Chengdu Living

I love Chengdu, but I gotta go. I took a job as copy editor in the antithesis of the ‘Du: glitzy, glamorous Shanghai. Here’s what I think about these two cities after spending 10 years in Sichuan.

Two weeks ago I was contacted by Dries, a Dutch entrepreneur who’s been living in Chengdu for years, about the architectural visualization production company which he’s employed by. His inquery turned into a tour of the massive office he works at, which is the latest addition to the company’s 12 other locations in China.

Sichuan’s Governor is confident that re-construction of the Quake-affected areas of Sichuan will be finished one year ahead of schedule, but people on the ground disagree with the government’s assessment and argue that the work has just begun.

Ever since the government began construction on the massive Pubu Dam project, Hanyuan county in Sichuan has been rocked by protests and bloody pitched battles between dis-possessed, incensed locals and the government over the corrupt and broken relocation process.

After being laid of from one of the largest architecture firms in the world along with many of his colleagues in January of 2009, Adam Mayer tooled around the San Francisco Bay Area until his former boss and mentor told him that if he wanted to work, he should go to where the construction is heaviest: China.

Looking down over Chengdu’s roadscape is no longer a luxury reserved for tenants of high-rise apartments. Now anyone on foot can enjoy a view of the street from Chengdu’s brand new pedestrian overpass system.

A foreigner only housing complex will be completed in October 2010, according to Chengdu Daily. In an effort to maintain the districts “purity,” though, none of the units are for sale.

The forces that have held China together during the past 100 years of turmoil, war, and upheaval are in need of an update as China searches inwards for answers.

This week a reminder of China’s astonishing pace of development comes in the form of the new James Cameron movie, Avatar. It was a night of many optical illusions and a few realizations.