---
title: "Cups & Curtains — Tai Chi, an Antique Market, and Backstage at a Grassroots Sichuan Opera House | LyrikTrip"
description: "Eight hours across the Chengdu that Chengdu people actually use: tai chi with a master in the park, the southwest's antique market, backstage while the opera singers paint their faces, then tea and mahjong in People's Park."
type: "experience"
source: "film"
url: "https://www.lyriktrip.com/zh-TW/experience/chengdu-opera-backstage-day"
canonical_url: "https://www.lyriktrip.com/zh-TW/experience/chengdu-opera-backstage-day"
locale: "zh-TW"
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![The Heming teahouse gateway in Chengdu's People's Park, bamboo chairs under the trees](https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/b3e8c506891d.webp)

Chengdu · A full day, booked on its own

# A day inside *the city's own routine*

Eight hours in which you learn tai chi from a master in a public park, walk into an opera house's dressing room before the paint is dry, and finish being taught mahjong by strangers over a lidded cup of tea.

- Where: Across central Chengdu · Meet Tonghuimen metro (line 2) · ends People's Park (line 2)
- How long: About 8 hours · Meet 8:30–9:00 am
- The shape: Park → market → opera → park · Ends where the city drinks tea
茶馆 变脸

LyrikTrip · a standalone full-day experience

## Cups*& Curtains*

- 8 hours
- Metro to metro
- Backstage before curtain
- No pandas, deliberately

## What you get

### Four things you get here *that you cannot get on your own*

### You'll see

- A park at eight in the morning with **several hundred people** in it, all mid-form
- An opera singer building a face out of paint, **an hour before the audience is let in**
- Trays of Qing coins and old banknotes at the southwest's biggest antique market
- A grassroots teahouse where the audience is the same regulars it was yesterday

### You'll taste

- Local snacks along the way — **included, and frequent**
- Tea in a lidded gaiwan, refilled without you asking
- The specific weak-green flavour of a Chengdu teahouse cup that costs almost nothing

### You'll hear

- A martial arts master telling you why you're moving too fast
- Performers chanting backstage — **and they'll let you try**
- The stallholder's version of where his coins came from
- The gongs, from close enough to feel them

### You'll take home

- A short tai chi sequence you can actually repeat
- The rules of mahjong, learned by losing
- Photographs from inside a dressing room, taken with permission

## Act I — The other Chengdu

![Old wooden furniture in a traditional teahouse](https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/4ebd3fb3f0cf.webp)

![Two Sichuan opera performers on stage in full costume](https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/893416b8fea3.webp)

![A Chinese temple courtyard with incense burning](https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/e1fe6952f6f0.webp)

Chengdu is sold to visitors as two things: hotpot and pandas. *Neither is what the city does with its own day.*

Its own day is a park at eight, a market where nothing is labelled, and an opera house that does not advertise.

And it finishes, always, *sitting down with a cup of tea*.

## 01 — In the row

![A master correcting a guest's tai chi posture in the park](https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/112c2d1058fe.webp)

太极

08:40 With a martial arts master

### Basic moves, corrected in person

A public park · a real class, not a photo

You learn a short sequence from a martial arts master, in a park, among people doing exactly the same thing for their own reasons. The correction is physical — a hand on your elbow, a foot moved. Twenty minutes in you understand why everyone here is moving so slowly, which is not the reason you assumed.

## 02 — Wind and water

![Rows of old banknotes laid out at the antique market](https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/6745c4175c9c.webp)

道观

10:00 The city's best-known Taoist site

### Philosophy, and then fengshui

Taoism · and the practical layer built on top of it

Next, the most famous Taoist site in the city — for the philosophy, and for the fortune-telling that grew on top of it. Fengshui translates literally as wind and water. Your guide will be straight with you about which parts of what you are looking at are cosmology and which parts are superstition.

## 03 — The market

![A stall of painted folding fans at the antique market](https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/ecf53717c7c1.webp)

古玩

11:00 Southwest China's biggest

### Nothing here has a label

Coins · notes · fans · furniture · confident opinions

The largest antique market in the southwest, and an education in how this country trades. Rows of old banknotes, coins by the tray, painted fans, furniture, and a great deal of confidently asserted provenance. You are not here to buy — you are here because an hour in this building explains more about value in China than a museum would.

## 04 — Backstage

![A Sichuan opera performer applying face paint at a mirror](https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/4eab71ac1f90.webp)

后台

13:30 Before the house opens

### Watch the face go on

The mirrors · the paint · chanting along if you want to

This is the part of the day the whole thing is built around. Before the audience is let in, you go through to the back: the mirrors, the paint going on layer by layer, the costume rack. The performers are used to visitors and will chant with you if you are willing to be bad at it in front of them.

## 05 — Out front

![A traditional teahouse packed with people at wooden tables](https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/f33fe7da85ee.webp)

看戏

14:30 A grassroots house

### Sit with the regulars

Old fans, every day · tea in your hand

Then you take a seat out front with a cup of tea, in a house whose audience is mostly the same people it was yesterday — old fans who come to meet friends and happen to watch a show. You become one of them for an afternoon, which differs from the theatre version by roughly the whole point.

## 06 — Tea and tiles

![Guests around a mahjong table](https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/d8ce0f06a80d.webp)

茶与麻将

16:20 How the day ends

### Learn mahjong, badly, in public

People's Park · a bamboo chair · four people and a table

The day ends at the teahouse in People's Park, in a bamboo chair, with a lidded cup that gets refilled without being asked. Someone will teach you mahjong. You will not be good at it. This is Chengdu's single most popular way to spend an afternoon and it is worth understanding from the inside.

## What the day is actually for

![Guests seated at the outdoor teahouse tables in the park](https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/9c19f0a1a045.webp)

Eight hours, no landmark

### None of this is *on anyone's list*

There is no panda base in this day and no famous street. It is a park, a market, an opera house that does not advertise, and a teahouse.

Every one of those is somewhere locals go on a Tuesday for their own reasons, which is exactly what makes them hard to reach as a visitor — nobody is set up to receive you, and the good ones are not findable.

That is the entire product: a day inside the city's own routine, arranged so you can join it rather than photograph it.

## The day, unrolled

### What the eight hours are made of

Park · market · backstage · teahouse

![A performer with painted face backstage](https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/dece99553be2.webp)

**The face**勾脸 · an hour before curtain

![Embroidered opera costume detail](https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/46bb28f75fd2.webp)

**The costume**戏服 · weight you can feel

![Antique fans and curios](https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/0b400295dec6.webp)

**The stall**古玩 · provenance by assertion

![A Chinese lidded tea cup](https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/b692f1dbe522.webp)

**The lidded cup**盖碗 · refilled without asking

![Morning tai chi in the park](https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/79a5b8df31fe.webp)

**The park at eight**晨练 · already full

## Practicalities

- Duration: About 8 hours
- Meet: Exit A, Tonghuimen station, metro line 2 · 8:30–9:00 am
- Ends: Exit A, People's Park station, metro line 2
- Included: Tai chi class · opera backstage · tea and mahjong · antique market · local snacks
- Not included: Lunch and dinner · gratuities
- Guide: English-speaking, throughout
- Pandas: Not in this day — deliberately
- Group: Private
## End card

![Chengdu street snacks](https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/1371e0aa2a5e.webp)

### Book *the day*

A standalone day, start to finish, meeting at one metro exit and ending at another. Tell us a date.

[**Start planning](/contact)

## Sources

**资料与图片来源 · Sources**

文字与行程全部依据 U2Panda 产品文件：公园太极课、最著名道观与风水、西南古玩市场、川剧茶馆后台看上妆并跟着吊嗓、人民公园喝茶学麻将、约 8 小时、**通惠门地铁 2 号线 A 口集合 8:30–9:00，人民公园站 A 口结束**、不含午晚餐与小费。

**本页 11 张照片直接取自 U2Panda 产品文件 *CC U2Panda — New City Culture · Opera Tea House***，是供应商自己的运营实拍 —— 真实的客人、真实的作坊与灶台。另有 5 张为 Unsplash 图库补图（标注见下），用于填补文件未覆盖的画面。

已获授权使用：供应商（U2Panda）实拍的对外使用权已确认。

图库补图

- Yellow silk fabric with intricate butterfly — Eric Prouzet · Unsplash
- a chinese fan with a picture of a building i — TAO SU · Unsplash
- green bowl with lid — Arseniy Kapran · Unsplash
- People gathered at a street food stall with — MChe Lee · Unsplash
- A traditional Chinese temple courtyard with — Edoardo Giudici Saraval · Unsplash

2026-08 换图与授权

- 人民公园鹤鸣茶社（cu-sup-park）—— Teahouse in Peoples Park, Chengdu，Daderot · CC0

以上列表中若干图库条目已在 2026-08 的换图中被取代，保留仅作历史记录；当前实际使用的图片以本节列出的为准。