September 01, 2005 Chengdu, Sichuan, China
I had no idea what to expect of China. When do we ever see China? As Westerners, we don't get to see any movies of TV shows showing contemporary Chinese people. Pretty much the only time we see China is when there's a huge disaster, and with a country so big, there's something bad happening all the time, leading us to believe it's a huge disaster zone.
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All this added to the mystique for me. I wanted to see what China was all about. I haven't seen much yet, but if the rest of the country is like Chengdu, it's an amazing place.
Chengdu is one of the coolest cities I've been to. It's huge (10 million people), with gleaming skyscrapers, yet laid back. It's clean, with no garbage anywhere. It has wide streets, with bike lanes, and wide sidewalks, free of vendors. And there are no dogs. There are lots of trendy shops and shopping centers.
As nice a place as Chengdu would be to live, it's exactly that niceness that makes it not the most exciting of places to visit. There are some sites, so I rented a bike to check them out. Chengdu is huge and confusing, and I managed to not find a single place I was looking for. But I wandered in to some beautiful Chinese parks and Daoist temples full of people drinking tea and playing mahjong. And I accidentally ordered tea that cost the equivalent of $3, when I thought it would be lunch.
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The Chinese pretty much expect you to speak Chinese, so it's hard to get by if you don't. I just have to wander in to restaurants, accept how ridiculous I am, and point at something. By doing that I got some delicious spicy dumpling soup for dinner. But the people kept trying to ask me questions. They also examined my books. The Chinese are very curious indeed.
The town is really cool at night, all lit up with neon signs. There's even a huge walking area, like an outdoor mall. But all this gentrification has a dark side. Most of the original city was demolished to make way for progress. But a few traditional Chinese streets are left, and they are amazing.