Editor: Mi Liping
来 源:正和岛(ID:zhenghedao)
Have you noticed a very abnormal phenomenon? Perverse, really perverse.
It stands to reason that Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Shanghai have more developed economies, and the people are richer, so they should be more willing to come out to eat, drink and have fun at night.
But the reality is that Chongqing is still queuing up to eat hot pot at 2 o'clock in the morning, Changsha Jiefang Road is still stuck in traffic at 3 o'clock in the morning, and the streets in Jiangsu and Zhejiang are empty at 8 o'clock in the evening.
When night falls, Jiangsu and Zhejiang seem to have entered a state of silence. The streets don't have the hustle and bustle you'd normally find in a cosmopolitan city, and most shops, restaurants and entertainment venues close early in the evening.
Some netizens from other provinces came to Suzhou to travel and found that before 7 o'clock in the evening, the shops on the street were closed, and people should go home, so they couldn't help but be surprised, "Do you Jiangsu people have curfews?" ”
As a result, a bunch of Jiangsu people exploded in the comment area, whether it was Su Xichang or Nanjing, Yangzhou, Xuzhou, Nantong, or even Hangzhou, Ningbo, Shaoxing, Wenzhou, and Huzhou in the next province, the bulk "Su Daqiang" rarely united, and agreed that not only Jiangsu, but also the Yangtze River Delta, including Jiangsu and Zhejiang, has no nightlife.
Some people lament that the people of Jiangsu and Zhejiang are so rich, but the nightlife is so small that people are worried.
It stands to reason that the more developed the economy, the richer the nightlife, but in Jiangsu and Zhejiang, why is there no nightlife?
1. The night in Jiangsu and Zhejiang is empty
It is not only Suzhou that is complained about "no nightlife", it can be said that this is generally the case in Jiangsu and Zhejiang cities.
"Jiangsu is a province that goes to bed early and gets up early" once rushed to the hot search. Some people from Henan said that when they went to Jiangsu to study at university, they went to dinner with their roommates for the first time, "I ate until nine o'clock, was locked up in the mall, and went out through the staff channel."
It is said that "there is only one place in Jiangsu Province that has nightlife, and that is the high school in Jiangsu" - "If it weren't for picking up high school students from school, who would still run out at ten o'clock at night?" ”
Some netizens said that they had talked about a boyfriend in Jiangsu, and they were used to going to bed at ten o'clock, which made netizens think that "she was not the only one who talked about it".
Some netizens climbed the Purple Mountain Observation Deck at night with great interest, wanting to enjoy the night view of Nanjing, but found that everywhere they could see was black lights and blind fires.
Zhejiang's painting style is similar. Someone said: "Jiaxing is like this, I haven't arrived home at eight o'clock in the evening, let alone my parents, I'm in a hurry." ”
Even Hangzhou has been ridiculed as "the only new first-tier city without nightlife", and if there is nightlife, it is to blow the evening breeze for free by the West Lake.
The Wulin Night Market is the hottest in downtown Hangzhou, with more than 240 stalls, but according to Ye Lianzhong, secretary of the Wulin Night Market's party branch, 45% of the visitors are tourists – in other words, locals are not interested in nightlife.
From the city's point of view, it's not that they don't work hard.
A few years ago, Suzhou shouted a slogan, called "Gusu at half past eight", and also started a night market activity, but "it did not start at half past eight, but ended at half past eight".
In order to stimulate the "night economy", Ningbo has announced that the subway will be free after 8 o'clock in the evening, which is the most powerful in the current city. But who would have thought that even on Valentine's Day, the Ningbo subway after eight o'clock was still empty.
"Ningbo Daily" also made a special follow-up report on this, and they found that although the subway is free, most of the night markets in Ningbo close as usual at 9 or 10 o'clock in the evening, and everyone can't find a place to spend money even if they want to.
As early as 2020, the Ministry of Commerce made a statistic that 60% of the country's residents' consumption occurs at night, but only 40% in Hangzhou.
Some time ago, at the inaugural meeting of the China Urban Night Economy Development Alliance, the top ten cities in the country with "night economy" influence were announced: Chongqing, Changsha, Qingdao, Chengdu, Shanghai, Beijing, Wuhan, Shenzhen, Guangzhou and Tianjin.
None of the cities in Jiangsu and Zhejiang were on the list.
2. Who stole the nightlife in Jiangsu and Zhejiang?
Why is there no nightlife in Jiangsu and Zhejiang?
Many netizens in Jiangsu and Zhejiang said: My mother won't let me.
Some netizens ridiculed, "Gusu Lan's family has strict family rules and a very regular work and rest time."
Not wasting every night is the family education inherited by Jiangsu and Zhejiang people since ancient times, and people are more inclined to use the night to invest in themselves.
For Jiangsu people, there are only two kinds of people who don't go home and wander the streets at night, either immodest street slickers (derogatory) or tourists.
Some people in Zhejiang say that in the concept of local parents, "not being at home before dark = fooling around = life is over". This is not just a self-disciplined way of life, but also a value: if the evening time is used for unproductive activities such as consumption, it is doomed to failure.
If you don't go home at 9 o'clock in the evening, you will be scolded by your mother, and if you don't go home at 10 o'clock in the evening, your parents may have to call the police, because they suspect that you have been abducted by human traffickers.
Although there is no nightlife in Jiangsu and Zhejiang, the people of Jiangsu and Zhejiang also attach importance to the night, and the difference is that they think that the night is the time to realize the counterattack of life.
As a Jiangsu and Zhejiang netizen on Zhihu said, the pragmatism business thinking that prevails in Jiangsu and Zhejiang is: with my life as a measure, everything I do is earned, valuable, and rewarding.
Adhering to this kind of thinking, the people of Jiangsu and Zhejiang oppose hedonism, restrain desires, work hard, study hard, and work hard to earn money.
From this point of view, the people of Jiangsu and Zhejiang are not very enthusiastic about the so-called "nightlife", which is also the embodiment of their values. Rather than eating kebabs and drinking beer at the night market, they prefer to spend their time on things that improve themselves.
Similarly, at 10 p.m., the teaching buildings of many high schools in Jiangsu and Zhejiang are still brightly lit. Even, the most popular products in the Nantong Night Market are not grilled squid and stinky tofu, but the college entrance examination papers, which may not be available if you go late, because they have been swept away by the parents of the chicken baby.
Why do people in Jiangsu and Zhejiang love to learn so much? The pressure of involution in education is an important reason.
An institution once made a scoring statistics on the difficulty of being admitted to 985 universities in various provinces across the country, and found that Jiangsu's 985 acceptance rate score was only 55 points, while Zhejiang's score was not low, but Zhejiang's paper was very difficult, and its prestige was also far away throughout the country.
Some netizens summarized the typical family atmosphere in Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Shanghai like this: education is the core of the whole family, you can not eat food, you can not buy clothes, but children's make-up classes cannot be stopped.
This has also made countless high-end talents emerge in Jiangsu and Zhejiang.
There is a ranking chart of China's top scientists circulating on the Internet, among them, Zhejiang has the most scientists, including Qian Xuesen, the "father of China's aerospace" and "the father of China's missiles", Qian Sanqiang, the "father of China's atomic bomb", Qian Yongjian, the winner of the 2008 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, Tu Youyou, a Nobel medical scientist, one of the greatest geometricians of the 20th century, and Chen Shiingshen, who is known as the "father of global differential geometry".
The top scientists emerging in Jiangsu are not inferior, including Nobel Prize winner Tsung-Dao Lee, and Wang Xuan, founder of computer Chinese laser phototypesetting technology, including 17 others.
Even in a city of Ningbo, there are more than 80 academicians who have emerged in a hundred years, how "terrifying" is this? The average of 900,000 people in the country can produce an academician, but in Ningbo, every 70,000 people can produce an academician, and the proportion of academicians is the highest in the country.
With this family style, it is no wonder that Jiangsu and Zhejiang have produced talents since ancient times.
Of course, in addition to the pressure of education, the lack of nightlife in Jiangsu and Zhejiang is also related to many reasons, such as geographical location.
Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Shanghai are close to the east, dawn and dark are early, and Chengdu is at least an hour short of dark, and some places begin to slowly get dark at four o'clock in winter.
In addition, the county economy is developed and the population density of the urban area is low, which is also an important reason.
Taking Suzhou as an example, although Suzhou's GDP in the first quarter of 2024 surpassed that of new first-tier cities such as Chengdu and Hangzhou, it ranked behind these cities on the list of China's Top 100 Cities in 2024.
This is because the counties below Suzhou are very developed, with independent economies and living circles, and people hardly need to go to the city.
Suzhou's county-level economic development has led to the diversion of population density in Suzhou's urban area, making its economy unable to compare with developed provincial capitals such as Changsha, Chengdu and Chongqing.
Not only Suzhou, but also counties in Jiangsu and Zhejiang have developed in an orderly manner, and the small industries in each county have achieved great success in the country and even the world.
The bulk "Su Daqiang", although scattered, is also really strong.
For example, for every two ties sold in the world, one comes from Shengzhou, Zhejiang; 80% of the world's buttons come from Yongjia County, which is under Wenzhou; One-third of the world's socks come from Datang Town, which is below Zhuji, Zhejiang; 50% of the world's fascia guns come from Yongkang......
Economic principles suggest that increasing urban density reduces the cost of producing and consuming services, in other words, population dispersion inhibits services.
In Jiangsu and Zhejiang, where common prosperity has done so well, the gap between urban and rural areas is small, and it is natural that nightlife is not very prosperous.
Moreover, the leading industry in Jiangsu and Zhejiang is manufacturing, and the pace of life in the city places more emphasis on work and production than on entertainment and consumption. This characteristic of industrial society led the inhabitants to focus more on hard work rather than looking for entertainment at night.
In addition, the development of Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Shanghai is also inseparable from urban planning. These areas pay more attention to practicality in urban planning, and tend to reduce the damage to the urban landscape while maintaining economic development and the quality of life of residents.
In contrast, other cities may focus more on the development of the entertainment industry, such as night markets, bar streets, etc., which may have a certain degree of negative impact on the urban landscape and environment.
To sum up, the reason why there is no nightlife in Jiangsu and Zhejiang is related to its cultural heritage, geographical location, economic development, urban planning and other factors. Despite the lack of nightlife, Jiangsu and Zhejiang still have their own unique style and cultural characteristics.
3. "Nightlife" is not just about eating, drinking, and having fun
There have been doubts about the lack of nightlife in the Jiangsu and Zhejiang regions. Why doesn't an economically developed, affluent area have a thriving nightlife?
However, the unique way of life and development model of Jiangsu and Zhejiang undoubtedly provides an interesting object for the whole country to think about and learn.
Not every city has to eat barbecue and drink a little wine late at night to be praised as "will enjoy".
With less wine at night and more porridge in the morning, Jiangsu and Zhejiang are full of vitality in the morning. For people in Jiangsu and Zhejiang, going out early and returning late and working hard to make money is also a kind of "nightlife".
One of my favorite comments from a netizen: "Don't say that there is no nightlife in Jiangsu, they just study and work hard in places that others can't see." ”
The activity of "nightlife" is essentially an important driver of the shift in the focus of cities in post-industrial society from "production" to "consumption". In recent years, all parts of the country have been using their brains to develop the "night economy".
When we talk about "nightlife" these days, it seems that we tend to see only its economic function, but that is neither the whole story nor necessarily the point.
Before Hong Kong announced the opening of night markets and launched many conferences and exhibitions to promote economic recovery, a netizen commented sharply:
"When did Hong Kong become so humble? Can the night market save the market? Hong Kong is a financial center, relying on investment and financing, a large amount of capital inflow and outflow, internationalization, liberalization, and rule of law can ensure the safety of capital circulation. What to sell? Fish balls, cheong fun? ”
Although the words are harsh, they tell the truth: the night market is not just a lifesaver for the market, the reason why people want nightlife is not necessarily to help economic recovery, after all, you can't live overnight for the sake of overnight life, if you take stimulating consumption as the goal, then put the cart before the horse.
We can't expect night markets to save the economy. More than nightlife, it is life itself that is worth paying attention to.
To put it more bluntly, it is difficult to affect the economic trajectory of a city by relying on a night market alone, and the taste of life is not only experienced at night.
Not radical but not conservative, not tossing but not lying flat, do things steadily, make money diligently, accumulate energy in every quiet night, and then wait for long-term positive feedback. Come to think of it, this is the different "nightlife" of Jiangsu and Zhejiang.
Jiangsu and Zhejiang are worthy of our deep thought.
References:[1]. Summer insects: Jiangsu and Zhejiang, not equipped with nightlife, Zhigu trend[2]. Wei Zhou: Why is there no nightlife in the economically developed cities of Jiangsu and Zhejiang? CEIBS Business Review
Typography | Edited by Shen Wangwang | Zhengfeng Rotating Editor-in-Chief | Xia Kun