The Ebony Museum in Suji Town

Our friends from Emei City, who own a Chinese pharmacy, invited us to go to their hometown of Suji. It is a small town on the way to Leshan. Seems they grew up together in this small town and they wanted us to see their old home places. They also said we would visit the Ebony Wood Museum in Suji as well.

We have passed the Ebony Wood Museum every time we went to Leshan and always wondered what it was. It is a beautiful structure designed in the Tang style. At least, that is what I thought it looked like. Our American friends also have made comments about the site but no one had visited it. No one, that is, until now.

We took a bus to Emei City and walked to our friends' pharmacy where they were waiting for us. After visiting for about twenty minutes we headed out to Suji. Suji is only about twenty minutes or so from Emei so we were there very quickly. The first place we went was to visit the family in Suji.

Sunee and Xiao Ling waiting for us to be on the way

Xiao Ling and her husband's family in Suji, still at the family home

After a relaxing visit with "the family," we visited the Ebony Museum. The following are the "illegal photos" I took inside the museum. Actually there were several guards inside and no one seemed to care about the picture taking. The outside looks like Tang Dynasty, don't you think?

The Ebony Wood Museum

This looks like Tang Dynasty style to me. This is what we saw many times.

This is the map of the tourist site

Outside area of the site

Nice garden and landscaping

Not real but it looked good

I love these Chinese doorways or are they portals?

The construction is absolutely beautiful with much attention to detail

After paying for your ticket, this is what one sees first - a giant Ebony peacock thing

Sunee and Xiao Ling posing in front of one of the many professional looking displays

No photos!!!! Say what?

Just for good luck. Believe this one is called a rhinosaurus

Some of the displays inside the museum

Details of the Ebony wood carvings inside the museum

A small buddha temple inside the compound had this carved piece. Stunning!

A Million Or More Mao Buttons Museum

After spending about an hour inside the Ebony Wood Museum with a charming guide, we visited the Mao Button Museum. Here were hundreds of pictures made out of Mao buttons plus a good collection of Mao Communist Kitsch, as I call it. We are interested in finding some of this stuff as we travel around China.

A huge mural made up of nothing but Mao Buttons of all sizes

Now we can say we visited that "strange" Ebony wood museum on the way to Leshan. It is professional run and very impressive in the ebony carvings it has. I am not sure how much the entrance fee was as our friends paid for it. I have heard from some of my friends that it is 80 Yuan. If so, that is a little expensive but the place is set up as a quality tourist site and the pieces are beautiful. Although there were signs all over the place that stated NO PHOTO, none of the guards or the guides seemed to mind me taking the pictures.

All in a day's adventure.