【城市印象】之——天府之国 · 成都City Impressions: Chengdu, the City That Lives to Live

"A song like Screw It, I'm Not Going to Work Tomorrow — only in the Sichuan–Chongqing region can you belt it out and have it ring true."

Politics

Chengdu's political standing is a notch below neighboring Chongqing's, but only just: provincial capital of Sichuan, sub-provincial city, center of the southwest, National Central City. The role assigned to it: a key national base for high-tech industry, a trade and logistics center, an integrated transport hub, and an important central city for the western region — building out the Chengdu–Chongqing international integrated transport hub. The National Development and Reform Commission backs its goal of becoming a National Central City.

Chengdu's area code is 028. It too is one of only six cities outside the directly-governed municipalities to use a three-digit code, and it casts its influence over the southwest.

It's also one of the following: the seventeen cities hosting a railway bureau; the twelve branch cities of the Chinese Academy of Sciences; the nine seats of the National Land Supervision bureaus; the nine branch cities of the People's Bank of China; the eight network-center cities of the China Education and Research Network; the eight postal-center cities; the eight communications and switching-center cities; the (former) seven military-region seats; the seven cities holding World Cultural Heritage sites; the seven Civil Aviation regional-administration cities; the six major rail passenger-transport hub cities; the six national communications-hub cities; and the six Nuclear and Radiation Safety Supervision stations.

On top of that, Chengdu ranks third in the country for number of consulates, behind only Shanghai and Guangzhou. And because Chengdu is the seat of the Western Theater Command and the "second capital" of Tibet, South Asian countries like India and Nepal have actively pushed to open consulates here too.

Economy

As far back as the Tang dynasty, Chengdu's abundance earned it the saying "Yangzhou first, Yizhou second." Among the commercial cities of the Yangtze basin at the time, Yangzhou and Yizhou (Chengdu) were the two centers. After the An Lushan Rebellion, the north's economic standing declined and the Yangtze basin rose. Yangzhou and Chengdu became the most bustling industrial and commercial cities in the country, overtaking Chang'an and Luoyang — hence the saying "of all the empire's prosperity, Yangzhou leads."

Today Chengdu has built a high-tech industrial base led by electronic information, machinery (including autos), food, and pharmaceuticals. The Chengdu High-Tech Zone was among the first batch of national high-tech development zones approved by the State Council, and an APEC science and technology industrial park; leaning on its industrial parks, it has gradually formed a "city-industry integration" layout. Output has multiplied sevenfold in eight years — an unstoppable head of steam.

Chengdu has the best location and geographic advantages in all of Sichuan, indeed in the entire west. Apart from water transport, Chengdu can crush every other city in Sichuan; on water transport, Chongqing is first.

Within Sichuan, Chengdu's economy is a godlike presence. Chengdu's GDP is nearly seven times that of second-place Mianyang — a gap that's the most extreme even by national standards. There are some objective reasons Sichuan's prefecture-level figures are generally weak: for one, the prefecture-level cities are mostly small, with five administrative divisions in central-southern Sichuan making up a single prefecture.

There was once a comparison drawn between Sichuan and Shandong:

The Sichuan camp: it has Qiao Feng — Chengdu. Chengdu is so overpowering it slapped Qingdao and Jinan dead with two backhands, and then there was no fight left to be had. Apart from Chengdu, not one of them can throw a punch.

The Shandong camp: it has two great guardians, four heavenly kings, and nine arhats. It can beat down any part of Sichuan other than Chengdu — but not a single one of them can take Chengdu.

I wrote about Shandong before: a "wolf pack" county economy. The upside is balanced development across regions, each with a presentable industry of its own — a stable society, not rich, but never too poor. But the downside is just as obvious: Shandong has no distinctive, standout city. Beyond the Qingdao-sewer rumors and its various officials, there's hardly any other Shandong legend that travels beyond the province. And Shandong's low profile is closely tied to how "unhip" it is. Even the Party secretary put it this way:

(Figure in original.)

Shandong people's dress and style tend toward the "steady," the middle-aged especially. A ring of keys on the belt; even in the smartphone age, some still clip the phone to their waistband.

(Figure in original — the gap between Sichuan's provincial average and Chengdu.)

As the chart shows, the gap between Sichuan's provincial average and Chengdu is far larger than that of Yinchuan, Ningxia — the province whose capital has the highest GDP share. Chengdu's per-capita GDP is nearly double the provincial average, ranking, nationally, just behind Lanzhou, Lhasa, and Wuhan. Sichuan's wealth is highly concentrated indeed.

Another thing: for a province to have one dominant city, a high GDP share and a per-capita GDP above the provincial average aren't enough — the dominance has to be crushing. Capitals like Xi'an, Xining, and Changchun have a high GDP share, sure, but their second-place cities aren't doing badly either, and the provincial government won't necessarily allow it. As for crushing — Chengdu says: I'm not targeting anyone in particular, I mean everyone here. Chengdu's GDP is 6.4 times Mianyang's; pull out a single district and it can match one of Sichuan's prefecture-level cities.

Chengdu is Sichuan's largest, most fertile land — nationally second only to the northeast's black soil. Everything around it is hill, mound, and high mountain; the flat terrain favors urban construction and growth, the rich soil favors farming, and the central location makes it a natural regional hub for governing the surrounding area. Such superb natural conditions have made Chengdu Sichuan's most developed spot throughout history. It's been this way for thousands of years.

Chengdu's provincial dominance is also a natural outcome of historical factors. Chongqing's elevation to a directly-governed municipality is one of the key reasons for Chengdu's dominance today — not just because losing the biggest city bumped runner-up Chengdu up to number one, but, more importantly, because Chongqing changed Sichuan's whole economic-development strategy.

As everyone knows, Chongqing was made a municipality in 1997; Xi'an and Wuhan were also vying for the honor at the time. Those two, unable to contain their own ambitions for direct status, ultimately lost out, and relations between each of them and their provincial governments plunged to freezing.

Before Chongqing's elevation, the normal state was Chongqing accounting for 30% of Sichuan's GDP, Chengdu 30%, and the rest — Mianyang, Zigong, Deyang, and so on — splitting the remainder. When Chongqing was elevated, it also took Wanxian, Fuling, and Qianjiang (two cities and one county) with it, on top of its own base. Those three areas' combined GDP equaled about 35% of Chongqing's GDP at the time. After elevation, Chongqing's GDP has held steady at roughly 40%–50% of Sichuan's total — basically consistent with before.

As a directly-governed municipality since 1997, Chongqing's political standing rose a level above both Chengdu and Sichuan, and it gained a raft of policy perks, huge tax rebates, and so on. Look around the entire west and no city can match it in urban-development advantages. And with Sichuan lacking an economic base and pillar industries, being siphoned by neighboring Chongqing was inevitable.

If the Sichuan government sat by and let Chongqing grow huge (once its own beloved son, now not even an adopted one), it would create a situation like Beijing draining all of North China (not just Hebei) — and almost irreversibly. In that case Sichuan, the west's largest economic province, could only pour the whole province's strength into building up Chengdu into a regional center strong enough to counter the municipality of Chongqing, keeping Sichuan attractive to foreign investment, talent, and enterprise. That's how it counters the siphoning effect of Chongqing and the rest, and works to avoid the tragedy of becoming a vassal like Hebei.

Because of geography and poor transport, marshaling the whole province's strength to build a western center like Chengdu — one that attracts investment and people — was the best of the available bad options; otherwise Sichuan would be doing even worse than it is now. But there's a risk in this too: if Chengdu ever falters, all of Sichuan is in trouble.

Air Quality

Talk about Chengdu and you can't avoid its air quality.

Everyone knows Chengdu is great — the city with the highest happiness — but the severity of its smog rarely makes the media. Partly that's a media issue, and partly, you have to admit, it's the fearsome PR and marketing machine of the Chengdu government.

When smog is bad in Beijing, "waiting for the wind" means waiting for the wind to blow it away. When smog is bad in Chengdu, "waiting for the wind" — the point isn't the wind, it's just... waiting. Two weeks of smog once it rolls in is the norm. Chengdu's smog problem has already made it not really livable. The off-the-charts PM2.5 spikes common in North China aren't so frequent in Chengdu, but the terrain still tends to keep pollution at a light-to-moderate level, with genuinely good air being rare — and locals aren't very protection-conscious. In December 2016 there were 12 straight days of moderate-to-heavy pollution.

Chengdu's poor air stems from both its geography and its local character. The Sichuan Basin gets little sunlight, the smog is complex, and development in recent years has been frenetic — the high-tech zone can look transformed within a week. And because Chengdu loves to play, its motor-vehicle count has hit 4 million-plus, second in the country only to the capital.

Transportation

The ancients said: the road to Shu is harder than the road to heaven. In truth, the difficult transport is between inside and outside, because great swaths of mountains block the way — hence "the road to Shu is hard." But once you clear the mountains, there's a vast basin, and getting around is easy. So as long as you're not going back and forth in and out, you can roam however you like inside. That's why there were separatist regimes here throughout history — in the transport-poor ancient world, this place was perfect for setting yourself up as king of the hill. It's also why the Yuan dynasty assigned Hanzhong to Shaanxi.

Chengdu is about to enter the dual-airport era: Chengdu Tianfu International Airport is Chengdu's second airport, and one of the largest civil-transport hub airport projects to be built under the 13th Five-Year Plan, positioned as a national-level international aviation hub and the highest-grade air port on the Silk Road Economic Belt. It will handle all of Chengdu's outbound international routes, built to be a "world-class, nationally leading" humane, smart, and green airport. From project approval to sign-off took just 15 months, making Chengdu the third city on the Chinese mainland to have dual airports.

In 2016, Sichuan's total expressway mileage in service reached 6,519 kilometers, jumping three spots to second in the country. Chengdu's transport will keep getting better: a within-metro-area high-speed-rail circle measured in hours, a 1-hour surrounding-cities high-speed-rail circle, a 4-hour circle, and an 8-hour circle. As the Xi'an–Chengdu, Chengdu–Guiyang, and Chongqing–Chengdu lines come online one after another, the Chengdu-centered high-speed-rail network is beginning to show its shape.

Food

"Eat in China, taste in Sichuan" — the idea is known nationwide. Beyond that, thanks to its highly developed food industry, professional culinary institutions, a large pool of excellent chefs, and traditional cooking techniques — promoted and protected through food festivals, cooking competitions, and the like — Chengdu was named a "City of Gastronomy" by UNESCO, the first city in Asia to earn the honor.

Chengdu's ten famous snacks: Chen Mapo Tofu; Liao Paigu; Fuqi Feipian; Dandan noodles; Long Chaoshou wontons; Er Jie Rabbit Dices; Laoma Rabbit Head; Zhong dumplings; Xiaotan tofu pudding; Kang Er Jie skewers. Many of Chengdu's best eats are hole-in-the-wall joints tucked along the city's streets, waiting to be explored and dug out one by one.

Chengdu people are warm and don't shut outsiders out. But Chengdu's palate does. One example — there used to be a debate: sweet tofu pudding or savory? In Chengdu, why argue? Of course it's spicy! Feel free to sit with that one.

Consumption in Chengdu is genuinely cheap: three to five adults grazing on skewers might run only two or three hundred yuan. But everyday necessities like vegetables, fruit, and eggs really aren't much cheaper than elsewhere.

Inclusiveness

Chengdu people don't shut outsiders out; they're accepting and easygoing. In the capital or in Shanghai, say one bad word about the place and you'll draw a chorus of abuse: outsiders get the hell out. In Chengdu, basically no one curses you out or starts a fight.

A lot of the time Chengdu just can't be bothered to argue. Whether it's a "new first-tier" city or not has little to do with them; whether it's already passed Hangzhou and Nanjing they don't care about. Their attitude is: Chengdu doesn't give a damn what you say. We're still eating our skewers and playing our mahjong. Mahjong's fun; not going to waste time arguing with you.

The Dialect Question

Come to Chengdu and you can't avoid dealing with the dialect. Sichuanese is still very much in fashion here. Even at Sichuan's universities, plenty of professors teach in Sichuanese. Apart from standardized, internationalized outfits like banks and airports, plenty of offices — and even large meetings of provincial and municipal Party committees and governments — are the same.

If you're a northerner and not great at picking up Sichuanese, a lot of your values and living habits will differ from, even clash with, southerners' — enough to affect how you behave socially.

When Chengdu people speak Mandarin, other Chengdu people may not understand them, but northerners can. That's because Chengdu people's sensitivity to Mandarin and a northerner's sensitivity to Mandarin aren't on the same level. And if a northerner with decent Mandarin speeds up, Chengdu people will have a hard time following.

So for northerners, "Sichuan-flavored Mandarin" is definitely easier to understand than pure Sichuanese; for Sichuanese people, it's exactly the reverse.

Culture

Chengdu is among the first batch of National Famous Historical and Cultural Cities, a Best Tourist City of China, and a World Outstanding Tourist Destination; UNESCO named it a "World City of Gastronomy." Chengdu holds 2 World Heritage sites and 2 World Heritage tentative-list items — the most such projects of any city in China's central and western regions — a city with 3,200 years of history, "the most Chinese of cultural cities."

By depth of history and culture it ranks eighth nationwide — the top ten being Beijing, Xi'an, Shanghai, Nanjing, Luoyang, Wuhan, Suzhou, Chengdu, Guangzhou, and Kaifeng.

One of its most famous sights is, of course, the giant panda — Chengdu is home to the world-renowned Panda Base. There are also the Wuhou Shrine, Du Fu's Thatched Cottage, the Yongling mausoleum, the Wangjiang Tower, the Qingyang Palace, the Wenshu Monastery, the Ming Shu princes' tombs, the Zhaojue Temple, and many other historic sites and cultural landmarks.

Chengdu is no slouch on famous figures and masters either: Sima Xiangru; Yang Xiong; Ba Jin, Liu Shahe, Yu Jie; and figures like Zhuo Wenjun.

Education

Chengdu's education resources are decent. As of the end of 2014, Chengdu had 56 ordinary institutions of higher education. Five are ministry-affiliated universities: 2 Project 985 and 3 Project 211 (Sichuan University, University of Electronic Science and Technology, Southwest Jiaotong University, Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, Southwest Minzu University); the other 51 are locally administered (15 under the provincial education department, 11 under other departments, 4 municipally run, and 21 private).

Housing Prices

Three key factors affect housing prices: (1) population inflow; (2) land supply; (3) how wealthy people are and their room to grow.

Thanks to Chengdu's ample land supply and its people's live-for-today outlook, its housing prices never spiked in earlier years. In the last couple of years, as the industrial structure shifts, various national policies lend support, and population inflow grows, prices have started to climb. In 2017 Chengdu made the list of super-heavyweight housing markets: transaction volume topped 20 million square meters. There were two super-heavyweight cities — Chongqing and Chengdu.

As the chart shows, Chengdu's housing prices are another marvel. They're on the low side for a second-tier city, well below the faster-developing Xiamen, Hangzhou, Suzhou, and Nanjing. Even Xi'an, Jinan, and Hefei — which don't measure up to Chengdu — are higher. Chengdu has now imposed purchase restrictions.

Because of Chengdu people's love of play, most of them only think about buying a home when marriage is on the table; with spare cash they'll buy a car first. Buying a home is mainly for the kids' schooling. Downtown prices aren't necessarily higher than beyond the ring road — because Chengdu people don't buy that logic. And no matter how flowery the sales pitch, Chengdu people don't take the bait easily. Going by many Chengdu folks' temperament, if prices get too high they'd rather move somewhere with cheaper living costs — a high mortgage wouldn't leave enough for mahjong money, so what's the point of a house! There's a trip to Tahiti planned for year-end! There's that new big restaurant we haven't tried yet!

Consumption Mindset and Leisure

Enjoying life is Chengdu's civic spirit and its calling card. What's most precious about this city, and most worth its pride, is this: in other cities, people live in order to survive. In Chengdu, people live in order to live. No matter how much they love money, no matter how good they are at making it, no one here ever forgets the essence of life. Goal-orientation, mission-must-be-accomplished — to Chengdu people that's downright absurd. In Chengdu you don't need to make big money, don't need to accomplish great things, don't need to make a name; three meals a day, life lived vividly. The people of Ba and Shu know how to play, how to enjoy, how to take life as it comes and be content. A song like Screw It, I'm Not Going to Work Today — only in the Sichuan–Chongqing region can you belt it out and have it ring true.

In the eyes of Chengdu people, you can understand it with a simple formula: any living creature — is there to be eaten. Any venue — is there to play mahjong in. Chengdu people never travel without their own mahjong set, from five-star hotels down to plain guesthouses. Travel = playing mahjong somewhere else. Chengdu people evaluate other places on just two axes: 1) Is the food good? 2) Is there mahjong? In Chengdu you'll never see office towers lit up at night, and you'd best not expect to get a customer-service line to pick up on the weekend.

In people's eyes, seizing the day is the way: I'm going out to play first~ Let me play a round before we talk. However busy things get on weekdays, come the weekend — even in a beat-up little car — they'll head to a rural farm-stay nearby to play mahjong somewhere new, drink tea, chat, and fish.

In other provinces or households, women hold up half the sky. But in the Sichuan–Chongqing region, women hold up the whole sky. And the men take pride in being henpecked.

For sheer wealth, Chengdu might not crack the top ranks. But for spending it, calling Chengdu people the ringleaders would probably meet no objection. The Wenchuan earthquake had a huge effect on Chengdu people. Their mindset shifted overnight. After the quake, Chengdu's divorce rate shot up. People started asking themselves: if I'd died that day, what would I have regretted? Being true to yourself matters most. Scrimping and saving for all those houses — why? An earthquake comes and who even knows if you'll be here. Better to buy a nice bag and treat yourself~

Chengdu people were born understanding consumption upgrades. Around 2000, reading the papers, the "Korean wave" was just heating up and Korean brands began entering Chengdu; clothes running about two thousand yuan, and Chengdu people bought them without blinking. Overnight it lifted Chengdu's status from a third-tier city to a consumption stronghold every brand had to take dead seriously.

Chengdu sits in the Sichuan Basin, the land-rich Land of Abundance, a place free of worry about food and clothing since ancient times. So Chengdu people's pursuit of ease, of enjoyment, of knowing how to live, has been handed down from ancient times. And it isn't just the young who love to play — the whole city does: parents love to play, so from childhood you soak it up and no one has time to keep tabs on you; your boss loves to play and might even take you along.

This pursuit shows in their consumption too: a fresh graduate on 3,000 a month dares to smoke 20-yuan cigarettes, and someone earning tens of thousands a year drives a 200,000-yuan car. Chengdu's private-car ownership is second in the country to the capital, and it was already top-three nationwide a decade ago. Chongqing's total and per-capita GDP both exceed Chengdu's, yet Chengdu's total retail sales and per-capita consumption are far higher than Chongqing's.

Sichuan's every advantage of timing and place has prepared them for this, too: the food goes without saying, and Sichuan has endless green mountains and clear waters. Qingcheng, Xiling, Emei don't even count for much; Jiuzhaigou, Huanglong, Sêrtar, and Daocheng are the entry level. Head west into Tibet or south into Yunnan, and both are places where all of China's grand beauty gathers — great rivers, fine mountains, fine waters, a beauty beyond compare. What joy.

Chengdu people's mindset is simply not to compete: couldn't care less whether it's a "new first-tier" city or where it ranks by GDP, and couldn't care less about any of that finance-and-capital stuff — what the hell does it have to do with me? So long as I've got a little money in hand, I want to go out and play on the weekend, play mahjong, drink tea, smoke and shoot the breeze, gather a crew for hotpot and skewers down at Jiuyan Bridge, and now and then find some new little thing to mess around with and taste — that's plenty.

Don't overlook Chengdu's standing in retail, either. Chengdu's shop-front concept ran hot far longer than in other cities. Chengdu's economy may not be all that big, but for well-known retail brands and chain malls, it's a very, very important battleground and revenue base.

Chengdu also has no shortage of high-net-worth groups. Around 268 Fortune 500 companies have set up in Chengdu, and the elite population tops 700,000. In 2015, data from the China Household Finance Survey and Research Center showed Chengdu had 320,000 households among the country's high-net-worth ranks, a share far above 4%. Even by Hurun's over-ten-million threshold for high-net-worth, Sichuan tops the central and western regions.

I once compared Chengdu's and Hangzhou's leisure, as shown here:

(Figure in original — comparison of leisure in Chengdu and Hangzhou.)

Chengdu's leisure is more about the people being suited to leisure — earn your damn money, then find a spot to bask in the sun, drink tea, and play mahjong; that's life. Hangzhou is a case of the city itself being an ideal place for leisure — earn your money, then find a spot to spend it comfortably.

That said, today's Chengdu isn't quite the Chengdu of before. The people's easygoing attitude and the development plans of the state and the government have begun to diverge and clash in outlook. Chengdu has transformed into a "new first-tier city," a "National Central City," and the government is speeding up development for these titles; it doesn't want to miss this window and this policy support. For ordinary people, staying content as before — keeping to the old ways — is getting harder and more pressured. Overtime in the high-tech zone's software park is the norm; you can't be as leisurely as old Chengdu folks drinking tea and playing mahjong all day. Now it's keeping pace with the first tier — only without so much pressure to buy a home.

The Status of Women

That the Sichuan–Chongqing region produces beauties is known nationwide. As the saying goes: you don't know how small your official rank is until you go to Beijing; you don't know how bad your car is until you go to Guangzhou; you don't know how little money you have until you go to Shenzhen; you don't know how timid you are until you go to the northeast; you don't know how much of a country bumpkin you are until you go to Shanghai; and you don't know how early you married until you go to Chengdu.

In other provinces or households, women hold up half the sky. But in the Sichuan–Chongqing region, women hold up the whole sky. And the men take pride in being henpecked.

Women in the Chengdu–Chongqing region generally enjoy high social status, with a strong sense of autonomy — which has a lot to do with how families raise them from childhood. Men treat women with more respect. People in the Sichuan–Chongqing region don't like meddling in others' affairs: do what you want, just don't come bother me — bother my mama and I'll take you on. Gossiping is fairly looked down on in the Sichuan–Chongqing region.

Women's status in the Sichuan–Chongqing region is the result of self-won autonomy, without much mutual personal dependence — not the grasping, take-what-you-can kind of "Chinese pastoral feminism."

City Marketing

Look around the whole country and, for city-marketing skill and craft, you could say "none surpasses Chengdu."

Cities and products share a lot: the sad part is "you're plainly excellent, but no one knows it." So it's not enough to have real product competitiveness — you also need a precise enough marketing plan. Product is zero to one; operations is one to a hundred.

Chengdu has too many labels and slogans deeply known to the nation: beauties, hotpot, food, giant pandas. From "the Land of Abundance" to "a city you won't want to leave once you've come" to "the city of entrepreneurship — Chengdu can do it all!," Chengdu's promotion of its image and the building of its city brand are first-rate and near-flawless.

One striking example is the panda. As the national treasure, the giant panda is beloved by people the world over. Many hold the stereotype that pandas mean Sichuan — but in fact Gansu and Shaanxi are home to large numbers of wild giant pandas too, especially the Qinling subspecies, which looks more cat-like and is even cuter than Sichuan's, and yet is little known.

Chengdu turning the Panda Base into part of its calling card goes without saying; beyond that, it has woven panda motifs into IFS's commercial culture and into the décor of metro stations, until the panda has become almost a synonym for Chengdu.

Not only that — Chengdu is also one of the country's savviest at marketing itself via the internet and social networks. When the G20 summit was held, Chengdu hosted the G20 finance ministers' meeting and seized that globally watched moment to market itself, boldly buying up whole ad pages in foreign papers like the Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Times — so much so that for a while people thought the host city was Chengdu, not Hangzhou.

Small Tips

1. Beyond Chongqing, Hanzhong and Zunyi historically belonged to Sichuan too. Throughout history, anyone holding Sichuan as a separatist power had to hold Hanzhong, because once Hanzhong falls within Sichuan, Sichuan's strategic geography is complete, giving it the conditions for separatism. To prevent Sichuan from breaking away, the Yuan dynasty assigned Hanzhong to Shaanxi, and it's been that way ever since. As for Zunyi, in the fifth year of the Yongzheng reign it was transferred from Sichuan to Guizhou's jurisdiction.

2. A joke about West China Hospital: an out-of-town tycoon comes to Chengdu, gets in a cab, and the driver asks: where to? The tycoon says: take me to the place in Chengdu with the highest standards, the best scenery, plenty of character, the best business, and the liveliest crowds. The driver hears this and floors it, delivering the big-shot straight to West China Hospital. — Chengdu's West China Hospital is very famous and formidable. Among hospitals nationwide it ranks second, behind only Beijing's Peking Union Medical College Hospital. Third is the PLA General Hospital.

3. Four of the Ten Marshals came from Sichuan: Zhu De, Liu Bocheng, Nie Rongzhen, Chen Yi. Among them, Zhu De and Liu Bocheng once crossed swords in Sichuan during the warlord era — as a Yunnan-army general and a Sichuan-army general respectively — the only clash among the Ten Marshals.

4. Though Chengdu is universally recognized as a food city, and was voted a World City of Gastronomy — the only city in Asia so honored — the take among Sichuanese on Chengdu's own traditional food goes like this: the hotpot's not as good as Chongqing's, the beef not as good as Langzhong's, the tofu pudding not as good as Fushun's, the beef noodles not as good as Neijiang's, the zhajiang noodles not as good as Wanzhou's, the mutton soup not as good as Jianyang's.

5. Sichuan's prefecture-level cities generally joke about Chengdu as "Chengdu Province." As mentioned above: one, Chengdu is too overpowering; two, apart from Chengdu, not one of them can throw a punch.

6. The Chengdu Metro slogan "Chengdu Metro, one vein of life" rhymes. You have to read it in dialect.

7. Chengdu's Jiuyan Bridge is jokingly called a "national AV-rated scenic spot."

8. Chengdu is currently the only city that has been among the country's top ten cities in every dynasty since the Qin and Han.

9. Since it was founded, Chengdu has never once changed its name.

In one line: Chengdu doesn't shut outsiders out. Leisure and vacation: five stars; also an ideal place for kids' schooling and for the elderly and children to get medical care. Livability index: knocked down from five stars to two and a half; economic development: four stars; career-hustle index: two and a half stars.