Ghost food, as nicknamed by locals who are always up to labeling things in a disparaging way, has a long history in Chengdu, which also boasts a great number of top class restaurants serving glamorous foods. The ghost food sprang up as grassroots ingenuity many years ago when some poorer people set up shaky tables with wooden benches and planted ovens on the roadsider to carry on a catering business targeting at night owls and people who left off night-shifts. The original form of ghost food business has evolved into its modern version as some restaurants, even the top-notch ones in the city keep open deep into the early morning, serving a great variety of food (Sichuan,Cantonese or Western), instead of the cheap noodles, fried rice and Chuanchuanxiang of its obscure ...

The Wu Hou Shrine, located in the southern suburbs of Chengdu, is the memorial shrine of ZhueLiang, the Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Shu in the period of the Three Kingdoms. It was built in the sixth century A.D. and was merged into the Zhao Lie Temple at the end of the 14th century. Therefore the front gate lintel bears the characters“Han Zhao Lie Temple”. The existing halls were rebuilt in the 11thyear of Kang Xi’s Reign of the Qing dynasty(1672A.D.)

Illustration is a dragon on the “鼎”—an ancient vessel in the Shrine