Gochengdu.cn, an online provider of news and information about the city of Chengdu, capital of Southwest China’s Sichuan Province, broadcast the first episode of t this new documentary “Live as the Chengdu people do” on its social media platforms on December 10. GoChengdu introduces the most real life in Chengdu with multiple perspectives, from suburb to downtown, from startup to family, from tradition to technology.
Chengdu has been given the rare accolade of being named a city of gastronomy by UNESCO. “Live as the Chengdu people do” is becoming a trend among us. Chengdu also attracts more and more foreigners to settle down. What kind of life attitude does Chengdu boast to achieve that? The first episode of the documentary “Live as the Chengdu people do” tells the story of a Russian girl encountering a farming family in Chengdu.
Click the link to watch the first episode: https://youtu.be/1owMcSVQR7Y
From the south of Russia to China’s Dujiangyan City
Pronina Anna, born in 1994 in Krasnodar, the “southern capital” of Russia, met her match Wang Hao when studying in Beijing five years ago and then settled in Chengdu with her name changing from “Anna” to “Anna Wang”.
Anna loves Chengdu, from the convenience of its living environment, the mealtime with her family to the efforts of Anna and her partner for their careers in this city.
Recently, Anna has been drawn to another new thing, the preserved meat and Chinese sausage dangling on the balconies of her neighbors. Why do they hang these red flesh at the end of the year?
To figure out where they come from, Anna searched on Xiaohongshu (an Instagram-like social app also known as RED) and was caught by a user named “Xiaodingdang (Doraemon, the blue cat-shaped cartoon robot from Japan),” with pictures of wind-dried pork and sausages and a beautiful village featuring an old house, a dog, a bamboo grove, and an old persimmon tree with gnarled limbs. With curiosity and longing for the preserved meat, Chinese sausages and rustic life, Anna started her journey for Yaoyao (Xiaodingdang’s actual name)’s hometown Tianma Township in Dujiangyan.
A new rural “Utopia” hidden in the suburbs of Chengdu
Tianma Township, at the intersection of three counties, sits in the southeast corner of Dujiangyan City in northwestern Chengdu, a world cultural heritage site.
Anna, who was accustomed to city life, seemed to be the “Alice in Wonderland” with full of novelties such as the cute little yellow ducks in the market, the workers fluffing cotton, the old blacksmith devoting himself in his work, and the brewery perfuming all the streets.
In Anna’s eyes, this old town not only symbolizes the quietness of bucolic life and the incredible perseverance of tradition, but the eternal vitality of the beautiful new village.
The rural “Utopia”, captured by Anna, will be posted on her social media account through her new angle.
Traditional taste vs modern livestreaming
The store of Yaoyao’s family is the only one to sell preserved pork and Chinese sausage in Tianma Township, offering a variety of flavors like Cantonese, pepper salty, and spicy flavors. It is the first year for Yaoyao to do marketing through Internet livestreaming. Previously, they mainly served the residents of the township and the casual tourists. Now, through live commerce, the smell from the store is drawing crowds across the country.
The most exciting part of this trip for Anna was to experience making the local hand-made sausage. Following the old technique of making sausages, the whole process is complex and meticulous. Anna’s good Mandarin helped bring them closer together. However, she couldn’t stay away from the instruction of Yaoyao’s mother, such as confirming the proportion of the seasonings, filling and deflating, and so on. Admiring her own sausage drying in the sun, Anna began looking forward to its final taste.
The last “secret recipe” of the sausage: family reunion
All of them sat around the table with excitement, with the sausages cutting into slices and the greasy preserved meat coming out of the pot. Uncle Wang, Yaoyao’s father, told Anna that preserved pork and Chinese sausage heightened the atmosphere of the Spring Festival and deepened the definition of home.
Hearing that a blond “foreign guest” dropped by Uncle Wang’s house, the villagers flocked to take a look. Wang prepared a bundle of firewood and stools in the yard, sharing the peanuts with the crowd: “Warm yourselves by the fire! Grab a beer!”
The clear moon and sparse stars were above. The crowds sit and talked around the fire. Anna shared her interesting stories about learning Chinese, grandma explained why long-tail pork was the most tender, and the neighbor told about the romantic courtship of Uncle Wang and Yaoyao’s mother.
With the firelight flushing everyone’s face, Anna sang a song called “Katyusha”. It came to an end when they sang the song “Chengdu” together. Anna recalled that it exactly was the song her husband played with a guitar to chase her.
Touched by the warmth of the folks, she called her mother far away in Russia about the delicacies in a small village on the outskirts of Chengdu, and more importantly, the warm feeling of being together.
Media ContactCompany Name: Chengdu International Communications CorporationContact Person: Chenwen Zhao Email: Send EmailCountry: ChinaWebsite: https://www.gochengdu.cn/
