Chengdu Tea House

On one of our last nights in Chengdu (don't remember date, sorry), we went to a tea house. I was sort of expecting that it was going to be like a coffee house - we'd have tea, there'd be munchies, we'd sit and enjoy each other's company, and then return to our hotel. Well, I was definitely wrong. I don't know if this place was typical of teahouses (in fact, in retrospect, I suspect not. The guidebook said something about how tea houses are places where people sit for hours playing cards or mah jong, and as you'll see, that definitely wasn't happening here), but we had tea, and then there was a show. Within seconds of sitting down, we were offered massages, which I did not have, although a couple of other people in our party did. It was actually pretty funny to see - these three guys standing behind our friends massaging their heads.

The show itself was kind of like a variety show (the Chinese equivalent of Ed Sullivan?) with all kinds of dances, a magic show, music, etc. There were two sets of traditional dances, there was a magician (it loses a bit of something when you can't understand the patter) a gentleman who played traditional Chinese instruments, an woman who did shadow puppets with her hands, and something called vanishing faces.

The traditional instrument that has always fascinated me the most is the erhu. A few years ago I had a chance to see Lang Lang play in Philadelphia, and as an encore, he brought his father out on the stage to accompany him. His father played the erhu, and it was just lovely. The music at the Chengdu tea house wasn't as wonderful as what Lang Lang and his father played, but I'm not complaining.

There were also "tea pourers". I'm just going to let the picture tell that tale.

The last act was something called vanishing faces. Basically, there are dancers onstage in elaborate constumes wearing masks, and they dance to traditional music (actually, it wasn't so traditional, now that I think on it. It was more sort of cheesy 70s tv drama theme show-y. With a smidge of Chinese for flavor). There was also flame spitting, but that wasn't the coolest part. The coolest part is that while they were dancing, they would tap their forehead and a new mask would appear. I have no idea how they did it. I do have a couple of half-baked theories, of course.