Black Dragon Cafe

This (paraphrased) quote below is from a book published a couple years ago. Entitled People of Yun Nan 1 , it came out with a spate of books that tried to pin down the traits of people from different regions of China (one was entitled “I’d Rather Be Dead Than A Shanghainese Man” 2 ). The books trot out the usual stereotypes and were hugely popular. However, even living here a while, I still find these stereotypes interesting:

There is a common saying that “Those who till the same earth and drink the same water share a singularity of spirit,” and those raised in the mountains of Yunnan are indeed markedly different from outsiders. Compared to Beijingers 3 who live in the shadow of the Forbidden City, they lack arrogance, prepossession and highhandedness that is born of a sense of the weight of history. Next to the Shanghainese, who live in a city long frequented by foreign venturers 4 , they do not possess shrewdness 5 , an urban mentality, nor are they savants of trade. They have none of the acuity of mind or ingenuity that the Sichuanese 6 possess, nor their ability to survive anywhere. Compared to those of Shandong, the home of Confucius and Mencius 7 , the Yunnanese are not as forthright nor doughty, nor show such fierce loyalty in friendship. South of the Yangtze in the prosperous region of Jiangsu and Zhejiang 8 the people are cultured, have a willingness to learn new things and a head for business – these are not outstanding attributes of the Yunnanese. Nor are they like the Cantonese, a well-turned out lot who possess a mental agility and willingness to work together 9 in new challenges.

The book goes on to describe what the Yunnanese are, but I haven’t got past the preface.

Personally, I like the description of people according to food. The northerners, with their dumplings and wheat noodles, are solid and dependable. The Sichuanese are spirited and passionate, just as their food is spicy, while the Hunanese with even hotter food are said to have a fiery temper (and the women of these provinces are described as Spice Girls (“辣妹子”)). The Shanghainese are oily and saccharine.

These food stereotypes don’t mention the Yunnanese. Maybe for Yunnan it’s that both the food and the people are great accompanied by cold beer… Or that there’s a wide variety of flavours… ?

1. People of Yun Nan 《云南人》 by Tao Xingwen (陶兴文) This is not in anyway a recommendation, it’s full of lazy writing as you’d expect of a book built on clichés.
2. I’d Rather Be Dead Than A Shanghainese Man 《打死不做上海男人》by Qin Lin (秦林) Again, not a high point in Chinese literature.
3. Beijing In the original text the author uses an epithet for the capital = 皇城根下的北京人 huáng chéng gēn xià “Beijing people [who live] beneath the walls of the Imperial Capital,” the Imperial Capital being the inner part of Beijing; the Forbidden City, Zhongnanhai etc.
4. Shanghai = 十里洋场 shí lǐ yáng chǎng Literally the “Ten Mile Foreigners’ Quarter”, it is a derogatory term for the foreign settlement, defined in older dictionaries as “metropolis infested with foreign adventurers (usu. referring to pre-liberation Shanghai).” The Shanghainese do not enjoy a very good reputation in the rest of China, but it depends where you’re coming from. Many foreigners find the Shanghainese more polite, which the rest of the nation often judges as effete.
5. Shrewdness 精明 jing1 ming2 When the Shanghainese are mentioned, often the next word will be jingming, and it took me ages to pin down what it actually meant – I asked if it was a compliment, and people would say “Kind of…” I think shrewd pretty much hits the mark.
6. Sichuan = 天府之国 tiān fǔ zhī guó The “land of abundance”, an old epithet referring to the Sichuan basin, where “the land is fertile, the climate warm and rainfall abundant.” Another lazy description in the book, as he goes on to describe them as having the “ability to survive anywhere” – why would they want to leave the land of milk and honey? Both these descriptions are clichés, but the “land of abundance” is from a couple thousand years ago, whereas the second is from Sichuan’s overpopulation problem of the last century.
7. Shandong = 孔孟之乡 kǒng mèng zhī xiāng The home of Confucius and Mencius, actually the city of Jining.
8. Jiangsu and Zhejiang 上有天堂，下有苏杭 shàng yǒu tiān táng, xià yǒu sū háng “In the heavens there is paradise, on earth there is Suzhou and Hangzhou”, meaning that Suzhou and Hangzhou are the most beautiful places on earth.
9. Canton 南粤大地 nán yuè dà dì The willingness to work together was expressed as “有钱大家赚,” which means “if there’s money to be made lets make it together”. This is not a trait that Chinese in general see themselves as having; there is often criticism of the “every man for himself” mentality.