Chengdu

Sunday, April 15, 2007

Qing Chen Mountain, page 723

These photos are from Qing Chen Mountain in Chengdu. The first couple are from an open air teahouse showing a woman getting a Chinese massage and a group playing mahjong. Chengdu is where the pandas are so the figures on the roofline are not the traditional dragons and immortals; instead they have pandas. Figures of pandas are all over this city, even the road dividers have pandas on them. I'll post more about our visit to the Panda Research Center later.

Mimi is reading a book that she recommends Between Heaven & Earth: A Guide to Chinese Medicine by Beinfield and Korngold. It uses the analogy of caring for a garden to explain the philosophy of Traditional Chinese Medicine.

Our guide is Shelly and our bus driver is Mr. Liu. Shelly was a very informative guide, so we learned a lot of history on the bus. But she was not as personable as Miranda, our guide in Beijing. Some of the facts I learned included:

• Chengdu’s name comes from Cheng (becoming) and Du (capitol city) but I forget why this name was chosen. Beijing means northern (bei) capitol (jing).
• Real estate costs about 6000 Y per square meter in Chengdu and about 9000 Y per square meter in Beijing. A typical 3 person apartment is 125 square meters.
• Chengdu has 3 ring roads to Beijing’s 5 ring roads. The 3^rd Ring Road is only three years old, but they are having to repave many sections. They residents call it the Tofu Road because it is soft inside, thus necessitating all the repair work.
• The cities with the most cars in China are Beijing, Shanghai, and Chengdu in that order.
• A car costs about 40,000 to 70,000 yuan, plus another 1000 Y per month for things like gas, parking, and insurance.
• Chengdu is also known as the kingdom of bicycles. A bike costs about 300 yuan for a single speed or 1000 Y for a racing bike. More and more people are buying “electronic” bikes, so they don’t have to pedal. The speed limit for an electric bike in the separated bike lane is 15 kph, but there is no limit for a pedal bicycle. (In Suzhou I saw many electric bikes and also lots of Vespa-style scooters. The plain pedal bicycle is not as popluar anymore.)
• Chengdu is known for brocade, hibiscus, agriculture (rapeseed or canola).
• Chendu is subtropical, with only 3 snowfalls during Shelly’s lifetime.
• Shelly often described things as “since liberation” to refer to after 1949, terminology we did not hear in the more cosmopolitan city of Beijing.
• Shelly says the city is divided as follows: West for the government officials; South for the rich; East for the poor; North for the bad people (this is where the railway station is and I guess thieves prey on the passengers disembarking.)
• Chengdu has a thriving teahouse culture. There are three types: open air teahouse, modern teahouse, and cultural (or traditional) teahouse. Green tea is the specialty. The spring tea is the best and is called daughter tea. The summer tea is second best and called daughter-in-law tea. Autumn tea is the least favored and called grandmother tea. (Of course, our family would call the best tea the grandmother tea.) In a traditional teahouse the server is called a “tea doctor,” as in PhD, because they are so learned about tea. The tea service includes a saucer, a cup, and a lid and there is a code used to communicate with your tea doctor. If you lean the lid against the side of the cup it means you are letting the tea cool before you drink it. If you put the upside down lid on the table, it means you are ready for more tea. Right side up on the table means you left the table for just a moment and will be right back. Upside down on the cup means you are done, so bring the bill soon, or you will leave without paying and it isn’t your fault. Finally, if you put all three pieces, the lid, the cup, and the saucer, separate on the table, you thought the service was bad.
• The farmers near the city are doing okay because they can supplement their income, but more remote farmers are poor, earning about 1000 yuan per year. They have no electricity and the children walk an hour to school. Public school is mandatory for all children through 6^th grade and paid for by the government. The three years of middle school and three years of high school cost 1000 yuan per year, but the teachers are not very motivated. Many parents send their child to private school which costs 20,000 Y per year. The cost for raising a child plays as big a part in limiting families to one child as the government rules. Just last year the government changed laws so that farmers don’t have to pay for school or pay agriculture tax. Another rule change is that if two people marry and both were only children, then they can have two children instead of one.