Today was an absolutely wonderful day. We left our hotel in Xian at 8 AM for the
trip to the airport. Our luggage had
already been picked up at 6 AM and the truck driver transported it to the
airport, checked it in, and got it through the security scan. All we had to do was get our boarding
passes. It took about an hour to arrive
at the airport. The weather in Xian was
again very smoggy.
When we arrived at the airport we were given our
boarding passes and then went through security.
The airport must have about 20 security lines so it took us about 10
minutes to get through and that included a pat down of all passengers. At the gate they had two lanes for boarding –
one for Sky Priority passengers and one for us peons. However, unlike United which boards by
number, China Southern was boarding both lines at the same time – so we made it
on long before the priority members because line was much shorter. The flight to Chengdu took about 1 ½ hours
and as uneventful. Arriving in Chengdu,
we were met by our local guide, Cindy, who then took us to our hotel. And miracles of miracles – the sun was
shining. Cindy said this was the first
day in the last 5 that it wasn’t raining.
After we got our rooms at the hotel, four of us (Lee
and Steve, Bill and I) went with Lena on a little discovery trip to the
People’s Park. We got to experience one
of Chengdu’s local buses to get there (standing room only). It is a large park with an artificial lake
and many teahouses. The park was full of
people, mostly retired senior citizens.
They come to the park to mingle, dance, sing, and match-make for their
unmarried children. As we entered the
park we heard some singing – a man dressed in what looked like a military
uniform was singing a sad song about a son leaving his mother to join the
Army. A young man and an older woman
were pantomiming to the song. After the
song was finished, a group of older ladies dressed in Tibetan native costumes
performed a dance. The people do this
just because they enjoy singing and dancing.
We also saw a group of people who were doing what we would call line
dancing. Anyone was free to join them.
The most interesting thing was the match-makers. There were literally hundreds of older
parents lining several of walkways trying to find the perfect match for their
unmarried children. They would print up
a page with a description of the son or daughter and then underneath they would
list the requirements they were looking for in a spouse. It was interesting to note that most of the
ages of the unmarried children were around 35.
And most parents of daughters said that one of the requirements for a
husband was to make a very good salary.
If a parent found a page that fit what they were looking for, they would
call the number on the page and make arrangements to meet the other set of
parents. The parents would then decide
whether there was a fit and a date would be arranged. According to Lena, most of the unmarried
children are embarrassed by this, but out of respect for their parents they go
along with it. And it some cases
marriages do work out. It was funny – as
we were walking Lena said she overheard some of the women wondering about our
husbands.
Before we left the park, Lena took us to a tea
house. On the way we passed by a little
stand where the woman was selling spun caramel candy (it looks like spun
glass). The husband had made a little
game with a wheel like a roulette wheel except it had the signs of the zodiac
painted along the edge of a circle with an arrow in the center. Children would spin the wheel and it would
tell them which piece of candy they should buy.
At the tea house we all had green tea in a special
cup that is unique to Chengdu. It was a
cup resting on a small saucer and it had a lid.
The lid was used first to brush away any tea leaves that had floated to
the top and then used as a buffer to keep from drinking the leaves.
On the way back to the hotel we rode the subway
home. The subway is very clean and
modern. They even have a security check
to scan your bags.
For dinner seven of us went with Lena and Cindy to a
small restaurant that served food from the Sichuan Province. Some of it was very spicy but there were
several dishes that were not. The best
dish was dessert - it looked like an egg roll except that it was filled with
sweet potato and dusted with a little sugar. The group of 7 that are traveling
together went with one of the ladies who is originally from the Chengdu area to
visit with her family.
After dinner, 5 of us went on the Chengdu Changing
Faces Opera. Before we went into the
show, OAT had arranged for us to try on some of the Tang Dynasty costumes and
try our hand at hand shadow. It was a
lot of fun although we all need a little more practice with the shadows.
This opera was nothing like our opera. Face changing, or bian lian in Chinese, is an
ancient Chinese dramatic art that is part of the traditional Sichuan style of
opera. Performers wear brightly colored
costumes and move to quick, dramatic music.
But what is most impressive is their ability to change from one vividly
colored mask to another in magically quick succession. Although there was some singing, it is much,
much more. There was one central story
line (boy meets girl, they fall in love, he gets accepted as a student in an
opera school, a jealous man burns down his house and destroys his face, boy
becomes despondent, he again meets his master at the school who gives him a mask,
and he meets his love again and they live happily ever after). There are also other little story lines that
run throughout the whole program. But as
I said, singing is not the main feature.
There are acrobats, dancers, two performers who use a long curtain to
fly around the stage, a hand shadow show, a man holding a stick puppet similar
to a marionette except that he held the puppet up in the air and then used his
hand and a string to more the puppets arms and head, and the best part – the
face changing and fire spitting. Near
the end of the show there were four performers who would change their face
masks in the blink of an eye. It was
impossible to figure out how they did it.
This type of artistry is unique to this area and has become a national treasure. There were also two men who would use a flame
to light something in their mouth and they would look like a dragon breathing
fire. It was one of the most intriguing
and entertaining shows we have seen. You
sit there in awe of the face mask changing, and the costumes where stunning.
22
Sep, Thursday Chengdu
Panda Breeding and Research Center
The mountains of the Sichuan Province, of which
Chengdu is the capital, are the native habitat of the Giant Panda. The pandas in the wild live in northern
Sichuan and in Gansu and Shaanxi provinces, in elevations between 4,000 and
10,000 feet.
The Chengdu Panda Breeding and Research Center is
the largest of 4 such centers in this Province – 180 pandas currently reside
here, the largest number on display anywhere in the world. It is not a zoo, but a simulated habitat,
with acres of space for the pandas to roam and thrive as it they were in the
wild.
Pandas first appeared in the fossil records some
three million years ago. That they have
survived this long is a miracle. Because
bamboo does not contain much of the nutrients that they need, they must consume
large quantities, and in the winter the bamboo plants flower and then die. Thus many pandas in the wild die from
starvation. Global warming is also
playing havoc with their environment.
Pandas do not do well in a warm climate – that is why most of the wild
pandas live in the mountain ranges in the northern and western part of China. (An interesting story from our local
guide. In the summer she had some
visitors who had come from Australia to see the pandas. However, the temperature was very warm and
the pandas would not come outside. After
she talked with the staff, they brought the panda outside and then locked the
doors. The pandas stood by the door knocking to get back in.) And thirdly, man killed many pandas for their
pelts, and added to that, a large earthquake in this region in 2008 killed quite
a few of these giant creatures. The
panda’s mating habits also do not help in increasing the population. A female panda only comes into heat once a
year and then only for 6 hours. And as
the research center found out, one of the biggest problems is that many of the
pandas do not know how to mate. To help
the pandas at the research centers, the staff has produced a video showing the
pandas how to mate and they have the pandas watch. So see Caitlyn, even pandas have to go
through a sex education class! Sounds
funny, but it seems to work. This year
they had 10 births at this center.
Today there are about 1280 pandas currently living
in the wild. That is why these research
and breeding centers were established.
After conducting extensive research into the panda’s behavior and
habits, scientists have been able to develop techniques and procedures, like
the video and artificial insemination that have helped the panda population
grow. And in the case where a panda
gives birth to twins, the panda keepers have been able to save both
babies. In the wild, a mother panda
would only care for the stronger of the two babies, leaving the other one to
die. And in some cases, the mother panda does not want to take care of the
baby. In those cases, the baby is either
given to another female panda that has expressed interest in the baby, or the
baby is raised by the workers until it is old enough to join the other pandas.
The goal of the center is also to be able to release
some of these pandas back to the wild to help repopulate the species. At about age 2, they select the strongest
pandas and begin training them to live in the wild. To date they have released 8 (with GPS
monitors) and they all seem to be doing well.
This was a most interesting tour. We were able to walk around the large
enclosures where the pandas are kept.
The adult pandas are solitary animals and very territorial, so they are
kept separated. The sub-adults or
teenagers (between the ages of 3-5) are more social and can be kept together
until they mature. And the babies (up to
2 years of age) are kept separate and receive more care and attention from the
panda keepers. Most of the babies we saw
were sleeping, but one was trying to crawl around (they still have not mastered
the art of walking). Many of the
sub-adults, like our teenagers, were all asleep. The adult pandas were all busy eating their
breakfast of bamboo and seemed oblivious to the crowds gawking at them and
snapping pictures.
Also in this Center were about 20 of the Lessor or
Red Pandas. Unlike the Giant Panda which
belongs to the bear family, these pandas are in the raccoon family. And when you look at them, they look very
much like raccoons, except that they are red to dark brown with white on their
faces whereas a raccoon is gray and white.
They are also very territorial and while we were watching two at the
same place, one of the lessor pandas stood up on its hind legs and charged
after the other one.
The rest of the day was spent relaxing and getting
ready for our very early flight tomorrow morning to Lhasa, Tibet.
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