If the city has a shape, it must be a small western-style building: exquisite and neat. When the water town in the south of the Yangtze River is exquisite and graceful for thousands of years, it carries a hundred years of European style and beautiful rain and breeds a unique urban spirit. This gas field is similar to Shanghai, but different. The same exquisiteness and fashion, but Ningbo is not as magnificent as Shanghai, but it is a little more smart and beautiful. Thousands of buildings in Shanghai are naturally swallowed up by Wan Li, while Ningbo, an elegant small building, has bright windows and a temperature.
If this city has a taste, it must be little seafood cooked with yellow rice wine: light and delicious. All kinds of seafood produced in the East China Sea, supplemented by yellow rice wine with Jiangnan characteristics, cook dishes with less oil, less salt and less seasoning, and also lack the attractive aroma of high-temperature frying. It looks ugly at first glance, but after careful tasting, it is often amazed by the freshness and deliciousness of the ingredients themselves. Simple and plain, but with a long aftertaste.
If this city has a soul, it must be reflected in the style and character of people here.
I tried to draw a portrait of Ningbo people in my mind. Both men and women are relatively thin and have three-dimensional facial features. Southerners with subtropical climate in China rarely have the tall figure of northerners with temperate climate. Apart from the height of typical southerners, there are few obese people in Ningbo, which should be related to their diet structure. Eating by the sea, the low fat content of seafood itself is the main reason for being thin. I'm from the south, too. In the midwest, I have seen too many people who are fat after middle age, which may be related to the high-fat and high-calorie diet in these areas. Compared with northerners, southerners seem to have three-dimensional facial features, and the specific reasons are unknown. It may be due to climate or race. The population movement on the historical map of China has been the main trend for thousands of years because of the war in the north and the gradual deterioration of the climate. Jiangnan region is actually a relatively pure-bred Han population, while the northern region has been mixed and intermarried because of the harassment of nomadic people for many years in history, incorporating the genes of Mongols and Mobei grassland tribes. I don't know if this is the reason why men's facial features are relatively three-dimensional compared with the north.
Thousands of years of farming civilization and hundreds of years of marine commercial civilization after port trade meet, shaping the unique personality characteristics of Ningbo people. The following are some of my personal intuitive feelings, briefly.
All right. Since ancient times, Jiangnan area has fertile land and dense population. Crops are mainly planted with rice, and fields are often divided into small paddy fields for intensive cultivation. The boundaries between fields are clear, which gives southerners a strong sense of boundaries. What is yours is mine, and what is mine is mine. It must be carried clearly and must not be confused. Because each family's land is relatively limited, it must be intensively cultivated to have the maximum output. Under such circumstances, the spirit of being meticulous in doing things has become a common personality characteristic of people in Jiangnan area. The fine spirit nurtured by thousands of years of farming society has often been internalized into the personality characteristics of local people. The typical representative of postmodernism is the "red gang tailor" in old Shanghai during the late Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China. At that time, Ningbo tailors made a name for themselves in Shanghai. Although it was earlier to trade with Ningbo, and tailors first sewed dresses for foreigners (red hair), I think the internal factors that created a group of excellent tailors are closely related to the meticulous spirit of Ningbo people.
Diligence People in the eastern coastal areas are generally more diligent than those in the inland areas. Maybe it has something to do with the climate. Sunrise is earlier in coastal areas, so people have to get up early to work. Early to bed and early to rise has become a natural law. Perhaps it is related to the natural farming environment in history. Carefully cultivated fields need more labor to operate. Perhaps it is related to the developed industry and fast pace of life in modern society. There are many factories in coastal areas, and industrial production is faster and lasts longer than agricultural production. I don't know why, but I think people in the eastern coastal areas are indeed more resilient and enthusiastic about long-term work than those in the inland areas. There are many factors that determine the situation of life, but efforts can almost make up for most of the shortcomings. Especially when a person is hardworking and flexible, getting rich is really a high probability event. Many mainlanders attribute the prosperity of Jiangsu and Zhejiang to natural conditions and flexible minds, but often ignore that they are actually the most industrious group in China.
Chongwen farming and reading is the consistent inheritance of the intellectual class in the traditional agricultural society, which is the case in many parts of the country. Especially in Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces with relatively rich history, there is an almost obsessive admiration for culture and education. Tianyi Pavilion, with a history of more than 400 years, is the oldest existing library in China, one of the oldest private libraries in the world, and it is said to be the largest ancient private library in Asia. I also saw a private library in the Qing Dynasty in Xiaowen Street, Ningbo, which was kept by a private library named Feng. I am really surprised that there are two ancient private libraries of such a large scale in a small city. This shows how much people in this place love books and culture. Cultural celebrities such as Wang Yangming, Huang Zongxi and Jiang Menglin can be born in such a land, and they can become the "hometown of academicians" in the area where the academicians of the two academies of China have produced the most, and famous scientists such as Tong Dizhou and Tu Youyou have emerged. Who can say that the emergence of a large number of first-class cultural elites is accidental?
Commercial. Around 1840, when westerners' ships went upstream from Zhoushan Port along the Yongjiang River and arrived at Sanjiangkou, Ningbo, it was doomed that this city would have a completely different fate from mainland cities in the future. As a part of the five-port trade after the Opium War, China was one of the earliest trading ports. Since then, the seeds of modern commercial civilization have been planted strongly in this land of plenty, lasting for thousands of years. The British have a keen eye. Ningbo Port is one of the few deep-water ports in China, and the port is the lifeblood of the city's commercial capital. I don't intend to list the economic achievements of this city today, but I just want to make a personal interpretation of the commercial characteristics of Ningbo people. Honesty, rationality and decisiveness are very obvious characteristics of businessmen here. The more economically developed areas, the higher the integrity, because integrity can reduce transaction costs and improve transaction efficiency. In China, a human society, although businessmen talk about feelings, their bones are full of rational spirit, and business itself is a game for rational people. Another interesting feature is that Ningbo businessmen often come straight to the point when talking about things, and rarely beat around the bush like mainland businessmen. I don't know whether this style is influenced by regional characteristics or western commercial civilization. In the early years, the Shanghai business community was mainly controlled by Ningbo businessmen such as Yu Qiaqing and Zhou Jin. At the same time, there are also big businessmen like Run Run Run Shaw, Bao Yugang and Dong Haoyun (Tung Chee-hwa's father) coming out of here. I have to say that Ningbo businessmen have something particularly suitable for doing business in their personalities.
Say something critical.
Follow the wind, Bessie. A hundred years of rain in Europe and America have made people in this land instinctively pursue all western things. Since the advent of trade, western civilization has crushed this ancient land of China with absolute strength. There is a worship of the strong in human nature, which is one of the laws by which human social order can be established. I don't know whether the strength of the west is too strong, or whether Wen Mingzhen is very advanced, or whether the economic conditions here are good enough to pursue more advanced western beautiful things. Similar to Shanghai, Ningbo people are eager for western things. A local female friend of mine in Ningbo is obsessed with Starbucks to a puzzling degree and is carried away by international brands. There are too many people chasing Mercedes-Benz, BMW and Porsche. The enthusiasm for Apple mobile phones and the yearning for Disney are like a child obsessed with lollipops. A paradox is that no matter how beautiful things are, when everyone is running for them, they will cause the lack of personality. Compared with obvious beauty, style and personality are actually scarcer and more luxurious than international brands, because it requires independent thinking and more advanced aesthetics.
The feminine God is fair, so that the gentle breeze and drizzle in the south of the Yangtze River nourish generations of talented and beautiful businessmen, but do not give them masculinity and courage. In modern history, if we want to cultivate military commanders who can make decisions by conquering, Jiangsu and Zhejiang can really be said to be barren. Bloody courage has always been a typical feature of masculinity, which is also in line with modern international male aesthetics. Men in Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces are generally feminine and forbearing, lacking the courage to face directly. Although frontal physical confrontation is barbaric, it is certainly not worthy of admiration in modern civilized society. But it's a man's instinct. Conquering and fighting have never left the world of men. Apart from economic, cultural and scientific factors, men are brave and bloody.
Exclusion is a common social phenomenon in economically developed areas, not unique to Ningbo. People in developed areas have an instinctive sense of superiority towards people in underdeveloped areas. As for xenophobia, it is a unique phenomenon of the people at the bottom of society in developed areas, with obvious class characteristics. These people at the bottom, because they are down and out in the local area, have a deep sense of inferiority compared with other people with good local conditions. One export of this depressed mood is discrimination against migrant workers. Because these migrant workers are often the bottom of their hometown, they lack good educational background and social relations in their hometown. Part of the reason is that they lack professional skills and generally work in hard manual labor or service industries. Some of them are really not of high quality, so they become targets of discrimination. In this way, it is absurd for the bottom to discriminate against the bottom, pot calling the kettle black. For example, the tight-lipped "Ala Shanghai Ning" by ordinary citizens in Shanghai really makes people laugh. Over the years, I have traveled all over the country and met people from all social classes in many areas. Marvel Comics has excellent people in the vast area of China, no matter how poor and backward the area is. These people, lucky and lucky, will not be inferior in any developed area! Middle-and upper-class people in developed areas, because they are well-informed, will have a heart of awe for all areas in China where Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon are hidden. So rejection is just the bottom mentality of some frogs in the well.
The above knowledge may be one-sided or narrow, but as far as I am concerned, it is true enough. There is no ode or derogatory meaning here, just recording my feelings. Every time I pass by the city where I once lived, those dribs and drabs of memories always come to my mind inadvertently, sometimes happy and sometimes sad. When a city is intertwined with a life, the situation becomes complicated. I don't know if it's because of my love for the city or my reluctance for that period of youth. Maybe, both.
65438+2022 1 October1,in Ningbo.