City lights, mountain thoughts
Chunxi Road’s glass walls shimmer,
A spaceship on the 3D screen rushes towards me.
I, a creature of the mountains, insist on squeezing
Into the cracks of this urban forest.
Half a cloud rises from a lidded tea bowl,
And suddenly the whole street grows light.
A giant panda grips the eaves;
Can it see the roaring mountain woods?
No need to drain this cup of clamour:
The sweat on my cheeks has tasted it for me.
Snow mountains melt inside my pack,
My heart has already drifted far away,
While Taikoo Li’s neon
Suddenly shines like a mountain stream.
Around Chunxi Road
Chunxi Road is a pedestrian shopping district in central Chengdu, covering around 20 hectares east of Beixin Street, south of Zongfu Road, west of Hongxing Road and north of Dongda Street, including Nanxin Street, Zhongxin Street and their street frontages. It is one of Chengdu’s most representative and bustling commercial centres. Its name draws on the Daodejing passage about bustling crowds, ‘as though ascending a terrace in spring’.
Chunxi Road opened in 1925, nearly a century ago. In 2005, New Weekly named it ‘China’s third shopping street’, alongside Shanghai’s Nanjing Road, Beijing’s Wangfujing and Hong Kong’s Causeway Bay.
Chengdu Taikoo Li is one component of Chunxi Road’s commercial area, beside Chunxi Road metro station. An open, low-rise shopping district owned by Swire Properties, it gathers leading international luxury and fashion brands, Michelin-starred restaurants and well-known Chinese and international dining venues. A nationally rated five-star shopping centre and fashion landmark for Chengdu and Chongqing, it often attracts trendsetters in unusual outfits, as well as bosses accompanied by their mistresses.
I have never liked shopping, only the wind in wild mountains. But in Chengdu, Chunxi Road and Taikoo Li still deserve a look, if only to broaden my horizons.
I found an underground car park at random near Chunxi Road. Coming up, I immediately saw ‘Laoma Rabbit Heads’. People say no rabbit can leave Chengdu alive: the reputation is deserved.
Pedestrian streets around China tend to feel alike. Glass walls reflect the sky; neon screens flicker, turning daylight into something dreamlike. Crowds move like a great migration. With the roar of trains rising from underground, I was swept into a dense forest fenced by steel.
In a garden at the street’s centre stands a bronze statue of Sun Yat-sen. His calm, wise gaze still watches Chunxi Road’s quiet and bustle.
A giant panda clings to the eaves. Can it see the homeland it once knew?
Into Taikoo Li
Past the towers lies a cluster of dark-brown, traditional-style buildings: the famous Taikoo Li.
At Taikoo Li’s entrance, a stepped water feature gleams like a mirror, reflecting countless moving figures beneath skyscrapers, like a hazy mirage not yet fully awake.
Beneath Taikoo Li’s grey-blue tiled eaves and carved porticoes are no brushes, ink, paper, inkstones or old books, but polished metal installations and huge geometric coloured lights. The old wooden frames now house the magic of light and shadow. Modern light seeps through classical carvings and spreads like patches of fungus, illuminating both the carefully drawn past and every inch of the present with a dazzling glare.
Luxury shop windows stand silent, their goods carefully arranged and glittering with star-like gems, like prized specimens in transparent aquariums. When neon pours over them, they become crystal-clear throughout, like specimens of time frozen in amber.
Luxury goods are ultimately the toys of a few. The streets felt rather forlorn. No wealthy men with mistresses, no celebrity influencers in strange outfits; ordinary people like us can simply wander and look.
This brand recalls the man and woman exposed in street photographs two years earlier. I never learned how that ended.
Walking through this steel forest, I seemed to smell waves of leaves and pine trees again. Looking up, I saw only the huge shadow of an advertisement moving slowly. Inside, I still longed for the solitude of deep mountains. The city’s clamorous neon could never cover the image of mountain forests that remains open in my heart.
Trekking outdoors, always on the road! The outdoors is simply my hobby. I like measuring mountains and rivers with my footsteps and recording the stories of wind and the paths of clouds through my lens. While life continues, so do the walks and the sharing. I will share all my walking landscapes and itinerary plans here, perhaps grumbling now and then. If you enjoy them, follow through the profile card below. The road is richer with you along!
(Author: $随风随缘)
