Sanxingdui Day 2

Lazy morning, dumplings for brunch.

Headed to the station nice and early because I was not sure where to go but as it turns out it’s less than 20 mins from my hotel room.

Through the priority check to enter the station and then same again to board the train. This foreigner malarkey is great. Because you only need to show your passport after buying the ticket online and it has to be manually processed so it’s to the front of the queue almost every time.

I was one of six that strolled in late and onto the train first, I’m liking this very much.

So I arrived at the museum for the second time and went to see the happy folk in the ticket office. I was told to go to line one and I was in. In front of me at the counter was a young foreigner who discovered that he too should have bought a ticket online as they were sold out once more for today. I was going to give him some information that I had gleaned but he was gone.

So so busy, but you have to expect this. Pushing and shoving. Tour groups everywhere, everyone of them talking over the other. Huddling around the displays trying to get the best angle and as usual very few look at the object in the glass case. It’s click click and move on, but that’s what the Chinese do, they would rather look at life through the phone.

In the process of getting the money shot you have to hold your ground and push others back. They try to get in your viewfinder and age is no limit. The look on those little faces when you don’t move and sometimes you might just happen to stand on their toes, oh it is priceless. One of the few pleasures one gets at these places, oh of course the exhibits are not bad too. The little princess’s and prince’s don’t seem to understand what is happening when you don’t let them win.

At the other end of the scale are the old buggers like me and they are just as bad, but they too got the same treatment. It’s never too late to learn me thinks. No quarter I say 😋

This museum holds an absolute amazing collection from a culture that is so so different to anything, well here in China at least. There is a resemblance to South American civilisations like the Aztec and Myans, not the Chinese. They could well be alien. As with many ancient civilisations we don’t really know how they made many of the objects left behind, we can only surmise and I often feel that the so called experts are barking up the wrong tree. Some of the jade on display is simple to look at but the quality of the machining again is exquisite. Even today jade is one of the most difficult stones to work and when you see it in its raw form you can only stand with your mouth open and be in awe of what lies before you.

And let me just say again here, almost every Chinese person here today fighting to get that all important picture of one of the most intriguing cultures in history spends less time than it takes to blink before studying the picture and then posting it onto social media. Reality for them is not real and seems very unimportant.

I’ve wanted to come here for years and I’m so glad that I got in here today. Being the weekend I knew it would be busy but as I said I had a bit of fun on the way.