Sichuan University is one of the oldest and largest universities in western China, with its main campus inside the city on the south bank of the Jin river and newer campuses further out. The streets immediately around the older campus are the closest thing Chengdu has to a student quarter: cheap food, cheap coffee, bookshops, stationery and print shops, second-hand stalls and a general atmosphere of people in their twenties with time on their hands. It is not a sight in the guidebook sense, and that is exactly why it is worth an afternoon.
What is around the campus
The university's Wangjiang campus sits in a leafy part of the city near the river park, and the lanes around its gates are lined with small restaurants serving the food students eat: bowl after bowl of noodles, dumplings, dry hotpot by weight, skewers, rice dishes and cheap stir-fries, all at prices a fraction of the tourist districts. There are tea shops and coffee bars with tables that fill with laptops in the middle of the afternoon, bookshops with a serious selection of Chinese literature, and the sort of small businesses that exist only where there are students - printing and binding, moving and shipping, exam preparation. The neighbouring electronics quarter, a short walk away, adds a maze of computer markets and repair stalls.
The riverside and the parks
The campus backs onto the Jin river, and the riverside path is planted and walkable, connecting to the park named after a Tang poet and to the bamboo-lined banks further downstream. This part of the city is quieter than the commercial centre and has a good density of teahouses and old residential blocks. Combining a walk along the river, a cheap meal in the student lanes and a teahouse in the afternoon makes a very good half day that costs almost nothing.
Practical notes
The area is a short metro ride or a twenty-minute taxi ride from the city centre, and it is easy to walk. Campus itself may require registration to enter, so plan to explore the surrounding streets rather than the university grounds. Restaurants are busiest at lunchtime and in the early evening, and the streets empty during the long summer and winter holidays. Bring a translation app, since almost nothing here is written in English, and pay with a mobile app, which is how the students do it.
