Native Chinese here.

There were many cultural and regional differences between cities. China is a country compared to the whole Europe in scale. People in different cities even can not talk with each other. The dialects are very different, especially in the south.

Unfortunately, nowadays nearly all cities in China are more and more similar during mass construction in recent 20 years. When travelling in different cities, I often had a moment to forget which city I was in. Same building, same street, same chained stores.