Soulful tunes of an antique land

Yet to many ordinary visitors, few delights in the special exhibition can rival a smiling pottery woman dancer, made in the Eastern Han Dynasty (25-220), which is in the collection of the Chengdu Museum.

Since Li Bing, then a governor of Sichuan, built the Dujiangyan Irrigation Project around 256 BC, the Chengdu Plain has had no major floods or drought. With fertile land and grain harvest, it is known as the land of abundance.

Visitors who have seen the smiling pottery dancer would joke that Chengdu people were satisfied with their life 2,000 years ago.

Contemporary Chengdu people are also noted for their fondness for drinking tea, playing mahjong and having a positive attitude of life.

Renate was most impressed with a smiling pottery rap musician in the Eastern Han Dynasty.

It is in a standing position, its posture is exaggerating, and its expression is very humorous, she said, showing a picture of the musician on her phone.

According to Wang, there are so many Eastern Han Dynasty smiling pottery figurines in the collection of her museum which are yet to be counted.