A few days ago, I met a friend who comes from London. Yes, he is Tim whom I mentioned earlier. Tim and I know each other on the Internet. Tim came to Chengdu to attend a three-week Chinese course and visit some attractions by the way. We agreed to meet offline and I would treat him a hotpot. He is the first foreigner I met in person except for the last IELTS examiner and some tourists lost. I thought I would say a lot of English while he speaks Mandarin well, thus, most of the time we communicated in Chinese. I found that I used some words wrong but he can realize what I mean.
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.