China’s Internet Search Engine Baidu Publishes “Chinese Prejudice Map”

China’s largest Internet search engine Baidu recently published a “Prejudice Map” based on its big data by categorizing people’s online search patterns. This “Prejudice Map” reflects what Chinese people think of other provinces. According to this map, Beijingers are regarded as “forever worrier”, Taiwanese as “the master of gossip”, people from Sichuan province are “Chinese partners” and people from Shaanxi province as “Roujiamo legislators”.

 

A “World Prejudice Map” once was an Internet sensation and circulated widely, showing people’s impression of different countries, and it suggests that Americans see China as a gigantic supermarket that manufactures and sells everything. Now the Chinese version of prejudice map arrives based on data collected by Baidu, and is created by big data with the aim to reflect Chinese Internet users’ impression of each Chinese province.

 

There are some of those prejudices people hold: Beijingers are regarded as “forever worrier”, because people in Beijing constantly worry about the price of housing, automobile license plate lotteries, air pollution, and bad traffic, which gives them plenty of time to contemplate upon the troubles in life; and they are also keen bystanders of social events and they love to discuss political rumors and conspiracy theories. Taiwanese meanwhile have gained the reputation of being “Masters of gossip” due to popular shows such as show “Kangxi Lai le”, which recently has closed down.

 

According to the prejudice map, people from Shaanxi province are “Roujiamo (a Shaanxi style meat burger) legislators”, because Shaanxi province sets the standards for this popular food nationwide, and nothing but the Shaanxi roujiamo are legit.

 

Sichuanese are known for loving to play Mahjong, but this map gives them the title “Chinese partners”, because a lot of Sichuanese have left Mahjong table and joined startup companies.

Compared to other provinces, Guizhou province is relatively undeveloped and economically struggling，but the Prejudice map calls people from Guizhou “Wolf of Wall Street”. Today, people from Guizhou do not gather together for folk song singing any more, they are using the Internet to find ways to make fortunes. In 2015, they held the world’s first crowd-funding meeting and crowd-funding exchange.

 

Here are the “prejudices” on people form other Chinese provinces listed in this map: people from Gansu province are “representatives of the two conferences”; those from Tibet are “brave eagle from the snowy highland”; people from Xinjiang Province are “warm men and warm women”; people from Shanxi province are “coal business people who change professions”; people from Hubei Province are “Playful city folks”; and people from Fujian province are “the boys who catch the wind”.

 

People from Inner Mongolia meanwhile are “geeks who lasso horses”; people from Ningxia Province are “ the length of the globe”, and those from Jiangxi Province are “stay home TV fans”; people from Hainan province are “sailing kings”; people from Jilin province are “Northeastern spies”; people from Hunan province are “beautiful angels”; people form Macao are “counting money while lying down”; people from Anhui province are “Romance madmen”; people from Hebei province are “exhausted babies”; people from Chongqing city are “Mountain city fortune tellers”; people from Guangdong province are “sad overtime workers”; people from Shanghai are “union of the rich”, and people from Guangxi Province are “natural SM lovers”. More so, people from Liaoning province are “people’s secretary”; Shandong province is “dragon hotel”; people are Heilongjiang Province are “rice saints”; people from Henan province are “Eastern gods”; people from Tianjin are “Iron man”; people from Jiangsu province are “lottery gods” and people from Yunnan province are “masters of mine clearance”; Hong Kongers are “captain milk powder”, and Jiangsu province is “the golden family”.