Anren lies in Dayi county, about an hour and a half by road from Chengdu. It is two things at once: an old town with a remarkably intact street of Republican-period buildings, and the site of the Jianchuan Museum Cluster, a group of more than twenty separate museums built on a large plot at the edge of the town.
The old town
Anren's principal street, Gongguan Street, runs between two of the grandest private residences in Sichuan - the Liu family mansions, built in the 1920s and 1930s by a warlord family who dominated this part of the province. The street between them consists of two-storey Republican-era shophouses with arched windows, carved balconies and painted signs, restored and occupied by teahouses, small museums and shops. Tram cars run along part of the street. The architecture is a genuine and unusual survival, and the scale is small enough to walk in half an hour.
The museum cluster
The Jianchuan museums were established by a private collector and cover twentieth-century Chinese history in an unusually direct way: the war of resistance against Japan, the Sichuan earthquake of 2008, the Cultural Revolution, Red Army history, folk customs and traditional Chinese furniture, among other subjects. Each museum is a separate building, often with striking architecture, and some are deliberately unsettling. The treatment is serious and largely Chinese-language, though the scale of the project is impressive whatever language you read.
Planning a visit
Because the museums are numerous and spread out, most visitors choose two or three rather than attempting everything. The old town and the cluster are close enough to walk between, and there are cafes and restaurants at both. Allow a full day for the combination, and note that much of the walking is outdoors, so weather matters. The museums are generally closed on Mondays.
Practical notes
Anren is reached by car or coach from Chengdu, taking around an hour and a half, and it sits on a direct line to the Xiling Snow Mountain and Huashuiwan area, which makes a two-day loop possible. There is an entrance fee for the old town's residential museums and separate tickets for the Jianchuan museums, sold individually or as packages. The town is popular with Chinese school groups in term time and quiet on weekdays outside holidays.
