The culture, custom and language difference is definitely more drastic than it is in the U.S. I was somewhat bullied as a young kid in Shanghai because I couldn't speak Shanghainese that well.
However value is mostly not as divisive as it is here. I'm talking about the same kind of success is valued and worshipped throughout the country, urban and countryside alike. People also largely share similar family value, similar world view, and even similar opinions of domestic and foreign politics. In the U.S. I get the impression that everyone wants the best for the country, but they just drastically disagree on what an "ideal America" should look like. It's looking more and more like one side's paradise is the other side's nightmare.
Personally I theorize a lot of that is due to decades of centralized media, propaganda and a top down, heavily scrutinized education system, but in this case one can't help but wonder if democracy is always better judging by the extreme polarization of media bubble and social value in American society. In fact, we reached the level that democracy is only tolerated in the U.S. but not liked by most people. If you give a theoretical ballot/proposition to Hilary voters that strip Trump voters of voting rights and vice versa, I have a feeling a significant amount of voters across both sides will vote YES, but not admit in doing so.
But that's discussion for a different day.
Do you think the importance of Shanghainese has changed since then? When I was there, the only people I heard speak Shanghainese looked to be 40 or older, younger people seemed to exclusively use Mandarin.
Basically I think kids born before 1995 were the last batch of people growing up learning fluent Shanghainese.
>Eat Noodle and Rice.
The cuisine of China is actually very varied. Rice is more common in the Southern and Middle parts of China compared to noodles which are found mostly in the Northern Parts.
You could not find a Dim Sum place in Shanghai compared to Southern cities because Dim Sum is more of a Southern tradition. While the cuisines of Shanghai are completely different than ones found in Xian, Xinjiang, and Hubei.
[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_China [2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_the_United_States
In my travels talking to people from other countries, America often appears homogenous to them (e.g. all Americans have a gun, when in reality only 30-40% of households do).
What do you think?
Back in the 70s or even the 90s this mixing of people was pretty much unheard of. Shanghai culture was only in Shanghai while the rest of the country was their own little thing. Only recently have the people and culture of the country begun to mix.
The grouping of everyone in China into Han Chinese is a simplification IMO. A person from the Northern regions of China can't even speak to a person from the Southern region while the culture of every part of the country is drastically different and would make the differences between Americans look miniscule.