Sitting on a park bench

Friday in Shekou a man with his wife and daughter sat near us on a bench. He asked where we were from, and I told him. He was originally from San Jose, but has been in Beijing for a year. They had just spent the holiday week in Hong Kong and Shenzhen. I asked him what Beijing was like for someone not from there. He told me that because it was the nation's capital, it is so rigid there. Uptight was a word he also used.
"Nothing at all like this. This is all so...." he said, waving his hand around.
I am getting the feeling that nothing else in China is like this. I am also glad that another foreigner that has lived in another part of China comes to Shenzhen and specifically Shekou and is similarly at a loss for words on how to describe this.