China Guide
Sichuan and Chongqing
Wuhou Ci
Price: ¥60
Address: Southwest of the centre on Wuhouci Dajie (bus #1 from Renmin Nan Lu, or tourist bus #901)
Wuhou Ci is a temple-like complex nominally dedicated to Zhuge Liang, the strategist of Three Kingdoms fame. As his emperor Liu Bei is also buried here, however, the whole site is really a big shrine to the Three Kingdoms era.
The site dates to Liu Bei's funeral in 223, though most of the buildings are of early Qing design; as usual in Chengdu, everything is surrounded by gardens. To the left of the entrance, the Three Kingdoms Culture Exhibition Hall has contemporary sculptures, lacquered furniture, painted bricks showing daily life (picking mulberry leaves, herding camels, ploughing), and a few martial relics such as arrowheads and copper cavalry figurines. Elsewhere, halls and colonnaded galleries house brightly painted statues of the epic's heroes, notably a white-faced Liu Bei flanked by his oath-brothers Guan Yu and Zhang Fei; and Zhuge Liang (holding his feather fan) and his son and grandson. Over in the complex's northwestern corner, Liu Bei's tomb is a walled mound covered in trees and guarded by stone figures.
The lane immediately east of Wuhou Ci, Jinli Lu, is yet another of Chengdu's new "old" streets: this one is more of an alley, about 300m long, and jammed with wooden-fronted shops selling snacks. The district south of Wuhou Ci forms Chengdu's Tibetan quarter, full of shops stocked to their roofs with heavy clothes, amber and turquoise jewellery, knives and prayer wheels, conches and other temple accessories – not to mention heavy-duty blenders capable of whipping up a gallon of butter tea in one go. None of this is for tourists; most customers are Tibetan monks, cowboys, and Khampa women with braided hair, all looking decidedly tall and robust next to the local Chinese.