{"id":3588,"date":"2010-06-09T02:02:40","date_gmt":"2010-06-08T18:02:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.chengduliving.com\/?p=3588"},"modified":"2011-02-10T21:10:08","modified_gmt":"2011-02-10T13:10:08","slug":"a-tale-of-two-cities-chongqing-and-chengdu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chengduliving.com\/a-tale-of-two-cities-chongqing-and-chengdu\/","title":{"rendered":"A Tale of Two Cities: Chongqing and Chengdu"},"content":{"rendered":"
I’ve had a blessed run here in China and I owe it all to my first two years.<\/p>\n
Back then, I lived outside of Chongqing and although that city is not as suitable as others for foreigners planning on staying in China long term, it sure does have some character. Everyone has an entry point when they encounter and eventually sink into a foreign culture and mine was Chongqing: it was the first time I realized that “socialism with Chinese characteristics” meant “fat cat capitalism”. It was the first time I saw the people most alien to my own do things I do every day. It was here that I first stared at a crowd and experienced “population-induced vertigo”. Chongqing’s counterpart in the West is probably Mexico City, neither of which have any real counterpart in the developed West, but it was here that I found out that the things that bind us together far outnumber the things that tear us apart.<\/p>\n
Chongqing has so many legends surrounding it that just trying to list them all makes me fall in love with the place all over again. I’ll just give you a brief overview here, because what I really want to do is tell you about the differences between Chongqing and Chengdu as I see them by explaining why I moved from one to the other.<\/p>\n
Chongqing has the hottest women in China. The interesting thing is why: why are the hottest women in China living in one of the hottest, sweatiest most crowded example of social stratification, gangster government and rag tag modernization in all of China? I have heard the following:<\/p>\n
“Luan jiu luan” (???, roughly acknowledging Chongqing’s hectic nature) is a suitable motto for Chongqing because these rare individuals truly embrace the craziness. If you have ever seen the movie Crazy Stone<\/a> (highly recommended!<\/em>), then you have an idea of what Chongqingnese think of themselves and what the rest of China thinks of that. In the movie, a professional thief from Hong Kong is repeatedly humiliated by a bungling band of irreligious scam artists. The band know they bungle. They thrive off of it. They try<\/em> to bungle, Chongqing-style, just to prove a point. Chongqing is luan. Luan means chaotic, but it means so much more than that.<\/p>\n