To be honest, I was a bit confused after visiting the newly built contemporary park yesterday.

The library is beautiful—modern glass walls and perfect wooden designs. It looks like it belongs in a big city’s business district. But here, it’s surrounded by factories and farms. It feels out of place, like serving expensive wine in a plastic cup. The quality is great, but the combination is just weird.

Then there’s the “Yoga Hotel.” It costs over 1,000 RMB a night. In an area full of factory workers and farmers, I have to ask: who is the target audience? Is a worker really going to spend half a month’s pay on a room? This is a classic case of “dreaming big” but ignoring the reality of the local residents.

The irony is that this “temple of culture” has become the best place for locals to just hang out and enjoy the air conditioning.

The best example is the vinyl record of The Legend of 1900 on the shelf. In the movie, the pianist never dared to leave the ship because the world on land was too big and scary. This library is the same: it stays inside its “glass bubble” with its fancy books and music, too afraid to actually connect with the messy, dusty world outside.

It plays its elegant music, while the locals walk in and out like curious tourists. They come to take photos and relax, but in their eyes, these books belong to a completely different world.

The contrast is everywhere. You might be reading a serious book, while the person next to you is watching loud, silly videos on their phone. You admire the architecture, while a child is running around making a mess.

In the end, there is no connection here. The government spent a sea of funds to look “high-class,” but the local life is still pretty traditional.

Is it a failure? Not really, since it’s a popular park. But is it worth it? When a huge investment is mostly used as a background for social media, you have to wonder.

As I left, I couldn’t help but think: The suit is expensive, but it just doesn’t fit the person wearing it.

I can’t remember how many times I’ve been to Yunnan. There are many places I adore there, such as Dali, Yuxi, Jianshui, Mengzi…

I just bought a new camera. Here are some photos I took with the Sony A6600, a Chinese-made Mingjiang 56mm lens, and a Sony 28-70mm lens.

Based on our conversation, I believe he is a friendly, intelligent and humble person. I could feel he was a bit nervous when we met at first as I saw he didn’t know where to put his hands. I think that’s normal because I was intense too. Tim told me that he is a programmer and works in London. He was born and raised in Cambridge and also majored in mathematics there. He said people in there are clever and they encouraged him and helped him. As far as I know, students in Cambridge are excellent and top-notch. I admire him due to he graduated from Cambridge and he speaks Chinese so well.

To my surprise, he can eat spicy foods such as Sichuan hotpot and Leshan potted chicken. On the contrary, my classmate from Tianjin cannot eat any chilli. After dinner, we walked to the Wuhou Temple(a place to remember Zhuge Liang, he is a symbol of wisdom in Chinese history) and Jinli (s street where there are many tourists and interesting stores). We watched a traditional Sichuan theatre performance called change face. Looked like he was very interested in changing face.

Last Saturday, Tim went to the Panda Base and we had a Sichuan diet lunch together. After that, we went to Chengdu Museum and saw many precious artifacts. It’s so crowded and hot there. There were many young people visiting. You need to have a reservation(a passport number and a Chinese phone number are required for a foreigner) and queue if you want to enter. Tim said those cultural relics are amazing and detailed. It also was the first time I enter that museum. At that evening, we visited the climbing panda on the roof of IFS(a well-known commercial building in Chengdu). Tim told me that in London, there is no such big shopping mall like this. Shops are usually on the side of a road rather than in a mall. He also said those shops in IFS look like luxury and expensive. We also went to Daci Temple. Tim likes the atmosphere there and he said the comparison between the ancient wooden houses and the modern buildings made him feel magic. Then, we walked along the riverside and saw some boats on the river. There were also a few girls wearing Hanfu clothing and dancing to the music on a platform. On the road back, we talked about our names. Tim said he give himself a Chinese name “马明敬”. Among this name, Ma represents his family name Martin, and Ming is a common name in China, while Jing is related to Tim owing to Timothy being the god of respect. It reminded me that many English names are from the holy bible. However, in my opinion, that Chinese name sounds like an old man, and out of fashion. So I suggested he find a meaningful name in Shi Jing (the book of the song). I explained to him that my English name sounds like my Chinese name but another friend from Brazil laughed at me as his dog was also called Bob. Martin thought it was a common name in America.

After a few short days of high temperatures, Chnegdu has seen its first heavy rainfall this year. It was too hot for the middle of April as the maximum temperature was over 30 Celsius.

I went downtown by metro and saw a doctor this afternoon. Many people didn’t wear masks anymore in the tube. I can feel that most of them were tourists because it was during office hours. The trees in the city have become lush. The heat wave from the street ground was a reminder that summer was coming, but I was not ready.

Toward midnight, the sky began to rumble, with several flashes of white light, and as the thunder grew louder, the sky opened like a gaping hole, and rain poured down from the sky. I took out my camera, set it up on the tripod and took the video of the storm.
Photography is my favourite hobby though I can’t shoot it well. Although the sound of the storm is loud, everything in the city seems to become silent. Humankind always sleeps well during storm nights because of the white noise. Even though it was late, some delivery men were riding through the streets and they looked a few busy.

Life is not easy for most people I guess.