No its not weird, php like RoR are independent systems from nginx, so when you tell nginx to change root you need to tell php as well where root has gone to, or define a rootbase, add it to the passing parameters from nginx.
nginx, root: /bla/bla2/bla3
php, root /bla/bla2/bla3
nginx, change root: /bla/bla2/bla4
php, root /bla/bla2/bla3 (huh?)
nginx, root: /bla/bla2/bla3
php, root /bla/bla2/bla3
nginx, change root: /bla/bla2/bla4
php, root /bla/bla2/bla3 (huh?)