“They stand like this,” says the 56-year-old restaurateur, hands on hips, adding a scowl to her performance. “They’re sooo annoying. Just because they come from the capital, they act like they’re running the country.”
The antipathy is mutual. “Shanghai people are selfish,” retorts Ge Ding, a 28-year-old Beijing-born teacher who moved to Shanghai for work in 2001. “Even the people my age, all they talk about are material things, their clothes, the stock market. All they care for is themselves and money.”
The trash talk between the natives of Beijing and Shanghai has been going on for decades, with the rest of China ducking the crossfire.
In China, it is the great rivalry, similar in some ways to
New York versus Los Angeles. The dynamic is a powerful undercurrent in Chinese politics and culture.
Spat between Beijing and Shanghai, China