Throwback Thursday: Back to When Beijing Was the Most Comfortable City in China
Throwback Thursday takes a look back into Beijing's past, using our nine-year-strong blog archives as the source for a glance at the weird and wonderful of yesteryear.
The fight between Shanghai and Beijing expats is everlasting and the ball is in a different court every match. While Shanghai expats are looking down on Beijingers for their dirty streets, smoggy air, and a government so close to the soul that you can feel it breathing down your neck. Beijingers, however, believe they are the only ones living in the "real China" (new number, who this?).
When the atmosphere gets too heated, surveys come to our aid in untangling the catfight. Drumroll, please: back in 2010, Beijing was voted the most comfortable city to live in, according to Global Times. Seeing workers and residents resting their eyes on their self-made thrones in some nearly impossible positions, this information may not seem too surprising. However, according to the survey, there is more to the comfort than the softness of our park benches or subway seats.
While there are as many surveys on the subject as there are people in the city, it's somewhat like reading horoscopes: the criteria and reasoning behind them are vague enough that, when we really furrow our brows and try, we can agree that they're applicable. The results of the aforementioned survey in Beijing's favor praised the capital for its myriad historical sights (mind you, even seven years ago, this was complemented by a cheeky "the ones that haven't been flattened," which proves that there is a long history of Beijingers openly criticizing "out with the old" policies) and an abundance of cheap eats. While food is a pillar of comfort and culture is without a doubt food for the soul, how about some traffic comfort where kuaidi drivers don't play "Mad Max" while driving on the wrong side of the street?
Other perks that helped Beijing score this piece of cake were low crime rates and political privileges. Feeling safe and sound in Beijing is hands-down one of the top bonuses. Anyone who has ever walked down the street in the western world at an indecent time of night knows how eerie it can get and how briskly you walk home, especially if a stranger is walking toward you or, worse still, behind you. As for political privileges, it may have enjoyed the benefits of having the highest governmental organs at hand if disaster strikes.
Possibly the most curious part of the results is that the true winner of the most votes for "most comfortable city" was "Don't know." It either shows that residents either are not feeling exceptionally patriotic about their hometown or the city they currently reside in, or that the survey had just been an inconvenient interruption of their day and this was the only way they saw fit to push the responsibility away. Or, possibly, that most participants simply don't feel comfortable anywhere.
Looking at other surveys on the livability of Chinese cities, the opinions clash, collide, and negate each other in many ways. If you're still wholeheartedly concerned as to which place is actually the most suitable for human inhabitance, relax: It's probably not what you thought at all. As of Aug 16, 2017, the most livable city in China, according to the Economist Index Unit (EIU) Livability ranking is ... wait for it ... Suzhou! "The Eastern Venice," with canals peacefully murmuring through the ancient city, scored a whopping 72nd place worldwide. You go, Suzhou! While we often see pretty poor evaluations of Chinese cities, it might be quite misleading. For all the haters out there, Beijing is 73rd, so think before you complain and be thankful you are not living in Libya's Tripoli or Damascus, Syria, which have plummeted to the very bottom of the list.
While the EIU ranking breaks down their criteria, explaining how the cities are given their score, the Global Times' survey reasoning seems a little more ambiguous. And since the web page is not accessible anymore, we may just never know why Beijing got the title it did. So we'll just take it and try to get cozy with it the best we can. Truth be told, with the harsh Beijing winter just around the corner, I cannot recall the last time I felt neither too hot nor too cold. But that's a rant for the future.
Sources: The Economist, Shanghaiist
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Images: Kristina Knut, sites.psu.edu
