Every city has a park it uses as its living room. Chengdu's is People's Park, a few hectares in the middle of the city where, on any given morning, someone is getting their ears cleaned with a tuning fork, someone's grandmother is inspecting bachelor resumes taped to an umbrella, and hundreds of people are drinking covered-bowl tea like it is their job. I have spent whole afternoons there and recommend it to every traveler who asks me what to do in Chengdu beyond the pandas.

Start with the tea

Heming Teahouse, in the park, has been pouring tea for roughly a century. You order a bowl of jasmine or green tea for somewhere between 20 and 40 yuan, claim a bamboo chair under the trees, and that chair is yours for as long as you like. Refills are free; staff come around with tall kettles and top you up all afternoon. This is the Chengdu institution, the thing the whole city is stereotyped for, and the stereotype holds. Bring a book, or better, bring nothing and watch. On weekdays you will be surrounded by retirees playing cards and mahjong. On weekends the noise level triples and it is just as good.

Yes, get your ears cleaned

Wandering ear cleaners work the park with long tweezers, tuning forks and feather swabs. For 30 to 60 yuan, depending on how elaborate you want it, you get ten minutes of scraping, vibrating and tickling that sounds horrifying and feels astonishing. I was skeptical for years. I have now done it in Chengdu three times. It is not for everyone, and if the hygiene part worries you, watch how they handle the tools first, or bring your own set, which some of them sell. But if you are even mildly curious, this is the place.

The matchmaking corner

On weekend mornings, parents and grandparents gather near one corner of the park with printed resumes of their unmarried adult children: age, height, salary, apartment ownership, hukou. They read each other's signs, negotiate introductions, and occasionally argue about whether a 1990-born civil servant in Qingyang District can really be considered young anymore. It is part market, part sociology class, and completely unselfconscious. Photograph from a respectful distance and ask before pointing a camera at anyone's family listing. As a piece of living social history, I find it more interesting than half the museums I have paid to enter.

Everything else going on

• Square dancing groups and choir clubs, usually near the main plaza in the morning.
• A public roller-skating rink that has apparently been there since the 1980s and looks it, fondly.
• Food stalls around the edges: sweet rice balls, fried dough, freshly pressed sesame oil if you want a souvenir with a smell.
• The monument to the 1911 Railway Protection Movement, right in the middle, a reminder that this park was political long before it was pleasant.

Practical bits

The park is free and opens early, around 6am, which is the best time to see the morning exercise crowd before it thins out. It sits next to Tianfu Square in the city center, one stop or a short walk from the metro. Combine it with the wide and narrow alleys, Kuanzhai Xiangzi, about fifteen minutes away on foot, and you have a day that needs no tickets at all.

One warning: the park is busiest on weekend afternoons, and the tea house can run out of good seats by 11am. Go early, order the tea first, then explore. When you come back, your chair will be waiting, and you will understand why Chengdu ranks every other city's pace of life as slightly too fast.

Originally published on 71Asia Tours blog.