Chongqing Things to Do

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This temple, known, also, as Luohan Si, was built during the Ming dynasty and is famed for its hall crowded with luohan (those freed from the cycle of rebirth). The Indian Buddhist pantheon has just 18 luohan, but the Chinese have added hundreds of their own, including Buddhist figures, folk heroes and even Taoists. The hall has 524 life-sized statues; some sit serenely, while others have grotesque faces.

Open: 8am-5pm. Admission: Y10.

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Jiefangbe, or the People' s Liberation Monument, formerly known as the Monument of Victory in the War of Resistance, a 27.5 meter high structure, was renamed and had its new name inscribed by Liu Bocheng on October 1st, 1950. This drab clock tower is to celebrate the Communists' liberation of the city from seventy years of colonial and right-wing occupation.

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In 1951, under the leadership of Marshal He Long, an auditorium was to be built at Chongqing to accommodate domestic and overseas guests. Completed in 1954, it was named the Chongqing People's Assembly Hall in 1955.

The hall complex is a cluster of attached structures which contain the hall and three attached buildings respectively to the east, south and north. Collectively, they cover 66,000 square meters (about 16.3 acres) of which the hall accounts for 18,500 square meters (about 45.7 acres). The hall is 65 meters high (about 213 feet) and has a capacity of more than 4,000 seats.

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Bayu, located in China's south-west corner, has been largely separated from the outside world since ancient times. It boasts some of the most ancient human art relics. Exhibits include animal bones, pottery, bone tools and instruments, bronzes, weaponry and musical instruments.

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These exhibits reflect the social life of the Han dynasty with their vivid appearances and designs. Various pottery figures, including storytellers, singers and dancers, musicians, cooks, etc, are meticulously carved with lifelike expressions and the surface carving of picture bricks and stones describe incisively people's yearning for a happy life.

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The Three Gorges Museum's bronzes section is vast. In this section, Ba-Shu bronze weapons are most noticeable. Exquisitely made and elaborately engraved, these weapons, especially "Round top axe" and "Spear with two rings”, all express distinctive local features of the Ba culture.

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The Three Gorges Museum was one of the best museums I visited during my three months in China. It was founded in 1951 as the Southwest Museum and was renamed as Chongqing Museum in 1955 before changing name again to its present name in 2005. Covering a construction area of 5500 sqm, the museum has over 40 exhibiting halls with about 100,000 pieces of relics, which spans over 3000 years history from the ancient Kingdom of Ba and the near-mythical Three Kingdoms Period to World War Two and the Chinese Revolution.

These antiquities mainly include bronze wares, pottery, paintings, porcelain, sculptures, etc, of which relics of Ba-Shu culture, painting of various dynasties, terra-cotta and sculpture of the Han dynasty and pottery and porcelain are most famous.

Open: 9:30am-5pm. Admission: Y40.

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WE visited the WW11 Stillwell headquarters which were here in Chongqing IT was here that the legendary Flying Tigers were born. They were a fighter group that trained in China and defended the Burma supply line to China over the Himalayas known as the "Hump" before the United States entered the war.