Chengdu / Conclusion

Water
I get so fed-up with Chengdu sometimes. Like today, when I realized that anything less than imported bottled water is totally undrinkable and will saturate your bloodstream with toxins, slowly erode your insides, and give you diarrhea if you drink it. Even if you boil tap water it’s still dirty as shit, and that compounded with unsanitary kitchen practices, you can imagine your food. Trust no restaurant when in Chengdu, I am speaking from experience! Dairy products taste peculiar to say the least; milk is almost always watered down and they don’t refrigerate dairy products so those become sour, however no one else seems to mind.

Air
The lingering smell of urine is ever present; as a rule, any cubic meter of space that is not air-conditioned, will reek of piss. Sometimes everything reeks of piss, your water, your glass, your sofa, your tablecloth, your pasta, your chicken breast, the construction site next to your apartment… makes you wonder if there’s a faulty wastewater recycling system, or if urination just occurs outside of the lavatories 80 percent of the time. Speaking of lavatories, the smell there at the actual site is so pungent it makes you question how you dared come to Chengdu in the first place.

People
The only good thing you will find here besides peppercorn, even though they have bad public etiquette and often you will catch them blatantly picking their noses on the street or clipping their toenails by the curb. They speak loudly and hack loudly. They are also remarkably nosy and will observe a stranger indiscreetly if he shows any sign that he might be interesting. Despite all this, people here are generally hospitable, sociable, down-to-earth and quite adorable. Chengdu also lives up to the saying that “half of the fair beauties of China live in Sichuan, and half of Sichuan lives in Chengdu.” From my own observation, Chengdu does have the highest density of natural beauties in all of East Asia.

Posted from IV Chengdu Drip