewalks for strolling – and there were a lot of people out strolling. The stores are mainly restaurants, bars and theatres of one form or another. It was a beautiful part of the city and one we hadn’t seen before so we were pleased to see it at night. That street alone and the Sichuan Opera were definitely trip highlights. I guess that means that flying into Chengdu one day and out the next was indeed a good decision.
posted by Jayne Brooks @ 7:26 AM
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