I’m a country girl by nature and by birth. I’m from the middle of nowhere, central, on the backside of nowhere. I’ve always enjoyed cities because I love the variety of experiences available there - I love how, in America, you can have any kind of food, go out for some music or a play, or happen upon some sort of free experience in a park or something. If you plan right, you can go out every night of the week for free or really cheap and do something really, really different every day. I love the huge libraries, and the coffee shops. Country living, while quiet, lacks a lot of variety. 

 
 Before I came to China, I had no idea what to expect. I knew that the further west you went in China, the less developed it was. And as I was a volunteer in an international development organization, I was not expecting to have any real level of modern development wherever I went - I was expecting to be hauling my water and not have electricity. I knew that twenty years ago, it was considered a real boon to have a bicycle. I had no idea what I was walking into. As we flew into Chengdu, I was struck by the numbers of cars we saw - hundreds, thousands. I wasn’t expecting many - I was expecting a city mostly dominated by bicycles. Chengdu IS a bike city, by the way, but cars are definitely in the ascendant. 

   Chengdu’s one of those cities with a personality, a real feel to it that many cities truly lack. It’s well known throughout China as one of the most relaxed and laid back cities in the country, and that’s even with its rather large population, arguably somewhere between 8 and 13 million depending on where you draw the city limits. Most people will happily spend the day sitting and playing mahjong or a popular card game called Beat the Landlord, drinking tea and talking. Office hours are flexible - class times 
are not. A lot of office workers I know take three or four hour lunches, which is annoying if you need to talk to someone. :)

   Chengdu’s got all of that awesomeness of city living in America. While you don’t quite have the same level of variety as you do in America - I’m not going to be able to find Ethiopian food, for instance - but I do manage to find a great deal of variety in my experiences (and there’s a few Western food places, and good Japanese and Korean and Indian places.) While I can’t go find a bookstore that has five floors of books for me to browse through, I do occasionally find a bookstore with a few shelves of popular English fiction, which totally makes my day, by the way. There’s a huge expat population, lots of amazing, earthy bars with fantastic live music, clubs, tea houses, the zoo, the pandas, awesome shopping… Oh well, you’ll hear about all of this in the future. About the only thing Chengdu does not have is sunlight. China’s also famous for its high levels of pollution, and Chengdu is not exempt. Lots of construction, cars, and coal powered energy leaves the city eternally shrouded in grey, no matter how favorable the climate is. It’s funny, because I never see the sun, but everyone carries an umbrella the moment the sun is even vaguely tempted to peek at us. It’s almost like the smog’s been engineered to protect us all from the sunlight. :> 

   Anyway, as a postscript, you guys are going to get to see my Chinese homework as I progress in my studies. At this point, I’ve been learning characters for about a month, so you’ll have to put up with my utter simplicity, if you can read it. If you can’t, just tolerate it and/or ignore it. :) 

   我来中国以前，我的家有三口人：我妈妈爸爸和我。我妈妈是老师，我爸爸是记者。那时候我是大学生。我专业是历史。我们也有六只猫。他们都是我们的好朋友，所以他们都也是我们家的人。现在我在中国，可是我妈妈爸爸和六只猫都在美国。 

  (translation: Before I came to China, my home had 3 people: my mom, my dad, and me. My mom was a teacher, my dad is a journalist. At that time, I was a student. My major was history. We also have 6 cats. They all were our good friends, so they were also family members. Now, I’m in China, but my mom and dad and six cats are all in America.) 

   Pax!