Just like all the big cities in China, at the first sight of Chengdu, the capital city of southwest China’s Sichuan Province, you can hardly tell the difference. I am afraid that only the local dialects can help people identify different cities. That is why I feel quite at home here, because it is all the same. Tomorrow morning, when I wake up, i should recall the memories for mins and tell myself i am now in a different city with the same view outside the window.
This time i come here of course not for distinguishing it with other cities, since it has become so different recently due to the quite well-known reason: the catastrophic earthquake that happened in this province.
Now, it has been more than two months after the earthquake. People are calming down and thinking about the recovery things, especially Chengdu, which was almost not damaged but people are afraid to come here due to continuous news of aftershocks in Sichuan.
We are a group of journalists from four different countries and are supposed to stay in Chengdu for five days. we arrived at Beijing International Capital Airport at 10:30 am, but arrived at Chengdu at almost 6:00 pm due to the long delay of the flight. I just realized that i never got any flight on time in China. every time with different reasons, mostly bad weather will be the scapegoat. when the departure place’s weather is very good, they will tell you the arrival place’s weather is terrible. But this time, when the weather is really bad in Beijing, the delay reason was that they need some time to get ready for the boarding of the passengers. Even the weather will be very angry and wont be so cooperative next time.
Anyway we arrived here when Chengdu was raining. After the short rest, we had dinner with some people from the local government. Then some of us just went outside, trying to find some small bars for some beer. Finally we found a restaurant in a narrow street and drank some cheap beer by sitting outside. The air is really fresh after the rain, some local people were playing cards by the beer, very easy life, as i heard before. I even saw a middle-aged guy carrying a bamboo pole on the shoulder with two barrels of water hanging on both ends of the pole. He walked in the street with that, fast and energetic.
I kind of feel that easy life smell in that small street restaurant. Tomorrow when I can get more information with my eyes, will have more new stories for you, not just the easy nightlife of playing cards in the street restaurant, but also more at daytime.
