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I gotta agree with Rick to some extent. I think most Chinese stereotypes are laughable. Chinese seek to pigeonhole people into neat, homogeneous groups; “different” is bad. so rather than try to get to know someone, it’s eaier just to put them into a convenient little box. Listen, go to beijing any day of the week and you see the same shit going on: people playing mahjiang (sorry Chengdunese, you don’t have the monopoly on it), chilling in teahouses, playing ping pong (i remember a park with literally hundreds of tables, full every day) and hanging out. I lived in Wuxi for a while. Ever heard of it? They call it “little Shanghai”. No difference to here; people work, sometimes they play.
Oh yeah, one more thing; if Chengdunese are so impossibly chilled, why the endless arguments, street fights, petty bickering, impatient car horns, bus drivers who yell “get on or off!”, barging out the subway doors, dirty language etc… No, not bad people, just typical Chinese, no better no worse. Stereotyping is just a lazy, self-fulfilling way to characterise people you fear, have never met or can’t be bothered to understand. Oh shit, nobody said hello to me in Shanghai one day. Those people really are snobs! What BS…
Whoa, people are taking this really seriously. All I asked for was for jokes and jabs that are derived from the sense of regional pride and directed at other regions; just people talking shit and having fun, and whether they are actually true is besides the point (and the reasons I was expecting were more leaning towards urban-legend, which are taken with a grain of salt).
Quote:Whoa, people are taking this really seriously. All I asked for was for jokes and jabs that are derived from the sense of regional pride and directed at other regions; just people talking shit and having fun, and whether they are actually true is besides the point (and the reasons I was expecting were more leaning towards urban-legend, which are taken with a grain of salt).New stereotype: foreigners in Chengdu like to argue on the internet about what Chengdu stereotypes actually exist
After nearly one year in Chengdu I’ve come to realise that the differences between city centre and some suburbs are vast,so no stereotyoing.Take the Huayang bus 4.Always very dirty and overcrowded.They they really have the loudest hooters.The traffic..most pedestrians have a death wish.Just walk without looking.I have avoided umpteen accidents.I don’t hoot,I shout and swear.The people here talk much louder.Some person in our complex reported me to the police so I had to go to the local P station and show my documents.This is small town,NOT Chengdu,but I think we have better fruit and veg markets.Have not been to other cities in China,but I guess it is the same story.
@Chris Ziich
Thank you!
@Ray
“so rather than try to get to know someone, it’s eaier just to put them into a convenient little box.”
hey Ray, you sure this is not just talking about yourselves?
I am going to answer your question:
Chengdu has a tradition about relaxation that goes back to history, there’s a saying: “扬一益二” which means Yangzhou city is number one prosperity, Chengdu is number two, because city rich Chengduese have long history of relaxation, for the old time, city have many different country fair for people to come and have fun, like flower markets, silkworm cocoon markets, herbs markets, fan markets, lantern markets, all of those markets come at different time of the year, just so people can have an excuse to come together for fun.
Because this tradition so ruler of country always a little bit worry about send a Government Executive to Chengdu he will be soon invlove with locals, only think about having fun. Because it happens many times!
There also have saying 少不入川，老不出蜀, which means young people better not go to Sichuan, because it’s too relaxed and you can’t become a professional, older people better not leave Sichuan because that place is very good for life!
Talking about teahouses, yes Beijing people also drink tea, but they are not like Chengdu have teahouse everywhere, can you find out a park or temple in Chengdu which don’t have teahouse? I know these teahouse very well, People’s park（人民公园 has three teahouses, Baihuatan park(百花潭公园）has a few teahoues along the river, culture park （文化公园）at Qintailu（琴台路） has four teahouses. Lots of place have community teahouse, lots of small street have street teahouse, under bridges there are teahouses also, even at 11pm you still can find out a small teahouse close a residential building. I have been drinking tea in the middle of my neighborhood (小区）no light, entirely dark, 1:00 am i was drinking tea chatting with friends outside in the dark that feeling was really good! Can you tell me is this can happen in Beijing?
For Majiang, Chengduese go to Qingcheng mountain（青城山）to some Nongjiale (农家乐）for playing majiang in the summer, they put majiang table on the stream, also a big umbrella next to the table, so when playing majiang, player’s feet was under the water, no mosquito bites and cooler …… Can this happen in Beijing? Beijing has xiang mountain(香山）, why have I never heard about them playing majiang this way?
Then we talking about people’s bad behavior. you know there’s one thing i agree with you ,which is people are more peasant-like, people who are not peasantry already clear away by Mao. Intellectuals are few in this country, and you don’t know how and where to meet them, so it’s true they are peasantry. New young generation from the city don’t have that bad behavior but you didn’t mention that.
And my question is what is real chengdunese, todays sichuanese is nothing about ancient sichuannese, or same as chengdunese, todays chengdunese are descendants of all different regional chinese, from Hunan province, Cantonese，Hakkas， because there’s about 100 years of immigration, (it’s called 湖广填四川) which happend at the end of the Ming dynasty, beginning of the Qing dynasty.
The whole population of Sichuan only 90,000 at that time. Qing government(清朝) made this immigrant event last for around 100 years. the people who came to Sichuan were poor farmer, beggers, manual workers, small businessman, soldiers from finished wars, criminals. It’s some people from low class want to go new land looking for opportunity. There is a folk song saying “大姨嫁陕二姨苏，大嫂江西二嫂湖，戚友相逢问原籍，现无十世老成都” which means in my family big aunt married a guy who’s ancestor came from Shanxi provInce, small aunt married a guy who’s ancestor came from Shuzhou province, big sister in law’s ancestor came from Jiangxi province, small sister in law’s ancestor came fro Hunan province, if you ask me where is my ancestor came from, at least 10 generation is not from Chengdu!
During world war 2 Chiang Kai-shek have made Chongqing as the temporary capital, around one million people from Yangzhi river moving to Chengdu, most of them settle down in Chengdu and Chongqing. From 1965 because Chairman Mao’s plan we called “三线建设” the worker and engineer with their familys about 340,000 came to sichuan, most of them remain stay at sichuan after work done. Those people who came from all over China became todays Sichuanese or Chengdunese, no need to mention nowdays there are many new people came to chengdu for living or working.
All of those people came to Chengdu to settle down here, their bad behavior has nothing to do with leisure, it’s about a disease in all of China’s city, that’s where the China Blues comes from, it’s all over China.
So what’s new Chengdunese stereotype? It’s a little bit hard to stereotype it, because they are not as same as ancient Chengdunese. This place is a melting pot.
But still i will said some stereotype can give like 干绷假打，好滋味尚辛香，自傲，好客，热情，聪明。懂得享受。
like have face, like delicious food, proud to be chengdunese, friendly to stranger, warm heart,very smart, know how to enjoy life.
Also there have some saying “巴有将，蜀有相”“重庆崽儿砣子硬，成都妹儿嘴巴狡”first one saying Chongqing have brave warrior, Chengdu have good smart scholars and intellectuals, second one saying Chongqing boy have tuff fist, Chengdu girls have cunning for argument. I agree both。
Thanks for taking the time to write that Linka, that is an enlightening post. As a bonus, I learned a lot of new phrases.
🙂 you are welcome. oh, Just find out you have do some help for my English, that was so …..good!
Thank you very very much:)
@linka
I agree with Charlie in that your post is a well written perspective piece.
However, I don’t think you get one thing – perhaps the most important word in this thread – stereotypes. It isn’t necessarily what *you* or *I* think of Sichuan or Sichuanese – it’s about guessing an opinion, based on experiences, what a commonality amongst many other people may be. It may be completely false. That’s what a stereotype is. Here are some examples about Canada, which while aren’t necessarily true, I accept as stereotypes about Canadians: Canadians say “eh” a lot; Canadian police ride horses; Canadians all love hockey; The whole country is cold, covered in snow and ice; We can’t say “house” or “about” without an exaggerated “oose” or “oot” accent; we all wear toques; We all know “jimmy” from Toronto….. — I know there are lots of “sayings” about Chengdunese, and of course all the Chengdunese saying about Chengdu will be positive, but in my experiences the stereotypes other people feel about Sichuan are absolutely not so much wonderful as critical, just as Sichuan stereotypes many other places negatively.
Hope this helps clarify.
On that note, there’s no need to get defensive over anything in this thread. I guess it was a fire-starter in the first place in that there’s another stereotype about Chinese – rather than just Sichuanese – and that’s being extremely *extremely* defensive over any China-related criticism. 😀
(red-faced, furious Chengdu local):”WE ARE VERY RELAXED! WHATTA YA MEAN WE AREN’T RELAXED! GO TO HELL! SURE WE ARE RELAXED!”
That cat’s got the same look mine gives me, essentially saying: “no f**ks given”…..good attitude for life!
I have left Chengdu yesterday, go Emeishan, untill now i can use internet.
This time i agree with Jerry, who cares?
You think i am against it’s because the things you said is about bad part of China.And you don’t believe there have some different Chinese have same clear head can see that China blue.
And also think everybody have life like you, the things you don’t see then it’s not exist.
Then what i can say? Jump out grab you ,shake you ,take you to see what’s other’s life?
I really don’t have interest to do that, i just say thing i think i should say. That’s all.
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