'Ask a Laobeijing' is a regular series where we chat with a laoren about their thoughts on different issues. This month, we met Yang, 53, chatting with friends in Dongzhimen.
What do you think about the stereotypes people have of Beijingers?
Beijingers are easy-going and tolerant people. We are friendly and warm towards people from outside Beijing. I myself live among people from other provinces so I have already gotten used to this type of situation.
It is only a small group of non-locals who have prejudices against us. They think we are exclusive? Come on. Of all the people living in Beijing, six out of 10 are from other places [Editor's note: The number of people living in Beijing without a local hukou is closer to one in three]. Of course I will not be pleased if my salary goes down from 5,000 to 3,000 yuan because more people have come to Beijing to work. But it is just human nature, isn’t it? It works the same way in any other place. Would you be thrilled if lots of people crowded into your hometown? I don’t think so. But it is a different case with Shanghainese. They really do have an arrogant attitude towards people from other places. They look down upon northerners, calling us beifang lao [a mildly offensive term for northerners]. They are born that way.
Those who think that we are exclusive confuse our complaints about their bad habits with prejudices against them. They rent our apartments without following basic rules of politeness. For example, they put out their cigarettes by thrusting their butts against the screen window, causing small holes in it. Another example is that they always leave their garbage in front of the elevator door. I mean it isn’t too much trouble to take the garbage down and throw it into the garbage bin! But they just have to leave it by the elevator. So, as I said, we just don’t like their bad habits, not them as people.”
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