quora User: I love these two cities and have lived in them. I like to compare "Shanghai vs Beijing" to "new york vs San Francisco" and "Moscow vs St Petersburg"-which means "chicks, money" vs "hipsters, culture", so it tends to attract foreigners with related styles. I also noticed that when foreigners first come to a city, they often love it and can't stand another one. Therefore, it must be something deeply rooted in the urban characteristics.

What do expats living in Beijng and Shanghai think about each other?

How do foreigners in Zhihu, Beijing and Shanghai view each other?

The following is the comment part

Answer-Kevin D. Aslan, lives in Shanghai (Kevin D. Aslan, a foreigner in Shanghai)

There is a big difference between foreigners in Shanghai and those in Beijing: localization.

To put it simply, it is much easier to live in Shanghai than in Beijing. I can get by without knowing anyone from China. You can find most of the food you want, and you can develop in a small circle of foreigners, feeling like you are at home, without having to communicate with local people.

it's hard to do this in Beijing.

One of the reasons behind this is that there are many headquarters of international companies in Shanghai-these companies tend to prefer to hire foreign employees. At the same time, Beijing is most famous for its state-owned enterprises, and English can be unimportant.

There are so many great parties in Shanghai that you won't waste your time learning Chinese? In order to live a better life in Beijing, it is necessary to study Chinese hard.

At the same time, Beijing tends to attract more American students-usually these students have been studying Mandarin for many years, and they have studied China's history, culture and literature.

History explains this difference to some extent-just ask a Frenchman to name a city in China, and he will probably say Shanghai. We used to have a concession there. It was the Pearl of the Orient. Ask an American and he will say Beijing-because of Nixon, Olympic Games, etc ... < P > So, what does this mean to foreigners in these two cities? Well, foreigners in Beijing look down on foreigners in Shanghai, thinking that they are weak and difficult to integrate into the local area (in fact, many people from other parts of China are also difficult to integrate into Shanghai).

Answer 2 Greg Blandino, Works at Beijing, China (Beijing foreigner)

It is hard to find anything that can better summarize the views of Beijing foreigners on our Shanghai brothers than this post on Reddit: "Starbucks-do they have cocoa chips Frappuccino or other similar things in China?" (The content of the post is as follows:)

Many foreigners in Shanghai are French. They earn much more than us and are hired by a "real" company or an industry with high salaries. Instead of Weibo, who runs a lesbian basket weaving commune in Hebei, she pursues a music career while working as a part-time teacher in Happy Giraffe International Bilingual Kindergarten, pursuing her dream of becoming an art and food reporter, or spending all her money on hutong quadrangles to experience the real old Beijing for several years.

Shanghai parties are cooler and better than ours, with hotter models, more whistles and less blue ribbon beer or its China version. Foreigners in Beijing like to use Line or Whatsapp (Facebook's mobile social platform), and bind the bank card to WeChat as an important achievement. They will tell you excitedly that they used Taobao to shop for the first time last week. They will strongly suspect that the taxi driver will take them around the long road, but they think that the driver is too poor and deserves the extra money.

Meanwhile, in the northern capital ... a foreigner from Beijing chose to practice Tai Chi or something similar with an elderly China instead of flirting with Russian models.

There is an atmosphere of "losers who can't go home" among foreigners in Beijing. They feel it necessary to leave their motherland and try their hand again in China. They do as the Romans do. They don't eat borderless food. They have local friends who travel together (not China girlfriend who speaks English, of course). They probably don't have a suit. Because they often inhale "smog" every summer and winter, they will die 5 to 1 years early.

oh, I almost forgot: foreigners in Beijing ride flying pigeon mountain bikes, dead flying bikes or some other bikes. Foreigners in Shanghai ride electric cars.

answer three: Evgeny Bakhtin, Lives in Beijing, China (Beijing foreigner)

I love these two cities and have lived in both cities.

I like to compare "Shanghai vs. Beijing" to "new york vs. San Francisco" and "Moscow vs. St. Petersburg"-this means "chicks, money" vs. "hipsters, culture", so it tends to attract foreigners with related styles.

I also noticed that when foreigners first come to a city, they often love this city and can't stand another one. Therefore, it must be something deeply rooted in the urban characteristics.

Answer 4 Sean McDirmid, Lived in Beijing, China (27-216) (foreigner in Beijing, from 27 to 216)

Not very good. I mean, they are different cities far away from each other. Heck, foreigners are a little scarce in Beijing, so we don't think too much about each other, except when chatting up in Sanlitun bar. I think there are more foreigners in Shanghai, but I guess they are similar to us?

Answer five FJ Shi, lives in Shanghai

I heard a joke from a Shanghai foreigner:

"If a Shanghai foreigner starts to look down on a Beijing foreigner-then you have been in China for a long time."