Saturday morning I got up early, packed my bag with snacks and a map, and beelined it to the hostel cafe for breakfast and a long-anticipated cup of real coffee. There were lots of things Bridget and I wanted to do in the city and we were kind of at a loss, so we decided to take a bus to Tianfu Square in the middle of the city and just start exploring from there.
We only got lost once on the way to the bus stop and made it to the square without much trouble. The square itself was anticlimactic, just a big open space with some sculptures and benches, and nothing of any apparent interest nearby. Well, except for the huge Museum of Science and Technology that overlooked the square, but we weren't really in the mood to walk around looking at exhibits of cars and airplanes. We bought a proper map from a street vendor and tried to figure out where to go next. We decided to try again for the Wenshu Temple and started off in the direction of the bus stop. Of course, we immediately got lost. Wandering among the skyscrapers and ornate karaoke bars, we stumbled across a lively outdoor market tucked away in an alley behind some buildings and decided to check it out. We got sucked in by a couple of stalls selling beautiful hats and successfully bargained a couple of them down to 40 RMB from 60. Emboldened by our success, I went on to bargain for a warm fluffy scarf from a nice guy a few stalls down who seemed thrilled to meet foreigners who spoke Chinese. We strolled to the end of the alley, and upon discovering that it was part of a larger indoor market, we decided to abandon the earlier plans and spend the afternoon exploring.
The market was full of stalls selling a fairly standard array of clothes, hats, scarves, cosmetics, fake designer bags and household things. When we'd had a good look around, we followed a trail of street vendors to another market nearby. After grabbing lunch from one of the vendors - I had an amazing Chinese crepe filled with squid, cucumber, bean sprouts, cilantro, and a rich spicy sauce - we braved the next market. This one was four storeys of absolute shopping chaos, the narrow aisles between the stalls crammed so full of people it was difficult to move. We spent a few hours there checking out wild shoes, hair accessories and jewelry. When we got tired of fighting through the crowds we grabbed a seat at a manicure stall and got our nails done before heading off in search of dinner.
We left the market and saw a large mall across the street. I figured they'd have some interesting stuff in the food court, so we went to check it out. Unlike the west, malls in China are where people go to get a little upscale. The food court turned out to be a collection of slick, modern, mostly foreign restaurants offering fairly expensive sit-down meals. It was dark by this time and we didn't feel like getting lost again, so we just picked a place and tucked in to a ridiculously overpriced and entirely ordinary dinner. The drinks were good, though - the place specialized in fancy teas and smoothies, which were even more expensive than the food.
We left the mall and wandered around till we found Tianfu Square and got our bearings again. The square, which had seemed so dull and bare in the daylight, had completely transformed into a fantastic urban light show. The enormous statue of a waving Chairman Mao which presided over the square glowed above a powerful set of spotlights. The square itself was lit by dozens of art deco lamps, highlighted by the softly lit spiralling statues that poked out of the fountains in the middle. Colour changing lights played up and down the sides of the huge malls, skyscrapers and luxury hotels that surrounded the square, while two were adorned with enormous screens which played psychedelic shifting colourscapes. We soaked it in for a while before heading down to the metro station under the square. The Chengdu metro was mercifully simple, and we finally managed to make it to our hostel without getting lost.
Back at the hostel, we relaxed a bit and decided we were up for some nightlife. I'd found out Chengdu's longest running gay bar, 1 + 1 Area, was not too far away, so we decided to walk there and check it out. It was hidden away in an industrial part of town on the third floor of a large KTV building without any signs alerting passersby to its presence, but it was there. Peering inside from the deserted, smoke-stained hallway, we both felt a sudden wave of fear about being such obvious outsiders entering this secret place, but we'd already walked all this way, so I steeled myself and marched in, dragging Bridget with me. We were warmly welcomed by the door staff and seated at the closest available seat to the stage, where the nightly show was already in progress. One of the servers came to take our order and informed us that we weren't the only foreigners in the bar, pointing to a table in the far corner. Like many bars in China, there was no cover charge, but it was compulsory to order food or drinks, so we shelled out 40 RMB for two Cokes and sat back to enjoy the show.
The MCs - a man wearing white pants and a white suit jacket over his bare, tattooed chest and a drag queen in a poofy polka-dot sundress which revealed an enormous back tattoo* - bantered back and forth between drag performances and karaoke numbers. We were treated to another awesome drag performance, including some bellydance and modern ballet, along with the standard sex-it-up pop numbers. The MCs greeted the out-of-towners in the audience and asked each of them where they were from, and then they made a special greeting to the 外国朋友 (wàiguó péngyou, foreign friends) in the audience. They waved at Bridget and me, but must have assumed we didn't speak any Chinese, because they didn't ask us any questions. The Americans in the corner got more attention - they somehow got one brave girl up on stage, and when they discovered that she spoke Chinese they grilled her about her sexual orientation and made her dance to Lady Gaga. She gamely kept up with the MCs, and the audience loved her - better her than us, I suppose.
We ended up leaving a little early, about midnight, because we weren't sure whether we'd be disturbing a new roommate in our dorm when we got back to the hostel. In the end, we had the place to ourselves that night. And so ended another day in Chengdu.
Stay tuned for part three...
Chinese word of the day:
性感
xìng gǎn
sex appeal; sexy
* Along with watching Chinese drag, tattoo spotting is one of my new favourite pastimes here, due to the common belief in the west that the Chinese don't get tattoos. They may not be as popular as they are in the west, but they certainly do exist - more on this subject later.
No comments:
Post a Comment