With her shaved head and loose blue cotton dress, Tang Lei looks like a Buddhist nun, but has not led the life of one. In 1997, she opened the first concert bar in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan, a vast mountainous province located in southwest China, at the foot of the Tibetan plateau. For over twenty years, she supported the local rock scene and organized tours across the country. And then, at 67, fatigue and neighborhood problems due to noise got the better of his enthusiasm. She decided to close her room at the beginning of the year. But when the news spread, hundreds of thousands of Internet users reacted: the subject became one of the most discussed on Weibo, the Chinese social network. “Even local government officials came to me to encourage me to continue,” she says with a smile. This afternoon at the end of August, more than a hundred people attended the reopening of the place: rockers, students, artists with long hair, intellectuals with glasses. The bar received dozens of bouquets of flowers, sent as gifts, and placed them prominently in its parking lot. The boss ended up being convinced, on condition of changing the concept a little: the rock concerts will be relocated to a larger, well soundproofed room, in the basement of a shopping center, while the space in the center -city will host calmer performances. “I was touched by the mobilization of people. In Chengdu, we have an expression: “hao shuo hao shangliang” [“on peut tout discuter et tout résoudre”]. We take things as they come. I’m a Buddhist and I’m willing to change my mind when it comes to pleasing. » Founded two and a half thousand years ago, Chengdu has become in recent years the most attractive city in China thanks to its cultural offerings and its reputation as a “relaxed” city (songchi, in Chinese), far from the pressure that rhythm of life in the megacities of the coast. Between 2019 and 2023, the main metropolis of the West experienced the strongest demographic growth in the country, increasing from 17 million to 21 million inhabitants, driven by an annual economic growth rate of 5.8% on average, compared to 4.9% nationally. Known for its panda reserve – the animal is considered a national treasure in China – the city attracted 9.3 million visitors in 2023, delighted to discover its parks, its vast tea rooms, its spicy fondues and its cultural dynamism. It also serves as a rallying point for tourists who come to explore the unspoilt nature of Sichuan, with its plateaus, rivers and high peaks. You have 80.38% of this article left to read. The rest is reserved for subscribers.
Source link