Over the weekend I watched a TV dating show program, in which two young people said they both had quit their job in Beijing and come all the way to live in Dali, an ancient tourist city in southern China.

They said they were not as ambitious as other youngsters still fighting for their dreams and sticking it out in Beijing. They two had already decided to settle down to stay in Dali, enjoying sweet air and endless mountains.

Their words made me think about the definition of "ambition." Ironically I think they are actually more ambitious. Normally people see youngsters living and working in Beijing or Shanghai as undertaking great pressure and struggling for their dreams. And such descriptions always have a tragic tint because those cities are so competitive.

Ironically, people like me, who have long worked in Beijing, actually think survival is easier here. I travelled to Dali last year, and stayed in a hotel which was an old compound and operated by a young couple who quit their job in big cities and migrated there.

Their life was not as easy as it looked: just sitting idly or cycling around the Erhai Lake. The competition is so intense that they have to keep publicizing the place online, keep arranging little surprises for guests, keep improving every detail and perfecting the artistic, leisurely tone of the compound.

The same also applies to Lijiang, another old city near Dali. There is normally a model of survival for these migrant young people. They come from big cities, so they know exactly what young tourists from there want, and they try to satisfy that demand from their past experience.

Nonetheless, since this model is crazily copied, and everyone keeps coming up with creative ideas to maximize the comfort for guests, their work is endless and calls for great patience and capability. I am not at all confident that I could be so courageous and capable of joining their competition.

The day my friend and I arrived at a hotel in a small alley in Lijiang that we had booked, we instantly fell in love with everything about the place - the wooden furniture, the tea set in the compound and the empty swing that looked so inviting.

It was noon. We decided to drop our luggage there and to go out for lunch first. The young female boss became so anxious. She thought we were not satisfied with the place, and wanted to go out to look for a new place. And she seemed to believe we could easily find an alternative which may attract us more.

We spent quite a few minutes explaining that we were just hungry and we could even pay for the accommodation first. She then happily gave us several coupons that would help us get discounts in nearby restaurants.

There are so many lifestyles in this world. It is not that working in a big metropolis means chasing a successful career, and going to smaller cities means becoming idle. I agree that there are more opportunities in metropolises generally. But for some people, ambition may only be found in smaller cities.

Su Li, a journalist based in Beijing