Thoughts on Chengdu

When I was in elementary school, all I knew about Chengdu is the spicy dishes and pandas. Till I landed here, I felt the humidity in the air, it was just the same as people had told me about this city. The next five days were all rainy, no sunshine. I couldn’t enjoy this city so much due to the rain, but the activities I still had to take… 都江堰 is surely the most impressive spot I had seen in Chengdu, it occurred to me that thousands of years ago, before Qing dynasty, the local official decided to build a dam here to store the water, also prevent the water from flooding. Couldn’t imagine how difficult it was with poor technology to construct this masterpiece, so overwhelming. Another spot is the panda base. There I saw like 30-40 pandas eating, playing lying or sleeping, they are so cute! My mom would have fainted if she were also there, she just loved panda so much. And I bought a panda dull for her, she must be happy when she receives this. The third spot is 汶川, it is now a touristic place, but back in 2008, there was tragedy. The super strong earthquake hit, took tens of thousands of lives, buildings crashed into ashes scattered around the city, families were wrecked, some didn’t even realized what happened when they were about to die. Things happened too soon to believe it was just a dream. When I went there, something threw me back to our 921 earthquake. I couldn’t help but compare these two events, which one had caused more casualties, and how the government reacted to this. There were also some inspiring and encouraging stories being told, the goal was to help people to get through. Since we were in 四川, how could we not try the spicy dishes? For me it was a dream-come-true experience as I am a spicy lover. I know it’s torturing and not healthy but people like me just couldn’t resist the allure of all cuisines with spice on them. They are used to using lots of spices, for instance, we had fish for each meal and when they served, you wouldn’t see the whole body, you’d only see spices on top of it. You have to use chopsticks to dig further down the plate to get to the fish. When you finished eating the plate was still be filled with spices. I had even eaten a fresh chili in a restaurant, I was tearing all my face like I made a scene in front of everybody, they wouldn’t dare to try but I would, that’s the spirit!