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Like Beijing, Chengdu’s airport was spacious, modern, and muscular. Helen, a resident of Shanghai, had kindly taken it upon herself to get me settled in. We took a taxi to SWUN and as it wove its way downtown, Helen and I got a taste of the Sichuan accent. Accents vary in China based on region. The Beijing accent tends to have a thicker rounder feel. Where the people of Shanghai might say “s”, the people of Beijing will say “sh”. In the case of the Sichuanese, they tend to conflate different “s” sounds. This can make things tricky. For example, the numbers 4 and 10 sound exactly the same in Sichuan. People will flash the necessary number of fingers in the process of navigating prices and quantities to avoid confusion. Helen chatted happily with the driver about this as we made our way.

Like Shanghai and Beijing, Chengdu, China’s fourth largest city, is a sprawling, vibrant metropolis full of bright lights, skyscrapers, condos, parks and apartment blocs. At night, these buildings dance with splashes, arcs and dashes of neon light. Amidst all the brightly lit skyscrapers and busy boulevards, our taxi arrived at last at SWUN.

SWUN has two campuses. A relatively new one has been built in a suburb close to the city limits. I would be studying at the older one downtown. This suited me fine as the older campus turned out to be quite cozy.
Chengdu is known as a garden city and SWUN’s old campus was enjoyable leafy, green, and “old school”, a calm, walled oasis in a big, busy city. Our cab drove through the campus’s main gates, down a broad road through the middle of campus and deposited us at the entrance to the dormitory for foreigners. It was just before midnight. We presented ourselves at the front desk and Helen stubbornly squared off with the staff to get everything arranged. We then settled into our respective rooms.