One day in February, while brushing through Douban's news feeds, a girl I follow posted something along the lines of: she wants to interview people who have lived/are living in Chengdu, Hangzhou, or Dali, and talk about their experiences and feelings about life in those cities. I was very interested and left a message explaining my situation - I studied and lived in Hangzhou for nearly 10 years and came to Chengdu at the end of last year to work and live. She quickly sent me a private message with an outline of the interview and set up a time for online communication.
Because the topic was so interesting, I did some serious preparation before the conversation. Not only did I outline the content I wanted to share, but I also interviewed two of my Hangzhou friends to collect their insights and experiences. I had a great time during the 1 hour chat with my friend and neighbor, and I was inspired to share my thoughts and experiences. I was also inspired to share my intuitive experience of the city after coming to Chengdu, in terms of food, clothing, housing and transportation.
I'll share the following in 3 parts:
Background of moving to Chengdu
Intuitive feelings of a foreigner who came to live in Chengdu
Chengdu vs Hangzhou, which city do I love the most
I'm a girl from a small town in the north of Anhui Province. After the college entrance examination, I came to the affluent southern capital city of Hangzhou to study in college. After studying and working here for nearly 10 years, I decided to leave Hangzhou with my boyfriend at the end of July 21 to explore a new life in the southwest hinterland. came to Chengdu at the end of November to work and live here.
Many people ask me why I left Hangzhou and chose to continue my development in Chengdu. There are two main reasons:
First, my boyfriend is from Neijiang, Sichuan. He told me at the beginning of our relationship that he wanted to go back to Sichuan in the future, so I was always mentally prepared for the possibility of having to live in Chengdu.
This is the first time that I've seen a person who has been in a relationship with my husband for a long time, and I'm not sure if I've ever been in a relationship with him before.
Secondly, the price of housing in Hangzhou is really too high. I love this city, but the cost of buying a home here is too high. Although Chengdu is also the capital of the province, second-tier cities, but the price of housing is slightly lower, and very close to my boyfriend's hometown, high-speed rail 40 minutes by car. If you come to Chengdu to settle down, at least one of your family is close by, and you can be taken care of by some of your elders at home.
I shared this decision in my circle of friends before I left for Chengdu. Some people wrote to me privately, saying that I was so brave to go and live so far away from home for a long time. Some others might have thought that I was going out of my way for love.
But in fact, for me, this decision was neither hasty nor simply crazy for love. Rather, it was a decision that I thought about every year after I met Mr. Peng, and ultimately, based on factors such as my actual life, work, and change of heart, a decision that was most in line with my heart and more mature.
On November 21, 2021, I took a high-speed train for nearly 8 hours and came to Chengdu from my hometown in Anhui Province. on November 23, I reported to my new company. on December 12, I moved to my new house which I like very much. I've been living and working in this city for almost 4 months now.
From the initial unfamiliarity with the city, we are now gradually adapting to it. In the process of actively and slowly exploring my surroundings, I have always consciously or unconsciously felt and experienced this brand-new city with an eye of "scrutiny" and comparison.
These feelings and insights are summarized in a list that I would like to share with you.
Food
The food paradise is true to its name, and the catering industry has rolled to a halt
After coming to Chengdu for a few meals, I realized that Hangzhou is really a food desert, and the contrast is too obvious. Also finally be able to understand, before eating together to eat something to eat, I think delicious, Mr. Peng will always say general, okay. His mouth has been raised by the Sichuan food grips.
Starting from breakfast, Chengdu hangs Hangzhou, a variety of choices, just eat noodles can eat a week without repetition. Even the flavor of the ordinary fast food at noon is not a level.
In addition to the world-famous spicy hot pot, there are also a variety of themed hot pots: lamb hot pot (not spicy, light), rabbit hot pot (although the rabbit is very cute, but the meat is really tasty), fish head and fish hot pot, frog hot pot (my boyfriend's favorite to eat this) and so on.
The restaurants are extremely numerous, with one every few hundred meters near a normal neighborhood. And many restaurants open together, forming a food street. Usually eat, a lot of choices. But at the same time for business, is fierce competition. Because the flavor is not good, it is difficult to open to go (the meaning of open not go down).
And I would love to do justice to Sichuan cuisine! The most important feature of this cuisine is spicy, please note, is hemp in the front, spicy in the back. So friends from abroad, don't think it's very spicy once you see the red soup, it's actually not very spicy when you eat it. In addition, many Sichuan dishes will put sugar, neutralize the spicy flavor.
Sichuan people in their daily diet, not every day to eat very spicy, who's stomach is not iron, light and delicious dishes will become the first choice of many people. Now live in the neighborhood near a large food market, I love to go shopping. I can see a lot of local fresh vegetables, a variety of spices, marinades. Among the vegetables, my favorites are lettuce, pea tips, and cauliflower.
Lettuce is a vegetable I eat everyday in my hometown in Anhui and Hangzhou, but people in these two places basically don't eat lettuce leaves. I didn't eat it before either, but since I went to Neijiang and tasted its deliciousness in various noodles and coppers, I love to use it for stir-frying, putting it in soups or noodles.
Pea tips, in my hometown and Hangzhou have not eaten, is to come to Chengdu only began to eat. The first time I ate it, it was a side dish in a lamb hot pot, put it in the soup for a while and then fish it out, and it would become very tasty, refreshing and tender. Then I slowly unlocked other ways to eat it: cold, stir-fry, make soup.
Rapeseed, I always thought you can't eat, just ornamental + oil extraction. But after coming here, I obviously increased my knowledge. There are 2 kinds of rapeseed flowers here, one is my common, small yellow flowers, vegetable pole is green. In the spring, girls love to take photos in the rapeseed fields where the flowers are in full bloom. One is one I haven't seen before, and the stalks are purpleish. Both kinds of canola flowers can be eaten, before the flowering, stalks are still very tender, the most suitable for stir-fry or make soup, extremely delicious.
Now every weekend, in addition to cooking at home, we will go out to eat at restaurants, actively explore the surrounding food, try to ensure that the type of dishes are not repeated. In Chengdu, the joy of eating is infinitely amplified.
Food, clothing and housing
Rental housing is extremely cost-effective, and the sense of well-being is greatly enhanced
Perhaps growing up in the northern countryside, although the home decoration is not great, but the space is always large, and each family has its own small yard, so I have always been obsessed with the living area. I basically can't stand a room that's too small, and I feel very suffocated. I also have a requirement for the orientation of the room. I want to choose a room facing south, but in the 5 years I've been renting a room in Hangzhou, I've never been able to realize it. (In fact, I had too little money and too many demands, and my boyfriend always said I was too picky.)
But when I came to Chengdu, I basically realized all of the above demands! For the same price, the living area is 3 times more than before. The rooms are all facing south. Most importantly, there is a huge balcony! Finally, you can feel free to dry your quilt and raise your favorite flowers and plants!
On a sunny day, the sunlight pours into the bedroom, living room, kitchen and laundry room, casting light in various shadows. The illuminated areas sparkle. In these moments, I am always happy and content and feel that life is good.
One after another, I bought my favorite potted plants from offline florists and online, and slowly built my own little garden on the balcony. I don't have to worry about buying too much. The first time I raised strawberries, planted tulips, lily of the valley, and also bought seeds of chickpeas, cilantro and green onions, and buried garlic and peas in the soil, looking forward to eating the vegetables I planted. Every day after work, look at their growth, water them, take pictures to record the growth, share them with friends who have the same hobby, it's really a happy thing.
Nowadays, my nerves are less and less tense, and most of the time, I am relaxed and stretched out.
Food, clothing, housing, and transportation
Underground transportation is more developed, and there are enough subway lines (13) to form a well-connected network. It's easy to get to and from work on the subway, and the commute time is almost 20 minutes less than when I was in Hangzhou.
But the ground transportation culture is not very good. The phenomenon of indiscriminate parking, motor vehicles occupying non-motorized lanes and crosswalks is serious. Many drivers do not turn on their turn signals when turning left or right. Most buses do not have a separate stopping area, and passengers have to pay special attention to oncoming traffic when getting on and off the bus.
Two-wheeled motorcycle delivery, commercial carrier, three-wheeled electric car commercial carrier is a beautiful landscape in Yunnan, Guizhou and Sichuan. Not only seen in Chengdu, in Neijiang, Guiyang I have also paid attention to observe.
These driving big brothers and uncles, will be distributed in the subway station, bus stops and other places where the flow of people to pick up passengers. The three-wheeler, our hometown also used to have, I often ride when I went to high school. But these years by the traffic department control, coupled with taxi more and more convenient, basically do not see. When I lived in Hangzhou, I didn't see any either. The two-wheeled ones, we have never seen in our hometown and Hangzhou, this side is very common. But I haven't experienced it yet, it feels a bit dangerous, I don't know where he will take you.
Face to Face: Weather, Scenery, Dialect and Others
Weather:
The relative lack of sunshine is a common feature of weather in the south. On the Chengdu side, there are a lot of cloudy days with thick cloud cover. Even on sunny days, the sky is not obviously blue, and is always white. But what makes me happy is that there are very few rainy days. The forecasted rain often doesn't fall, unlike in Hangzhou, where it can rain at any time and never stop.
Scenery:
In late fall, the yellow ginkgo trees are distributed on both sides of the road, especially beautiful, no longer need to specifically run to where to enjoy the ginkgo, walking on the road, you can enjoy at any time.
The place where we live now (southwest) is far away from the famous attractions in Chengdu (northeast). It is not easy to make a trip there. So many attractions have not yet had time to visit.
Last weekend we went to the Botanical Gardens for a trek, and it took us 3 hours on the subway to get there and back. I'd like to climb a mountain, but it's not easy, basically on the outskirts of the city, 30 kilometers to start. So this has been very uncomfortable for me who loves nature. I often spit with Mr. Peng, while talking about nostalgia, the days of climbing mountains and swimming in the West Lake in Hangzhou freely.
But of the few attractions I've been to, there's something that shines through and that I praise highly: the science museum is wonderfully done, interactive and fun.
In early December last year, Mr. Peng took me to see the pandas, and we went to the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding in the city. We went to the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding in the city. Not only did I get a close-up look at many pandas eating bamboo, sleeping, drinking water, being silly, climbing trees, but I also gained a lot of knowledge in the base's science museum. For example, through the panda feces to guess the weight, pandas in addition to bamboo can eat what. Interactive methods are also varied: science pamphlets through the hand shaking to turn the page to view, select the pattern can hear the panda's call.
Earlier this year in March to go to the Arboretum, the garden science features everywhere. Almost all the trees you see, there are name identification. For example, there are many varieties of camellias, and each tea tree has a small sign that tells you the name of the specific species, family and genus.
The Junior Science Museum is full of dry goods, designed to interact with visitors in a number of ways, and is very friendly to people who love plants and want to learn more about them! You can learn a lot of new knowledge after a serious stroll.
Dialect:
People here love to speak Sichuanese. Not only in life, but also at work, my coworkers and clients often start to talk in dialect, which surprised me at first. Before I came here, I thought I could understand Sichuan dialect very well, but after I came here, I realized I was too naive and could only understand 70-80% of it. If the topic is something you are not familiar with, it is even harder to understand.
This is rarely the case in Hangzhou, where people basically speak Mandarin, and a few locals sometimes show off by speaking Hangzhou dialect, but only if the other person is also from Hangzhou. I'm not sure if I've heard this before, but I'm sure I've heard it before, and I'm not sure if I've heard it before. Now it's a little bit better, you can only keep adapting, and it's great to learn a new dialect.
Other:
Residential high-rise buildings in particular, Sichuan and earthquake-prone areas, my boyfriend and I are very worried about the time in case of an earthquake, living in the high-rise of us will not be very dangerous? Or the community's elevator suddenly out of the question, personal safety how to ensure?
And because of the cover of the building, I have not seen the evening sun, or a complete sunset for a long time. The first time I saw this, I was able to see the clouds from the rooftop of my home, which has always been a sacred place for me to observe and record the clouds. So, this cloud sunset collection maniac, inevitably some discomfort.
Summary:
Overall, living and working in Chengdu is relatively easy to adapt to. The first thing I'd like to do is to get a good job and get a good job at work, so I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to do that. There are a lot of assembly line operations in first and second tier cities, and the infrastructure is not that different, so if you adapt to it in Hangzhou, you can reuse it in Chengdu as well.
Each has its own unique characteristics and is an important place in my life
After coming to live in Chengdu, I always unconsciously compare it with Hangzhou in every aspect. I occasionally miss the steamed eggs and old duck with tea tree mushrooms from Lao Niang-u (a fast food chain in Hangzhou). When I see my Hangzhou friends sharing the dynamics of strolling around West Lake, hiking in the mountains and visiting Xixi Wetland in their circle of friends, I will miss these places. I also plan to revisit the same places with Mr. Peng in the next 1-2 years.
I suddenly remembered that on my last day in Hangzhou, I was extremely calm, and there was nothing to be sad about. I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to do that, but I'm sure I'll be able to do it, and I'm sure I'm going to be able to do it. I'm not sure if you're going to be able to get a good look at this, but I'm sure you're going to be able to get a good look at this. But in the following period of time, the memory of Hangzhou will occasionally come to mind, leaving some traces of nostalgia.
Yes, even after leaving, I still love Hangzhou. After all, living in this city for so long, and some close friends have left a lot of good memories.
I miss the civilized etiquette of giving way to pedestrians at crosswalks and having special lanes for buses and bicycles, I miss going to West Lake and Xixi Wetland all year round to feel the beauty of the changing seasons, I miss the close connection with me and chatting with my friends, and I miss the quiet scenery of Huchun and Santaishan Roads that I rode my bike through after work. But I don't miss high prices, exploitative landlords and bad weather.
Since I've chosen Chengdu as the city where I'll be living for the next 10 or 20 years, I'll be brave enough to move forward and discover more about this city. Then, I will move forward bravely and discover more of the city's beauty. Instead of looking back frequently, dwelling on the past, or regretting the decisions I've made.
As well, I don't think I'll be living in Chengdu for the rest of my life. I prefer to gradually equip myself with the ability to live well in any city.
I have a desire that grows stronger as I get older. I would love to retire (around 50) and move with Mr. Peng to a small town with lots of sunshine and nice temperatures. Raise flowers and plant grass, Buddhist open a flower store, the remaining time to continue to write articles, and walk and travel with him to eat delicious food.
The world is a big place, why not imprint your footprints on more places in your limited life?