The first archaeological site Sanxingdui is located 40 kilometers away from Chengdu, so we needed to start our city tour very early. This is the first time our group of 40 all on board the bus together. Our group leader Simon made the announcement that the seating arrangement during our entire journey would be on a first come first serve basis. Whoever wanted to sit on his/her preferred seat needed to come aboard the bus early. We hurriedly found our seats and settled down.
(Click on each picture to get the full-size view. Many group members, Ben, Peter, and others, shared pictures they've taken during the trip. I've included some of these pictures in my travelogue without specific attributions.)
The Sanxingdui site was discovered by a farmer while digging a well in 1929. Many unearthed artifacts, such as bronze, jade, gold, and pottery have been verified to be from 12th-11th centuries BCE, i.e., 3000+ years ago. Archaeologists identified these artifacts as being from an ancient kingdom of Shu. The archaeological site encompasses a wide area. The excavation is still ongoing; while a museum with two exhibition halls contains many excavated objects on display.
We arrived at the museum early and were courteously led to an empty entry hall just to accommodate our group of 40 mostly AARP card carrying members. Many attractions in China have a courtesy admission policy for senior citizens. Those above 70 get free admission; those between 60 and 70 pay half price, and the rest pay full admission. For the duration of our trip, this scene of waiting to get our admission tickets being properly discounted would repeat multiple times. Every time we as a group would wait patiently, and no one ever complained about waiting too long to get the discounts.
A small digression. Senior citizen discounts require proper identification. To expedite the process, the tour guide collected our passports. On this first outing, one passport was unaccounted for and was thought to have been lost. This put a damper on our trip at its very beginning. It's only later in the day that the passport was found in the backpack of the passport holder's roommate. Throughout this ordeal, the passport holder was calm and gracious.
Many artifacts of jade ornaments, bronze masks, gold masks, earthen utensils,…, and etc. were on display. Notables were:
Holy Trees – tall artifacts made of bronze, for religious purposes. They formed the communication between mortals and gods, between humankind and heaven.
Money Tree – made of bronze supported on a pottery base, served similar religious purposes.
We then moved to the second exhibition hall, a prominent building with a beautiful surrounding.
The atrium has a replica of the Holy Tree.
Numerous huge bronze masks with striking features were on display.
These two giant bronze masks, with protruding eyeballs, were most intriguing. Because of the odd shape of these face masks, there were questions about whether these masks resembled their ancestors or aliens from the outer space.
We headed back to Chengdu for lunch at a delightful Szechuan restaurant. This is the group's first meal together. Our group of 40 is divided into four subgroups. Each subgroup has a sub-leader.
Clockwise from 7 o’clock position in each picture, this is the roster of the group.
Peter’s group: Winnie, Marshall, Rosie, Lorean, Yuun, Eric, Philip, Simon, Cynthia, (Peter behind the camera).
Philip’s group: Ming, Teresa, Philip, Grace, Sharon, Imin, HP, Carol, Emily, Weitsu.
Ning-Ming’s group: Ya-Min, Ning-Tzyy, Julie, Rosalind, Rosaline, Joe, Ning-Ming, Talei, Yu-Pin, Danny.
Eva’s group: Irene, Meinn, Chia-Chin, Cheng-Tien, James, Ben, Lawrence, Eva, Yi-Hsuan. (Linda was still en route).
A poster on the wall inside the restaurant reads “Chairman Mao said: While the gun-carrying enemies have been destroyed, the unarmed adversaries still exist; Safeguard your belongings.”
After lunch, we went to our second archaeological site, Jinsha 金沙. The site is located within the Chengdu proper and was discovered in 2001 during real estate construction. Artifacts unearthed at this site include gold masks, jade, bronze objects, stone statues, and ivory. They dated back to between 1200 and 650 BCE. They are culturally connected to that of Sanxingdui. Construction of the museum was completed in 2006 after the site was just discovered six years prior.
Excavation site.
The exhibition hall.
One of the most notable items from Jinsha is this Sun and Immortal Bird gold ornament 太陽神鳥金飾. The pattern is so unique and delicate that it is used as the emblem for Chinese Culture Heritage, Chengdu city seal, and other purposes.
The pattern of the Sun and Immortal Bird gold ornament also appears in the courtyard of the museum.
Our next visit was to a thatched cottage once occupied by the great poet Du Fu from the Tang Dynasty. Du Fu was once in exile and settled in Chengdu in 759 AD. He lived in a makeshift thatched hut for four years and composed over 240 poems during that time. The thatched hut has been expanded to become a sizable compound, which includes the original thatched hut, a receiving hall with tile roof, and a picturesque garden.
Du Fu Thatched Cottage 杜甫草堂.
Du Fu statuette.
The old thatched cottage is preserved at a corner of the compound.
Our last stop for the group is a temple that celebrates the military strategist Zhuge Liang 諸葛亮 (181 - 234 AD). Zhege Liang, also known as Kong Ming 孔明, is renowned for his tactical brilliance to outsmart opponents. He is as well-known as Sun Tzu, the author of The Art of War. When Zhuge Liang was a commoner, he was known as Wo-Long 臥龍, the crouching dragon. He served as the prime minister of the state of Shu Han 蜀漢 during the Three Kingdoms period. His story has been popularized by the historical novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms 三國演義 over many dynasties. As such he is highly respected by Chinese for his intelligence and loyalty.
The great poet Du Fu wrote a poem about this Zhuge Liang temple two thousand years ago.
(English translation by C. K. Ho 何中堅 of Hong Kong)
蜀相 The Prime Minister of Shu
丞相祠堂何處尋，
錦官城外柏森森。
Where can we find the shrine of the Master?
On the outskirts of the Brocade City where thick cypress trees cluster.
映階碧草自春色，
隔葉黃鸝空好音。Where sparking emerald grass adorns the steps with the colors of spring,
But behind the leaves, songs of orioles add not to the luster.
三顧頻頻天下計，
Great were the Three Visits and the scheme for an Empire!
Great were you in founding and stabilizing the two Reigns on supports you mustered!
出師未捷身先死，
長使英雄淚滿襟。
How sad you died before the battle was won,
Heroes shed tears on their armors ever after!
After dinner, we opted to join an optional tour to see Szechuan opera 川劇.
I didn’t quite understand what the performance was about, but no matter. Sitting on a big chair, holding a big straw fan, with a teacup on the side, watching an opera, it was pretending to be a man of leisure in old China. The experience itself was worth every penny of the admission.
Du Fu is widely regarded as one of the greatest poets of his time. Selections of his poems were required readings in the middle school while I was growing up in Taiwan. The following poem by Du Fu described the music scene in the Brocade City, Chengdu's nickname.
(English translation is by C. K. Ho 何中堅 of Hong Kong. It rhymes as the original Chinese version does.)
錦城絲管日紛紛
半入江風半入雲
此曲只應天上有
人間能得幾回聞
Day after day lutes and flutes run riot in the City of Brocade;
Half of the music goes with the river breeze, and half into the clouds would fade.
Such tunes should only belong to Heaven:
On earth, how rarely can we hear them played?
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