Chapter 9 Three tolerances are great

The style of Beijing can be summed up in one word as "Dayi. Beijing is not the only big city in China.In addition to Beijing, China's major cities include Tianjin, Chengdu, Wuhan, and Shenyang.But these big cities are not as good as Beijing in terms of population or territory.The only place that can "compete" with Beijing is Shanghai.Shanghai has a larger population than Beijing.Moreover, with the development and construction of Pudong, the site is not necessarily smaller than Beijing.What's more, Shanghai's "bigness" is far more than that.For example, it is (or at least used to be) China's largest foreign trade port, financial center, industrial base, commercial market, major profit and tax household, and even the largest cultural city and talent pool in the country.Before the founding of the People's Republic of China, Shanghai had a large number of newspapers and publishing houses, and after the founding of the People's Republic of China, Shanghai sent the largest number of technological forces to other places, ranking first in the country.It is precisely because Shanghai is so "big" that it is called "Big Shanghai".In China, there are several cities whose city names have been or can be named with the word "big", that is Shanghai!

However, no matter how big Shanghai is, it cannot be as "big" as Beijing.Shanghai has to add the word "big" before its city name to become "Great Shanghai", but Beijing is so big that it doesn't even need to call itself "Great Beijing".When did you hear the phrase "Great Beijing"?No.Beijingers don't say that, and neither do outsiders.It can be seen that in the minds of all Chinese people, the size of Beijing is self-evident, and there is really no need to add such "snake feet".This is really a great sound, an elephant has no shape, and a big city is not "big". Beijing is probably the only city in China that "doesn't need to be big to be arrogant".

No wonder "Big Shanghai" dare not "pretend to be big" in front of "not big" Beijing.Generally speaking, Shanghainese don't think highly of outsiders, but they dare not "underestimate" Beijingers.Shanghai writer Wang Anyi put it even more absolutely.She said that even the winds in Beijing and Shanghai are different in size. "On a windy day, the wind marches mightily in the sky of Beijing. They seem to be nothing, and they are calm. However, the transparent air becomes grainy, a little rusty, and, The sky and the earth are filled with a whining sound, which is omnipresent. The winds in Shanghai are much more trivial. They pass through the narrow streets and alleys, and hover over the palm-sized open space, blowing paper scraps and fallen leaves around. The branches and leaves of the street trees are also swaying. When they squeezed between the two buildings, they hit hard, with a bit of teasing meaning." ()

Indeed, no matter how you look at Beijing, it feels bigger than Shanghai. The first is "large capacity".People who are new to Beijing are almost all amazed by its capacity.Such a big square, such a wide street, and so many empty spaces, how many people can it hold!Although Shanghai is also big, it is too crowded.Not to mention the crowded and narrow streets, even the People's Square is crowded, as if people are about to overflow, where can we hold anything?That's why some people say that when you arrive in Shanghai, you can't see anything except the endless Shanghainese.

Beijing will not give you this feeling.Beijing is big but not crowded.Although the traffic jams in Beijing are also severe, the most congested places can still give you a sense of openness, because the place is already very big.In fact, this is exactly one of the characteristics of Beijing's urban planning and urban construction: loose, spacious, large areas of ink, vertical and horizontal swaying, fully showing the unique "atmosphere" of the imperial capital.Don't say that the emperor's "family" lived in a palace city of 9 square kilometers (so Wei Xiaobao, who grew up in a brothel in Jin Yong's novel, exclaimed as soon as he entered the palace: "How many girls can be accommodated in such a big courtyard"), it is the most The inconspicuous "siheyuan" (of course not what you see now), is also sparsely arranged and has a lot of space.Mr. Lao She said: "The advantage of Peiping is not that it is fully equipped everywhere, but that it has space everywhere, so that people can breathe freely; there are not many beautiful buildings, but there are free places around the buildings. become a beauty. "This is very authentic and very reasonable. The biggest difference between Beijing and Shanghai (Puxi) in urban construction is that Shanghai, which is a land of every inch of gold, first considers using the land as much as possible to save costs, while Beijing, which does not care , there are so many "breathing holes". Jingshan, Beihai, Shichahai, Temple of Heaven, Temple of Earth, Temple of Sun and Moon, Taoranting, Zizhuyuan, Longtan Lake, Yuyuantan, which city can have so many parks! Even you don't even need to go there What kind of park. In the past, the small courtyard of your own family is now the center of the street in the community. It is enough for you to take a walk, catch birds, practice kung fu, and have fun. Living in such a city, no matter what you do, you will not feel "suffocated".

But, more importantly, it lies in Beijing's inherent "compatibility". This feature is also reflected in the building.Beijing may be the one with the most architectural styles in Chinese cities.Cities and palaces, altars and gardens, ministries and government offices, temples and temples, mansions and gardens, and civilian houses in the market are arranged in sequence, spread out vertically and horizontally, and are scattered in order, like a harmonious piece of music.Of course, the central axis with the palace as the center and running through the north and south is the "main theme", but literati and ordinary people are not without their own paradise and home.Even those famous temples and ancient temples that would most likely hide in deep mountains and old forests elsewhere have entered the city in Beijing.Beijing is so spacious and grand that no existence can find its own space here.Therefore, not only are rickshaws and Cadillacs running on the streets, no one finds it strange, but it is not uncommon for mules and horses and carts to enter the city.

The capacity of Beijing lies not only in architectural space, but also in cultural space.Beijing has always been a place where Han and Hu are mixed together.Three religions and nine streams, five lakes and four seas, Han, Man, Mongolia, Hui and Tibet, Confucianism, Taoism, Buddhism (Christianity) and Hui (Islam), people from all walks of life come and go, gather and develop here, and various cultures exchange, collide and integrate here.In this regard, Beijing treats all people condescendingly and equally, without cultural or racial prejudice, or even the stubborn "inaccessible" "regional culture" that is usually found in other places.On the contrary, the silk rain in the south of the Yangtze River, the wind in the north, and the crescent moon in the Western Regions and the waves of the East China Sea all meet, gather, and dissolve here, and together constitute the extraordinary atmosphere of Beijing's grandeur and grandeur.Of course, Beijing is highly hierarchical, but because of the large space and the long distance, there is no "run" between each other.Princes, marquises, ministers, scholars, peddlers, and pawns all have their own ways of living, and in their respective "circles", they all live comfortably and nourished.This is still the case in Beijing until now: as long as a foreigner is not "too bad", he will not feel awkward or "out of place" when he arrives in Beijing.If he is easy-going and can speak a few words of Mandarin (doesn't have to be too standard), then, within a few days, he will almost feel like a Beijinger

Beijing can accommodate almost all Chinese people and even people from all over the world. In fact, this is also the characteristic of "urban culture". "Shuowen" said: "The city is full of people", which highlights its capacity.As an artificial living environment that can "prosper people", the biggest difference between the city and the countryside lies in its "compatibility".Although the countryside has a vast territory and no city walls, it seems to be an "open" system, but in fact, the openness and compatibility of the countryside are very poor.It is difficult for heterogeneous cultures to spread here, and it is also difficult for foreigners to settle here to make a living.Villagers almost only believe in "native-born" and "local native" things, and are always suspicious of "outsiders" and "outsiders".Stubbornly retaining the local dialect is the proof.

Cities are different. A city is a kind of community whose functions and functions have never been single.Moreover, the more functions a city has and the more complete its functions, the higher its "urbanization level" and the "bigger" the city will be.The reason why Shanghai is not as "big" as Beijing is because it does not have as many functions as Beijing, and it is not and cannot be the center of national political culture.In the same way, the more diverse the functions of the city, the more complete the functions must be; the more complete the functions, the more compatible the city must be.As a result, as the people of Tianjin say, "There are birds in every big forest", even the "city" finally moved into the "city" and merged with the "city" to become a "city".

Therefore, cities have always been open and compatible, although the degree of openness and compatibility varies from city to city.But no matter how closed a city is, it is more open than a country; no matter how conservative a city is, it is more compatible than a country.Although all ancient Chinese cities had city walls without exception, these walls did not hinder the opening of the city, and seemed to be more conducive to its compatibility.It's like a plate can't hold anything, but two bowls can "hold" it better.A place with no spatial separation at all is intolerant.The establishment of the city wall just provided a "accommodating" space for human beings.In this sense, the so-called "city with prosperous people" is very accurate, even though it only talks about "prosperous people".But culture is created by people.Since the city can accommodate the people, of course it can also accommodate the culture created by the people.

The reason why cities must be open and compatible is also because the main cultural function of cities is "communication". Indeed, no community satisfies the need for human interaction as well as a city for one of the important differences between urban and rural communities is the degree of heterogeneity of their inhabitants.Rural residents are basically homogeneous, and they can be called "same ancestors, same clan, same race, same language (dialect)".Moreover, rural residents also particularly value this "homogeneity", value "folks from the village", "native-born", or "brought up drinking water from a well" and so on.Most city dwellers do not have this mentality.They can neither only eat "water from the same well", nor can they only buy "cloth from the same store", and of course they cannot "do the same job".They have different native places, different backgrounds, different origins, different occupations, and different ways of living, but they co-exist in the city.Therefore, the city provides a stage for performance and opportunities for communication for different people. Perhaps, it is this kind of communication opportunity that lures batch after batch of people to "leave their hometowns" and come to the city; it is also this kind of communication opportunity that makes the cultural level and cultural atmosphere of the city far superior to that of the countryside. If there is an opportunity, there must be conditions.This condition is that language, as one of the important tools of communication, must be open and compatible, so that it may become a "hard currency" for interpersonal communication. This is the reason why "city dialect" is easier to understand than "rural dialect".Except for Beijing, every major city in my country has its own "dialect".But careful people can easily find that the dialect of the provincial capital is always easier to understand than the dialect of the local and county, and the dialect of the local and county is always easier to understand than the dialect of the countryside.In other words, due to the openness and compatibility of the city, even the language of the community is relatively open and compatible, which makes it easier for outsiders to understand. Beijing is the stage and place for all Chinese people to perform and communicate, or to borrow the concept of Japanese scholar Eitaro Suzuki, it is the "node organ of social communication" for all Chinese people. Of course, it can and should be compatible with the whole country.Therefore, over and over again, Beijing dialect has almost become our "national language" (Mandarin). Similarly, openness is also the nature of cities.From ancient times to the present, cities have always existed as "central communities".They are either national centers (capitals) or regional centers (provincial capitals, state capitals, county seats, etc.).Since it is the center, it must be open to its surrounding areas, absorbing and radiating, commanding and compatible.Therefore, Beijing not only has a large "packaging capacity", but also a large "throughput".There is a figure that can explain the problem: three-quarters of the current Beijingers are foreigners and their children who entered Beijing after the founding of the People's Republic of China.That is to say, in less than half a century, the so-called "Beijingers" have lost three quarters of their "blood".As for how much "blood" Beijing has "sent" to other places, it seems difficult to count, but I believe it is not a minority. However, Beijing's openness and compatibility do not seem to be, or are not entirely, the kind of free and equal interactions and exchanges between cities and people in the modern sense.It also seems to be condescendingly absorbing and compatible with foreign culture and foreign population more with the grace of "the imperial capital of China" or the cultural privilege of "political center".Compared with Shanghai and Guangzhou, it is more like an enlightened monarch or a tolerant old man. With an all-encompassing and familiar calmness, indifference, comfort and self-confidence, it is magnificent to gather the best of the world, but When it is extremely gorgeous, it is flat again.As we will see later, "magnificence" and "peace" are a prominent feature of Beijing culture, and they even pervade almost every Beijinger, becoming a "cultural character" of Beijingers. But in any case, Beijing is the city with the best cultural and ecological environment after all.It is very much like a naturally formed and uniquely endowed forest, where trees, shrubs, exotic flowers, and weeds coexist in it, with distinct layers and complementary, well-proportioned and integrated.It is the capital of emperors, but also the hometown of literati and the paradise of the people.If we say that the elegant and luxurious royal style, the brave and self-respecting scholarly demeanor, and the honest and simple folk customs once jointly formed the cultural character of old Beijing that is both "magnificent" and "leisurely quiet"; then, the far-sighted Reform and opening up, condescending inclusiveness, and unique cultural advantages constitute the extraordinary atmosphere of New Beijing. The big atmosphere of Beijing" is here.