Date Interrupted: Exploring Wuhan's WW2 Bunkers
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 5 ก.พ. 2025
- Wuhan, China has bunkers? Let's go explores them - and make a new friend's girlfriend embarrassed along the way
In this China travel video we've just arrived in Wuhan. A bit jetlagged but on a nice day, set out to find relics from China's history - World War Two bunkers from the Battle of Wuhan.
Also it proved a good chance to practice speaking Chinese.
2023 China Travel Vlog/China City Tour
#wuhan #bunker #china
Wuhan is a really beautiful city, lovely people too judging by your interaction with the local. Thanks Mark! 🏉🍺🇿🇦👍
Cheers man yeah the people there were super friendly - helped me out a lot
Your Mandarin is really good. Not only the pronunciation, but the way of speaking are exactly the same as the locals. People in East Asian Confucian circles are usually very polite and humble. I guess many Chinese like the nature of New Zealand because of the movie Lord of the Rings. It can be seen that you know a lot about China, thank you for sharing.
Cheers man my Mandarin is always a "work in progress" I think. But yeah on this trip I talked to many many people - and almost all were very friendly and luckily seemed to have a good impression about NZ
My son lives in Wuhan. I haven't been there yet. ( We are Irish) I am a bit like you, I would check out the bunkers too! I enjoyed the tour thanks!
Hopefully you get a chance to go mate! It's a cool city despite now being known more for bloody Covid 😅
What the hell! You speak mandarin?!?! 😮😂👍 I came over from the rugby channel! Good job man!
Haha yeah bro I can get by!
I find it intriguing none of the bunkers had any signage on them 🤔 .
Yeah bro that was bizarre, I assumed there would be a proper explanation and whatnot!
I finally know what a Kiwi-Mandarin accent sounds like
Haha yeah bro this is it
Really nice place to look around 😊
It really is!
"I speak a bit of Mandarin" 😂
Yes 😅😅
@@TwoCentsOnTour more than "a bit" Mark
Still a lot of learning to do man!
Amazing speaking the language, Mark. 👏 Came here from the rugby channel. Really enjoyed this watch.
His accent is like a native Chinese😂
so glad you went ahead with this channel- i was worried we would never see your trip
Yeah man gathering footage and editing it is something a bit new for me, but hopefully it's a bit different 😅
Enjoying these videos! No walkie on the grass!! You have been warned. Nice to see the 'demons' from a clearer perspective! People is people.
Cheers mate yeah no walking on the grass is definitely a thing! But I guess when there's a billion people it makes sense!
Nice one .. great to be able to speak the lingo ... must be a big shock to the locals to meet this huge tall langy Kiwi sprouting Mandarin ... fair pucks to ya boy 😉
Haha yeah mate it does tend to surprise people 😂
Got to say, I was treated to a unique experience not many see very often lol. A Caucasian man walking the streets of a metropolitan Chinese city and being warmly welcomed by the locals there like he's one of their own. ;) You'd certainly give Xiaomanyc a run for his money Mark!
Haha xiaomanyc is on another level bro! But yeah it was fun to get out and make something a bit different. This video I was a bit lost aye, first time doing a vlog like this and still a bit jetlagged 😅
@@TwoCentsOnTour I did notice that haha! Definitely do more of these in future!
@@conorcahill5422 yeah I did them for like a month solid so hopefully I got better the more I did 😅😅
Totally enjoyed this. Thanks for sharing.
Appreciate it bro 👊
Its amazing how open and friendly Chinese people are. Time for me to speed up my 学汉语.
Yeah man people there are generally super friendly and helpful!
Vey impressive you are a fine guide and a mandarin speaker to boot well done. you must take us to nice places in New Zealand
I really enjoyed this. So different from rugby 🏉. Keep it up 😃. When ya coming to Ireland 🇮🇪. Lots to see here
Haha yeah bro one of these days!
Wow, you are so fluent in Chinese! How so? Have you spent yime there, do you have Chinese family, inquiring minds need to know 😊. This tour is so fascinating!
Yeah I spent about 7-8 years there while I was in my 20s!
When do you suppose Two Cents will next go on tour? Since you lived there for a while, it must be nostalgic when you visit.
Not for a while mate! But yeah it's nostalgic, but also quite foreign sometimes because a lot has changed
Just came here from the podcast! Bloody great watch mate.
Cheers man yeah something a bit different aye!
most of the combats happened in the cities around Wuhan...they just moved everything valuable to Chongqing, including the Hanyang Iron Works, the Hanyang Arsenal...
Yeah that's my understanding too bro. Next time I'll have to visit Hanyang because I think there's some kind of museum or memorial to the Hanyang Arsenal (I'm not 100% sure)
Always here to support you mate. Thanks for the vid. Love your content. You have a great mind ✌🏽❤️
Much appreciated bro as always! Dunno about the great mind though 😅
Great video, i would recommend putting this channel in your main channels subscriptions. That is how i thought i would find this channel. More videos like this would be great, have a good one pal
Ah yeah cheers man I just made sure to subscribe! 😅
@Two Cents On Tour my bad, just seen your channel on the subscription list 👍
@Two Cents On Tour but there is certainly a want for authentic/personal videos where we get to learn about both you and history via travelling to cool unrecognisable places
Nah I only did it after you reminded me bro! Thanks for the tip!
so nice to see China from the guy on the street rather than a news crew.
Yeah hopefully it's a different perspective mate!
These are awesome bro, finally got my act together to start watching it after hearing about it on the podcast aaaages ago. Looking forward to watching more of these as they drop 😊
Cheers man yeah definitely something a bit different from the rugby!
Really enjoyed the video man!
Appreciate it bro - this one I was a bit jet lagged so I'm hoping some later ones will be even better
Nice video bro ! I just subscribed. I hope you'll get the chance to upload more on this second channel. By the way your were a bit modest on your mandarin skills. Cheers.
Cheers man! Yeah I've got a bunch of footage, it's just a matter of editing it in my spare time 😅
The bunker was built to fight the Japanese invasion during World War II. This is just one of them. There seem to be 4 or 5 still alive. There are few in the city center and several in the suburbs. The largest one was completely broken in 2010.
Yeah I'm surprised there's not more info written on the sites themselves - there are definitely more that I didn't visit (cos they were more or less the same)
That ending was great, can't wait for ep 2
Cheers man yeah the church visit was pretty interesting - hopefully up in a week or two
Amazing they are still there given how much they dislike old buildings?
Yeah there is definitely a demand for all things shiny and new aye. But it is an interesting one given that there isn't really history given on the site.... they're just kind of there
Very interest vid mate., why do the trees have white bands around them at the base, I think I have an idea😀!
Apparently it protects against sun damage mate! We don't do it here in NZ but it's pretty common in China!
Its lime based paint to protect against fungal damage in tropical countries
Just subscribed to your (other) channel. 2 Cents. With regard to what you said about heritage buildings, I think a lot of historic buildings were destroyed during the Maoist era.
Definitely a lot of significant places were wrecked during the Cultural Revolution aye
Omg no Hat mate 😮
Haha yeah man a bit of a change 😂
Great vid is this gonna be the channel where you post all your vlogs for the 2027 RWC tour of OZ?😅
Haha man that's a wee way away!
Oh man, that’s a trip! I’ve often wondered what your perspective might be on the various covid origin narratives as someone with ties to Wuhan....perhaps a bit controversial eh. 🤭 Amazing to hear you speaking Mandarin 👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾
Yeah man the first thing I think of when I hear "Wuhan" isn't "Covid" - but I think that's cos I lived there for years pre-Covid
What school or university do you recommend to learn Mandarin? I'm at about an HSK 1 level. And I need to practice a heck of a lot more.
@@dannybee6677 yeah man practice is the key. I studied to a basic level here in NZ at university, but it was the daily exposure to Chinese in China that really built on the classroom foundation. If you get a chance to head to a place where you can get immersed in the language, I think that'll help a lot. Good luck!
I came to this video because i have "a lot of time between now and the URC final" 🤣
Haha good man! There is also Super Rugby on!
there is a Zhongshan warship Museum 中山舰博物馆 in Jiangxia District.
I went there on this trip bro! Took me a LONG TIME on the bus, lol. But that video will come at some point
Like your style. Are you going to any rugby games there?
There is an rugby club there bro, although I didn't visit while I was there which was a missed opportunity!
You should take the bike-sharing service to save your time and energy
Yeah bro my first few days back in China I didn't use them.... But in some later videos I definitely get on a bike, way faster 😅
We never got taught about the Sino-Japanese war at school. I guess the "West” has a pretty shameful record with how they treated the Chinese people and they probably wanted to gloss over that.
Instead we were told about how the British, Americans and a handful of Canadians and ANZACs won the war (with no mention of the Soviet effort).
The first time I became aware of the war was when I read J.G Ballard's Empire Of The Sun - the film is great as well.
Yes bro my experience was the same, mostly ANZACs, D-Day etc. Anything about the Soviet Union, China etc was things I read/watched on my own
It’s too bad the Chinese don’t keep more of their old buildings in Wuhan. But of course it’s a different story in Tientsin and Beijing.
Yeah Beijing definitely feels older from what limited time I've spent there
So these bunkers are Chinese defences against the Japanese in 1937?
Yeah man that's it. Although I've also read they may have been used by the Nationalists as checkpoints or some such against the Communists too - China was pretty hectic at that time
Weird seeing you out in the wild without a Jersey, whiteboard or a drunken kiwi with Irish ancestry
Lol definitely something different bro!
it's not a modern dike, 张公堤 was built under 张之洞, which apparently is older than these bunkers
Is that right? I didn't get a photo of it but I recall the sign talked about it being built in the 1950s, but I'll admit I couldn't read it all 😅
@@TwoCentsOnTour
张之洞 was the governor's name if it is a bit confusing 🤣.
Floods and repairings throughout the years since its construction in the 1900s, there was a big flood in 1954, hence (I think) the mentioning. there even is a monument on 江滩 for the flood.
@@keyboqrd205 Yes bro I visited that monument later on this trip! But it was surrounded by kids so I didn't get that close!
What did you eat?
That day I can't actually remember bro. I took a bunch of footage trying different foods though so at some point I'll put them together into a video
This video puts some history based TH-camrs to shame as you’ve visited an actual historical site.
Hey Gezza mate! Yeah it was my first day back in Wuhan and despite having previously lived there for 7 years or so, I'd never seen these things. So yeah I had to rectify that!
Let’s promote rugby in china
Yeah I missed a trick by not going out to see the local rugby side
@@TwoCentsOnTour next time pal 👍
They blocked up all the holes to stop more more of the plague escaping. 😂😂😂😂😂
Its pretty crazy that those bunkers have been around for so long considering the upeaval that the country has been through with the ccp.
Could it be possible that there arnt any placards as they are nationalist GMD installments which wouldnt be celebrated by the ccp due to the civil war post WW2?
Yeah I was kinda surprised as well but it's cool to have a few old relics still around. I went to a few old tomb sites as well and they were equally as neglected as the bunkers - by which I mean they had a sign up but not much more...
我们不会忘记被侵略的历史
I don't know what to think. Do I like China or do I dis-like it..... The jury is still out. I find the way they speak so abruptly to be a little off putting. Its kind of rude. But that might just be a cultural difference, I remember when I first lived in Germany. Everyone seemed to be shouting and rude. But, I now know that that is not what they intended, its just..... the way they speak.
Yeah there are definitely things that I love and hate about China too man - there will be a vid on it at some point
@@TwoCentsOnTour Marc - Quick question, how long did it take you to feel comfortable speaking the language and are you glad that you made the effort. We are considering moving to an African country and one of the things that we need to discuss and decide on, is whether we invest time and energy on learning the local language. I think its vital. What do you think ?
Learning the language was 100% worth the effort - I've been able to talk to so many people over the years because of it. Time wise, it took me a while to get over the mental hump of believing in myself to actually open my mouth - probably over a year really. I wish I had used it more earlier to be honest
@@TwoCentsOnTour Thanks for that. Its what I thought. I've lived in Germany and for whatever reason we didn't see the need to try and learn or speak German. I also lived in Holland and made very little effort to learn the language. when I lived in Belgium I made the effort to try and learn some French and it definitely made a difference. Once you you get over the initial hump (fear of making a fool of yourself) it becomes enjoyable.
Great to see more to Wuhan than that notorious "plague" and the people definitely look friendly despite a meh government.
Yeah man definitely more to it than covid!
You should be wearing your Rebels hat in that weather lol.
It'll definitely make a few appearances!