Of Anything Cultural

What do you say and what do you live?  You say that you live in the cultural capital of the country.  That is defensibly true and it gives you a sort of rhetorical peace of mind to know that you can say such a thing and it somehow buttresses your identity:  “I am someone who has chosen to live in the cultural capital.”  Why would anyone live anywhere else?

And of course, it doesn’t matter at all.  I can explain the idea beautifully, but this would suggest I actually make use the capital’s cultural offerings; I patronize the arts, I regularly visit the museums and know what’s happening in the local music scene.  I’ve discerned the meaningful metastasization of art from 798 off to where it now breathes in its purest form.  In fact, I live in the burbs and rarely find myself doing much of anything cultural in Beijing.

The young person who asked the question just wanted to know why I lived in Beijing.  He hadn’t asked for a tally of the events I’ve supported.  He was curious as to why I lived here and not somewhere else.   “Yes, I’ve also lived in Shanghai and I have lived in Hong Kong as well.”  And I already know what he is driving at.  He wants confirmation that Shanghai is the cooler city, by the inflexion and the yearning in his questioning when he describes that city. 

I shut this idea down unequivocally and as expected he is curious to consider suddenly that the early perception he had may not have been correct.  But we haven’t time and my purpose is simply to share a bit of something it took me four years to learn, and first considered fully across the street from this lobby, in a cafeteria at the Motorola building back in 1998.  If you’re Chinese from anywhere in the realm, this is your capital.  The city is imbued with a unique sense of collective ownership among Chinese people.  And what does that matter to me?