I am sitting on a long-distance bus, setting out from the home town of China's republican revolutionary leader to the city that is as revolutionary as is humanly possible in today's people's republic. The scenery whizzing by is not what would normally be associated with the Pearl River Delta: bright yellow rice paddies and green palm tree plantations interspersed with quaint old farmhouses and, every now and then, a factory.
Zhongshan , the birthplace of Sun Yat-sen, does not easily hold up in comparison to Shenzhen, as their difference in wealth and size is large. Yet they do make for an interesting contrast in character. Whereas Shenzhen has all the buzz one would expect of a special economic zone bordering China's richest city, a place where experimentation is the raison d'etre, Zhongshan is as laid-back a city as you could find anywhere in the country.
'Laid back' should not be taken to mean poor, however. Zhongshan has, in my opinion, the best five-star hotel in Guangdong province. It has Guzhen - quite literally a 'city of lights' - a township that employs 40,000 people making chandeliers and myriad other lighting products. It has the Morningside Villas, the closest you can get to owning a piece of Venice this side of Italy. And it has the Agile Golf Club, which has many reasons to proclaim itself one of Asia's best.
What Zhongshan has that Shenzhen will likely never have is self-assurance. The name helps, as it is hard to imagine anyone from the central government messing with the revered Sun's home town. Shenzhen, by contrast, is constantly being told either to set a better example for the nation; do more for Hong Kong; stop whining about the erosion of its special status; or clean itself up. Its public image is, unsurprisingly, one of a nervous wreck, as officials constantly worry out loud about declining competitiveness.
Zhongshan just gets on with life. At 8am, the public parks, basketball courts and outdoor ping-pong table areas are full of people enjoying some exercise before they embark on another day of striving to be gloriously rich.
It happens at the top, too. One senior government official I met had been busy for two hours before seeing me, playing table tennis with his former boss.
To be fair, Shenzhen is heading in Zhongshan's direction. The richest and youngest city on the mainland (measured by per capita gross domestic product and average age of residents), Shenzhen's government is spending heavily on improving the environment and quality of life. The Futian district, centred on the new city hall, has wide boulevards and carefully tended gardens beside the roads.
