Chengdu, 2014-08-29 11:12:06 +0800
Day 5 in China
I’m sitting in my room and eating fresh peaches, too tired to do anything more serious. Most of yesterday I spent walking around. I went to the Manjushri Temple to look for any traces of authentic Buddhism, but all that I found was just blind cult of a fat golden guy. There was a stupa, or rather a pagoda, that looked good and I could even feel some faint blessing in it, but there were signs indicating the correct direction of walking around the stupa—and if they have to tell people which way to go, it’s a bit like putting signs at the entrance of a church saying “Please do the cross thing with holy water and say the proper prayer”.

Close to the metro station 文殊院 Wen2shu1 Yuan4, or Manjushri Temple, there were people selling fresh fruit, so I bought fresh lychees and peaches—the lychees are so fresh their skin is soft; they’re rather small, juicy and delicious, and only cost 8 kuai/jin. There are also many other fancy things to eat and drink in China. The other day I was walking near the bus stop 磨子桥 Mo4zi qiao2, and there was a shop selling freshly pressed fruit juice. I got a good cup of watermelon juice for just 10 kuai. It’s not exactly ridiculously cheap, but can you imagine buying watermelon juice for 5 PLN in a city at least six times bigger than Warsaw?

I met a group of Chinese youngsters close to Sichuan Gymnasium station and they said stuff like Hello! How are you doing! and I replied in Chinese. I only remembered them because there was a pretty girl with them (for Asian standards) who reminded me of a friend from Poznań—the only difference being the color of hair and that the one in Poznań is taller than me, and her Asian doppelgänger is shorter than 160 cm. Then I just walked away and thought I would probably never see these people again. And then, of course, I met them three hours later in People’s Park (人民公园 ren2min2 gong1yuan2,) they were buying ice-cream. They invited me for a cup of tea in the park’s teahouse. I told them stuff about Poland, and then one of them showed me a 100 Polish Złoty (!) note from 1988 (!!!), a note I’m too young to remember. I told them in Polish that Banknoty emitowane przez Narodowy Bank Polski są prawnym środkiem płatniczym w Polsce and they were even more surprised than when I spoke Chinese for the first time. I just hope that our serendipitous meeting was really serendipitous, and not scrupulously planned by Party officials even before I applied for a scholarship.

I also went to Ikea with two Korean students, and bought a sofa, two wardrobes, German dark chocolate and Absolut Vodka. The most expensive items were the chocolate and the vodka.

Things I’ll probably do today:

• nothing;
• nothing;
• buy drinking water (a lot) — even I don’t risk drinking the tap water in China. In a supermarket it’s around 5 kuai for a big bottle;
• buy washing powder — I reckon that would be around 15 kuai;
• get a cafeteria card, which entitles to eating meals at the cafeterias in the campus. I heard they’re really cheap, and just as delicious as in the restaurants outside.

A 同学 tong2xue2, i.e. a fellow student from Poland who is coming to Sichuan Universty, too, gave me a very positive review of my blog. Thanks for your helpful blog posts, she wrote, without them, I wouldn’t even know how much money I need for a SIM card. I sincerely hope that my blog posts are also helpful, and not just boring.