The difference between Shanghai and Beijing lies first and foremost in their smallness and size. The Temple of Heaven and the Temple of Earth in Beijing is a way for people to appreciate the vastness of the city and the meaning of bigness. It conveys the "big" mood is to see the big approach, frank and direct, it is the circle under the grand open space, is frank rather than implied reminders. Its "big" also to positive and straight to show. Omit small fractions, the so-called Avenue does not move. It is to let people face the big and self-aware of its small, facing the endless and self-aware of its limited. It cultivates people's feelings of worship and admiration, but also cultivate people's self-effacement and self-abasement, and then engulfed people, two and one. The Yuyuan Garden in Shanghai is for people to appreciate the subtlety, appreciate the beauty of the small, the eye of the needle has a hole in the sky. The mountains are heavy, as a blindfold, chaotic stones, as tall buildings into the clouds, the path is intertwined, as if the mountains are high and far away. It messes with people's eyes and mesmerizes their hearts. It is to show off skill and cleverness, it is to give a riddle for people to guess, but also to try people's skill and cleverness. It is calling for surprise and delight and a bit of smugness. It is secular rather than authoritative, and treats people as equals. It does not try to conquer anyone. It is mingling with people, and you are you and I am I. It is not ambiguous.
Even Shanghai's temples are also the fireworks of the world, and Beijing's residential slang alleys have a sense of solemnity. Beijing's courtyard house is hierarchical and patriarchal. It is a clear bias, the main and secondary differentiation. It is sitting upright, careful words and deeds. It is also a call for respect. It is that kind of authentic heirloom look, take for granted, not to say. Shanghai's residential is approachable, the old city hall is all the kind of almost Ming and Qing Dynasty marketplace novels in the board wall of small buildings. Wealthy people's house, is flamboyant, extremely flamboyant, the word hangs in the face of the rich, naive and superficial rather than the old world, both to refuse to people outside the door, but also want to invite people to come in to visit, a little indolent. Their solemnity is also the solemnity of artifice, rather than a genuine flow.
Beijing people walking under the root of the Imperial City have a deep and wise expression, and their backs have a kind of calm reminiscent look. Beijing people's heart is hiding a lot of things, they say words to some of the long history of the same, their crisp accent and such a pearl wonderful words have been several generations of refining, their witty words also look so elegant, scolding also scolded civilized: look at you this virtue! They all have the temperament of poets, and they all have the temperament of historians, and there are many allusions behind their language. The Shanghainese, on the other hand, are much ruder, having learned the rules of a gentleman and a lady in a few decades of colonization, and treating some fur as learning. They don't have much of the past in their minds, but only twenty years of old dreams of prosperity, which they can't stop dreaming about and are still intoxicated by today. They are not too accustomed to recall this kind of contemplative activities, but quite able to dream, dreaming is a bit of the sea and the sky, they acted on the results of the good and bad each share, half of the dream is half into the real half into the false. They are realistic, they are concerned about the effect, and they judge the heroes by their success or failure. Their words are direct, naked, without padding and ambush. They put the word "profit" in their mouths and speak loudly. They are ashamed of being poor, such as "yakuza" and "country bumpkin", and have no historical perspective or spiritual values. Beijing is more artistic than Shanghai, which is more practical.
Beijing is emotional, if you want to go to a place, not by address, but to the environmental characteristics of the instructions: after the street, towards the north, and then through an alley, there is a tree at the end of the alley, and so on. Rich in human flavor, so that you feel, this street, this alley, and you have some origin relationship. Beijing's cab drivers, is based on personal experience to see the road, they are also particularly emotional, feeling and memory of the ability to be particularly strong, unforgettable. However, if they are asked to take you to a new place, the trouble will come, they pull you all the way to ask questions to find the past, but also to take some detours. Shanghai cab drivers, on the other hand, have the ability to generalize and reason, and they can send you to the place you want to go with a piece of paper with the name of the road. The way they recognize the road is very simple, first ask the crossroads, and then figure out the straight road, the two roads intersect into a coordinate. This is the mathematical mind, quite useful. Beijing is a literary city, Tiananmen Square is the theme of the city, around which the plot of the city unfolds, palaces, towers, temples, lakes, is the plot of the ripples, those deep streets and narrow alleys is the minutiae. The city of Shanghai is mathematical, composed of coordinates and numerical codes, how small and shabby houses are coded, is tightly sewn. So living in this city has become a bit abstract, not in a personal way, but in a conceptual way, as if it were an existence marked on a map.
Beijing is intelligent, but Shanghai is calculated by formula. Therefore, Beijing is profound and difficult to understand, to have inspiration and learning; Shanghai is simple and easy to understand, can be reasoned by analogy. Beijing is beautiful, Shanghai is useful. Nowadays, Beijing's elegant viaducts, super-high-rise buildings, big shopping malls, is the fetishism, although some of the paste is not on, is modern, but also still a beauty. Shanghai is vulgar, is buried to do livelihood, snail shell do do do, this livelihood more and more exquisite, but also make a elegant, this elegant is refined lathe car out, can be reproduced, is commoditized.