Shanghai and Shanghainess

I came from Shanghai, a place that I escaped from about three years ago. It doesn't sound as horrible as it is, although I used to tried my best to leave it and succeed. It is entitled with glamour: the door of China, the center of economy and everything except for politics, the ever-bright city, and so forth. However, its citizens have been labeled by a popular Chinese writer as a bunch of people who have "no root." Somehow it turns out to be true. People born in this city clutch at its weight built up by steel, concrete, and urbanization, but not soil. To a nation that derived from agriculture, Shanghainess became the sinners of the race who detach themselves from the cultural essence, although too often they claim themselves to be the true possessors of the essence of Chinese cultures. With all the definitions, arguments, stereotypes, and noises, I was convinced that I am not born an urban guy, that brown earth and greens run in my blood instead of the grey concrete. So I strived to apply for the graduate program I like, English, in other countries--ones that have English as their mother language. By leaving Shanghai, I became another insignificant evidence for the unrooted tribe.