Fuddland
After spending a few days there at either end of my trip, I really warmed to (成都). The guidebooks and information I had read about the city all mentioned the laid-back approach that its citizens have to life, and it was a joy to see.
Wandering the streets and central park of the city, no matter what time of day — morning, afternoon, evening — everywhere I saw people, of all ages, hanging out at teahouses or on benches [in some cases, they had brought their own seats], chatting, playing cards or dominoes, dancing, singing, to such an extent that I have to wonder: does anyone in actually have a job?
The feeling of contentment that drifts off the population makes you forget — for a time, at least — about the dreadful, thick and smelly smog that hangs over the city all day long. Due to there being only one timezone in China — eight hours ahead of GMT — there’s the strange feeling of travelling west for two days and not changing your watch, arriving in a place where, at this time of year, it’s only just getting light at eight o’clock in the morning. Of course everyone still gets up and goes to work at the same time as east China — between six and seven o’clock, when it’s still pitch black — meaning that morning starts are extremely cold in the winter.
I visited only a few of the city’s places of interest — I wasn’t really there to see another city in China, more because it’s a convenient stop from which to organise trips out into the (四川) countryside — but there are some things definitely worth seeing in (成都), the first of which is the Panda Breeding Research Centre. Visiting early in the morning, despite the chilly weather I saw adult giant pandas eating their bamboo breakfast outdoors, and their babies fast asleep in the warm. The enclosures are not so much cages as open areas with a surrounding “water-less moat”, allowing visitors a really close look at these amiable beasts — I was less than six feet away from them at one point.
As well as seeing the live pandas, you’re treated to a short documentary about the history of the breeding programme they operate at the Centre, which went some way to demonstrating why pandas have such a hard time procreating. Not only is there the well-known issue of getting two pandas to mate, but it appears that the mothers do not have particularly strong maternal instincts: footage showed a female giving birth for the first time and clearly freaking out at the tiny pink baby that had just appeared in front of her. She pokes and bats it around on the floor until a keeper bravely enters the cage to rescue the cub.
The only thing I was slightly disapproving of was the offer to have my photo taken with a panda. Yes, for the princely sum of 400元, you can pose with your arm around an adult, or with a young[ish] cub in your arms. [If that’s a bit out of your price range, then for a mere 50元 you can be snapped holding one of the smaller, non-threatened red pandas that are also kept at the Centre.]
I stayed at the highly-recommended Sim’s Cozy Guesthouse, where the rooms were fine and extremely cheap, and the staff were friendly, knowledgeable and helpful. The area adjacent to the hostel is pedestrianised and has been splendidly preserved and restored; most of the shops here sell locally-produced arts and crafts, with the obligatory teahouse every three doors or so. It’s a lovely place to wander around in the evening, lit up in fine Chinese style, and see the locals enjoying it as much as the tourists [of which there were not very many in the off-peak season].
The large park in the centre of the city is another sight worth spending a good couple of hours exploring, particularly if the weather is fine. Here I saw people of all ages socialising: walking, sitting, chatting, singing, dancing, exercising. The only thing that looked out of place in this happy scene was the central pond, which was filled with empty plantpots and blanketed with pondweed — not exactly an eyesore, but neither something you particularly want to be gazing over as you sup your tea.
As I watched a group of people dancing, a middle-aged Chinese man came over and asked me, in thickly-accented English, where I was from and that sort of thing — I replied in Chinese when I could — but I’m incredibly happy to report that this was, by and large, about the only time the entire day I was approached or even noticably noticed by any of the local population. Wandering the streets, I didn’t suffer the usual shouts of, “Hello! [giggle]” from passers-by; browsing shops, the staff just let me be, instead of shadowing my every move and trying to give me a closer look at me things I’d foolishly let my eye settle on for a split second. I don’t think has a particularly large foreign population — certainly not as big as the number of ex-pats in (苏州) — but they just seemed to be happy to get on with their own business. All in all, was refreshingly peaceful; even the evening illuminations are surprisingly tastefully done in parts of the city.
