People's Park

Why it's worth it

Chengdu's living room since 1911: bamboo chairs under ancient trees, 20-yuan tea refills all day, ear-cleaners with tuning forks, ballroom dancers, and the marriage market where parents advertise single children on umbrellas.

Don't miss

• Heming Teahouse — order gaiwan tea, pay the one-off price, and nurse it for hours like everyone else
• The ear-cleaning masters: tuning-fork hum, brass tweezers, strangely transcendent, about 30 CNY
• The matchmaking corner on weekends: CVs pinned to umbrellas, grandparents negotiating

Getting there

Metro Line 2 to Peoples Park station; the teahouse is straight ahead past the flower market.

Tips

• Go mid-morning any day, or Sunday morning for full marriage-market theatre
• Tea etiquette: keep the lid ajar for a refill, lid off means you've left for good
• This is the real Sichuan 'slow life' — sit long enough and the park will hand you its whole cast