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Are snooty Shanghai folks getting real?
By Wu Jiayin |
June 1, 2009, Monday
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Print Edition
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JUST as we suspected, fewer and fewer Shanghainese are self-satisfied these days, compared with people surveyed six years ago.
For years Shanghai people were famously conceited, snooty and supercilious, suffering from a superiority complex when it came to other less privileged Chinese. They saw themselves as richer, more clever, more stylish than others, and they were resented.
But the latest happiness/self-confidence research - based on a tiny but possibly telling sample - indicates a shift .
It was conducted by Zhang Jiehai, professor of psychology, Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences. The findings of a survey taken in 2008 were released at a forum on Shanghai's soft power on May 17.
Only 35.4 percent of the surveyed Shanghainese said Shanghai was the best city in China, compared with 84.3 percent in 2003.
Only 22.1 percent said that Shanghainese have the best personal qualities among all Chinese, compared with 64.6 percent in 2003.
The survey was tiny, only about 150 Shanghainese were surveyed in 2003 and about 190 Shanghainese in 2008 at random.
Yet the shift in attitudes is apparent to anyone who has been living in Shanghai for some time.
More and more Shanghainese are speaking Mandarin Chinese today, instead of Shanghai dialect, when speaking in the presence of people from elsewhere in China. In the past, regardless of company, many Shanghainese spoke Shanghai dialect.
Young people increasingly are making friends with people from all over the country now that they have more opportunity to study and work with people from other cities.
Admittedly, many Shanghainese used to have a sense of superiority over people from other places in China.
That was mainly attributable to Shanghai's relatively high economic status in the period from the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949 to the 1980s.
It also was the result of China's rigid hukou system of household registration that largely discouraged migration within the country, according to sociology professor Yu Hai of Fudan University.
During the period, Shanghai made itself a national manufacturing center and its products were sold nationwide. And Shanghai citizens enjoyed relatively good medical and social insurance that lacked in many other cities. As the hukou system largely prevented immigration into Shanghai, its citizens developed a sense of superiority.
However, a look back into the not-too-distant history of Shanghai shows an open city that rarely embraced prejudice against people from other parts of China.
Shanghai's modern history can be traced back to 1843 when the city was opened to the world as a treaty port. Thanks to its unprecedented openness, Shanghai attracted many enterprising and adventurous people from all over the country, and all over the world.
"Those people who settled down in the city and their descendants constitute the major part of today's Shanghainese," professor Yu told Shanghai Daily.
They were also the driving force of the city's prosperity, he said.
In the 1930s, Shanghai became one of the world's most prosperous ports and the economic, financial center of the Far East.
It was not until early 1940s that the open history of Shanghai was disrupted during the Japanese occupation.
The situation was exacerbated with China's adoption of policies that largely closed itself to outside influences and discouraged migration within the country.
Fortunately, with the opening and development of Pudong in the 1990s, Shanghai has again opened its door to the other parts of the country as well as the world.
And the return to openness has gradually restored Shanghai's past social inclusiveness.
Of Shanghai's resident population of 19 million at present, six million are migrants from all over the country.
Hopefully, it will not be long before snooty and conceited Shanghainese become creatures of the past.
For years Shanghai people were famously conceited, snooty and supercilious, suffering from a superiority complex when it came to other less privileged Chinese. They saw themselves as richer, more clever, more stylish than others, and they were resented.
But the latest happiness/self-confidence research - based on a tiny but possibly telling sample - indicates a shift .
It was conducted by Zhang Jiehai, professor of psychology, Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences. The findings of a survey taken in 2008 were released at a forum on Shanghai's soft power on May 17.
Only 35.4 percent of the surveyed Shanghainese said Shanghai was the best city in China, compared with 84.3 percent in 2003.
Only 22.1 percent said that Shanghainese have the best personal qualities among all Chinese, compared with 64.6 percent in 2003.
The survey was tiny, only about 150 Shanghainese were surveyed in 2003 and about 190 Shanghainese in 2008 at random.
Yet the shift in attitudes is apparent to anyone who has been living in Shanghai for some time.
More and more Shanghainese are speaking Mandarin Chinese today, instead of Shanghai dialect, when speaking in the presence of people from elsewhere in China. In the past, regardless of company, many Shanghainese spoke Shanghai dialect.
Young people increasingly are making friends with people from all over the country now that they have more opportunity to study and work with people from other cities.
Admittedly, many Shanghainese used to have a sense of superiority over people from other places in China.
That was mainly attributable to Shanghai's relatively high economic status in the period from the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949 to the 1980s.
It also was the result of China's rigid hukou system of household registration that largely discouraged migration within the country, according to sociology professor Yu Hai of Fudan University.
During the period, Shanghai made itself a national manufacturing center and its products were sold nationwide. And Shanghai citizens enjoyed relatively good medical and social insurance that lacked in many other cities. As the hukou system largely prevented immigration into Shanghai, its citizens developed a sense of superiority.
However, a look back into the not-too-distant history of Shanghai shows an open city that rarely embraced prejudice against people from other parts of China.
Shanghai's modern history can be traced back to 1843 when the city was opened to the world as a treaty port. Thanks to its unprecedented openness, Shanghai attracted many enterprising and adventurous people from all over the country, and all over the world.
"Those people who settled down in the city and their descendants constitute the major part of today's Shanghainese," professor Yu told Shanghai Daily.
They were also the driving force of the city's prosperity, he said.
In the 1930s, Shanghai became one of the world's most prosperous ports and the economic, financial center of the Far East.
It was not until early 1940s that the open history of Shanghai was disrupted during the Japanese occupation.
The situation was exacerbated with China's adoption of policies that largely closed itself to outside influences and discouraged migration within the country.
Fortunately, with the opening and development of Pudong in the 1990s, Shanghai has again opened its door to the other parts of the country as well as the world.
And the return to openness has gradually restored Shanghai's past social inclusiveness.
Of Shanghai's resident population of 19 million at present, six million are migrants from all over the country.
Hopefully, it will not be long before snooty and conceited Shanghainese become creatures of the past.
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