A list of cities ranked by the “oppressiveness” of the wives in them has been trending on Sina Weibo, China’s Twitter-like platform, garnering wide commentary.
Shanghai wives were deemed most domineering of their husbands by the list, while wives from Chengdu, capital of Sichuan Province, won second place, followed by Wuhan, wives in Hubei Province in third, and Chaozhou, Guangdong Province in fourth respectively.
Netizens noticed how the rankings fell into long-held stereotypes about each region.
In China, Northerners are stereotyped as truthful and simple-minded, while people from central China are stereotyped as cunning and Southerners as violently emotional, according to a study by Berkeley China expert, Wolfram Eberhard, cited by South China Morning Post.
The list’s locations for wives that nag the most are all in either central China or the south, indicating the influence of popular stereotypes.
The report is of dubious origin, briefly mentioned in a 2007 report by Rednet, a state-run Hunan Province-based news site and resurfacing on Weibo in the last few days.
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