Poem about modern regional stereotypes

Kaiser Kuo has posted an online version of his recent column for local magazine That’s Beijing. The article is called: Provincial Poetry and delineates the various regional stereotypes within China in poetry.

Excerpts about the two regions most frequently cited:

“The Shanghainese are philistines, and this they’ll gladly own:
Commercial instincts permeate them to the very bone.
Their pride in Shanghai’s petit bourgeois ethos is immense
But what they lack in culture, they make up in common sense.”

“Beiingers love to gab, and though they’re lazy and they’re slow,
There’s nothing about politics that they aren’t apt to know.
They may complain a lot about the traffic and the air
But scratch beneath the cynicism and you’ll find they care.”

Read about the rest of China in the full post: Provincial Poetry.