We Discovered the Real Reason China is so Ugly
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 26 ส.ค. 2024
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From North to South, Chinese cities largely look the same. But why? We find out.
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Mohe, Heilongjiang, China
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Living in China for so long, we would like to share some of the comparisons that we have found between China and the west, and shed some light on the situation.
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Your title is not very constructive. 👎
It's generalizing, aggressive, and the only response it will get from Chinese is.. anger & resentment towards you.
Why not word it instead : "10 things China can improve, to make its coutryside more harmonious" ?
love advchina super looking forward to ADVamerica!! just saying I think it's a winner
Could you please bring your documentaries to other platforms other than Vimeo? For some reason need a credit card to pay there and cannot use my Paypal. Very annoying.
@@pepsi-mcrib stop using PayPal. The rest of us have already closed our PayPal accounts. They're trying to fine people 2500 for their speech based on some internal teams decision on what's appropriate. Literal corporate fascism. Revolut and a number of other digital banks will issue you a digital card you can use for services like these
Hi guys. Just curious. Why did you move to the east coast? If there's a video about this, could anyone direct me to it?
There is a classic Soviet movie based on just that - a guy who flies from Moscow to at Petersburg after getting drunk on new years eve (or the opposite,don't remember) and ends up in a commie block just like the one he lives in, same street name, same flat number , same building ,his keys even opened the same flat number only that it wasn't his flat. It was a residence of a pretty young lady and they end up married
What's the name of the movie?
Got to be the other way around, Moscow is well known for having such crappy infrastructure outside the own town compare to the ginormous Monarchy commissioned St. Petersburg... which is truly a peace of art of a city.
@@dutchdigger1996 the irony of fate
@@dutchdigger1996 it's irony of fate
@@dutchdigger1996, Ирония судьбы, или С лёгким паром! (1975)
The grey buildings match up nicely with the grey air.
Boys, I have to admit; I really miss the old ADV bike ride chats. It was a brilliant way to end my working week. I'd grab a cup of tea, get my couch comfy and wile away a Sat arvo listening to you zoom through China. Matt's hair was the highlight of it all. He rocked that style big time.
Sigh. An era is over. Well and truly.
I loved their videos and comments on contemporary China as well - east, west, north and south the twosome on the bikes covered the entire country. No longer is China "mysterious" to me.
And it's coming seven years since their first ADVChina video!
True 🥲
coulda started this with a 'thanks for this video'. That said..." lol. "Boys"? Ok...
It is hilarious to see how their attitude has changed...
"Soulless". The most accurate description of everything Chinese.
I lived in Shanghai for eight years, returning to the states in July 2021. When I first moved there the three story apartments were still all over. First floor shared kitchen, then living space on the second and third stories. When I was looking for my second apartment I came across several which had redone the third story in a western style apartment. They had a lot of charm and character. But most were being demolished in favor of new high rises.
I spent time in Dalian and I rarely saw 3 story building in the two parts I would spend time in - the early economic zone in the suburbs and the central and near central parts of Dalian. The shortest I would see would be 5 story buildings loaded with apartments but most seem les to live in 10-30 story tall buildings 40km from city center of Dalian!
Access to Xinjiang and Tibet is restricted because there is a genocide going on there.
As someone that has traveled much of the US, the suburbs do tend to look alike across the country but the cities vary tremendously. The differences between SF, LA, Las Vegas, Austin, Chicago, Detroit, New Orleans, Miami, Philadelphia, NYC, Boston is tremendous. Chinas big cities all look the same architecture except with various levels of rich high rise central area but that’s it.
Yeah I remember the first time I visited a major city outside of the Northeast...my home city is Philly where the streets are narrow, row homes are common and it's a very gritty feeling...then I visited friends in Charlotte and was shocked at how different it was..no row homes, wide streets and it felt like robots ventured out every night and cleaned the streets lol..I really though all cities looked like NE US cities!
but many/most people live in those mind numbing suburbs. oh! i’ve driven 150 miles. and look…Walmart! Home Depot! Beige Stucco Estates! 1950s brutalist Jock Torture High School!
George Carlin had it right. China can be dinged for ugliness, but the National Automobile Slum with universal architecture. i guess there are differences, but not as much as you think.
Actually the downtown buildings in Chicago Loop area and Manhatten NYC look the same b/c after the great Chicago fire in about 1871, Chicago was rebuilt using NYC architects and built a lot of the same looking steel high rise buildings in the Chicago Loop as there are in Manhatten NYC.
@@brianmiller5444 but you don't really disagree with his point. Yeah suburbia is drab and boring, and that's a very legit criticism, but at least our major cities have distinct personalities and show the diversity of our country. That Chinese socialists architecture is depressing, and honestly probably worse than our cookie cutter suburbs.
@@HookedonChronics my only disagreement is American suburbs ARE our “cities”. they are what we build. It’s where we live. McDonalds, QuickELube, Walmart with 500 car parking lots. giant pole signs. billboards. the differing cities are as much a legacy of the past as traditional Chinese architecture. we don’t build those anymore.
I once took a 20 hour train ride from ZhuZhou over Wuhan to Shanghai with my back then girlfriend. That was in 2005, before the high speed rail boom. I remember staring out of the window and wondering because we drove past villages and they all would have their own window color. In one village all the windows were green, in the next they all were yellow, then blue and even red. I wondered ever since why that is and what living in a house with such windows is like.
The village leader got a kickback from the glass manufacturer. The local glass supplier was a privatised state-owned company stolen by a Party aristocrat after Reform & Opening Up. Ain't authoritarian collectivism fun?
Today xing has destroyed any freedom in fact it was all a lie anyway. China is one big lie
@@journalm Haha haha, sounds like the democrats/republicans/communists in DC and it is disgusting. 🇺🇸 1776
@@realestateunplugged6129 okayyyyy. Now take your meds kid, you're making everyone uncomfortable.
@@B.D.E. What do you despise about our U.S. Constitutional Republic? Free speech? Highly restricted limited servant government of the People? Defensive only military? Private property? Free market? Free religion? Free thought? Free intellect? The year of the Republic's birthday??
I think the only architectural difference in some Chinese cities are the buildings from the colonial-era.
For example Macau, which was a Portuguese colony and has Portuguese buildings or Qingdao, which was a German colony and has German buildings.
There are some buildings in China that are over 200 years old. Mostly countryside homes.
in both cities look like heritage buildings here in N.A. They are not built by settlers in 1800's but by original inhabitants.
Qingdao is a great city... except for the unfinished flyover, built for the Olympics but never finished. It just sits there, an ugly concrete monstrosity, abandoned.
In Germany you can go to a City on the North Sea Coast and and a City in the South...and you wouldnt think they are part of the same Country. In Italy it is even more extreme Citys in the North and the South look like they are not even on the same Planet.
thats not true, maybe the city centers look different, but thats all, if you visit city parts that were build after ww2 you may be surprised that they look the same, every bigger town has a part with some plattenbauten, even in the west, the only difference is probably the colour, Also every town has a part with newly built einfamilienhäuser, that look mainly the same, because the only differences are the shape and maybe the colour.
@@Psychonau I'd say it's accurate. There are vast differences. Of course it's still in the same country and countries in europe are pretty small, but yeah, it's so different. Compare a small house in a bavarian village with a house up at the north sea, or how city flats in Frankfurt look compared to Leipzig or Berlin. Really different. Similar in Italy, France, Switzerland, Netherlands etc. I really can't think of a country in europe where you wouldn't immediately notice in which part you are.
@@GoGoGoRunRunRun I don't agree. Everything build after a certain point, for example 1990 looks the same everywhere in Germany. The local characteristics that make cities and regions unique all come from the historical buildings from before the unification in 1871. Everything build during the Kaiserreich looks the same everywhere for instance, so far that you easily recognize the buildings build in that time in Straßburg when is what German instead of French for 50 years. The only real difference is East vs West from 1945 to 1990. Ugly Commie style blocks and stalinist representative buildings vs ugly capitalist housing blocks and "rebuild" historic buildings. That's something you will very quickly learn to distinguish. Build after 1990? No chance to say where you are.
The only difference is in the rural and/or historical houses. We also have the same problem with the signs like mentioned in the video. It's not that each sign looks the same, it's that the same chains of stores are everywhere and just by randomly beeing put in a city center you never could tell where you are because the same nationwide/international stores will be there. You may see a small difference if you see a restaurant. As long as it isn't a greek/italian/chinese/... one because they also look the same everywhere.
When I came back from China, people would ask me what it was like. My answer: grey. Mao wiped away their identity and now they are lost, soulless. There are some stunning places: Dali, Xian, Guilin... the towns of minorities (I saw the Dong town in the video) and those places are utterly charming, but as you say, most is just faceless grey concrete.
The same style of building you see all over Iran too. All the same concrete skeletal shell filled up, it's everywhere. In fact, in that footage where you guys drove down the streets, change the streetsigns to Farsi and the people to Iranian, and the footage could have been taken on the streets of a random Iranian city or town. It's how I remember cities like Shiraz and Tehran.
Agree lived in China and been to Iran, similar feels very low quality architecture, no soul, just concrete and in dusty areas its so gritty.
But why did this happen in Iran?
Any guesses?
@@andy4an similar type of corrupt politics. Rule of law is not followed.
@@andy4an Probably because it's cheaper and faster than building more elaborate styles of buildings.
@@andy4an I am not sure. I'd have to visit more countries in that region to say if it is a regional thing, due to exploding populations, or because Iran is so dependent on China due to Western sanctions that Chinese construction methods have now taken root there as well.
I'd really like to see you two play GeoGuessr China, how well can you find your location without accents to identify?
Geoguessr isn't available in China I don't think because Google was banned from mapping China. There are a few user uploaded 3D photos on Google maps tho.
@@artyjnrii Well hopefully there's a wide enough variety in location of user photos
@@artyjnrii Someone created a map in geoguessr using Baidu Maps, so it is possible
I talked to many Chinese people when I visited China in 1997 and I asked them about all those old buildings I saw being torn down and replaced by monotonous blocks, and they invariably reacted the same: it was all old, worthless junk to them.
They are disconnected from their past, these are a new people with new culture.
@@danf7411 They want Western culture
It's sad how the Chinese have such little regard for their history. Mao's brainwashing really worked.
In the early to mid-2000's I was in an SE start-up tasked with setting up data acquisition and sales verticals. I contacted and was eventually contacted by entities interested in helping establish frameworks and data drill down targets.
Lemme tell ya, these entities were interested in some of the most subtle and convoluted data aggregations one can imagine. The interests ranged from habits to biases to emotional hot and cold buttons.
Psychologists were a solid inquiry avenue...uh, the depth of invasive microscopes on individual's interior goings on. Freaked me out...
That's actually really creepy.
Things like these were already done in the West before the 1960s. What you did was just practical application.
@@seriouscat2231 Right, and I know for a fact that the US gov at that time was hiring big brains at BIG salaries, with exceptional access to all major sources of information aggregation...in the world, complete with plane tickets. I went on a big 'prove it to myself' quest because it just seemed too bizarre and snoopy for the gov to be doing that...but, they were and obviously continue.
There was a case recently where a kidnapped child that has grown up was reunited with his parents by the authorities based on his recollection of his hometown; wonder how that could happen with every place being the same. I got the impression that the whole report was a sincere grassroot effort and not propaganda.
Oh, the blue glass! A sure sign of east asian real estate investors. I drove up to new Vancouver a few years ago.(from old Vancouver on the Columbia river) The first thing I noticed was how much it looks like a generic modern southern-oriental city; just a sea of fairly utilitarian high rises all with the same pale blue glass. Most of the character that the city had when I was there in the 80s had been wiped out.
I’ve been watching you guys for years and your back and forth is impeccable. It makes the videos a pleasure to watch 👌🏼
@@dumitru-claudiusergentu6720 Get out of NY into small town US and you will see different styles.
Woke up on my birthday to a new episode of ADV China... It doesn't get better than that. 😁
Yeah, I used to have idyllic visions of China growing up that I got mostly from watching dozens of Kung Fu movies. 🤣 I always wanted to travel to China and train at Shaolin temple and see the beautiful countryside, etc., so it was a bit heartbreaking to eventually learn the truth.
Happy birthday! Sorry that the truth isn't what you want it to be. Truth sucks sometimes. 😔
Don't feel bad, you can still travel to Taiwan!
Dude, while I was watching the chaos in Foxconn factories, I tried to look back. All of my dislikes of China actually came from disappointments. You see, I used to watch those old series in the morning with Chinese subtitles (I've always wondered if they actually understand their own language that they still had to put subtitles on it). Lots of things that I like about China was actually from Hong Kong and possibly Taiwan.
Happy Birthday!
@@Foxys1974 Thanks!
C-Milk you’re into botany and nature? Would be cool if someday you did a video going over the different ecologies and geographies of China, especially types of trees and woods from different regions, or different herbs and animals, historically to present day. I know you guys always say there’s no nature or wild animals in China so most of us just imagine a post-apocalyptic wasteland, but maybe there’s remnants of the historical past you can educate us on
As a plant nerd, I'm on board with a Chinese plant video.
Absolutely would love this. Or, you could have Crime Pays But Botany Doesn't come on as a guest. He's been quite a few places, but I'm not sure if he's been to China.
Great idea !!!
@@erinmac4750 I love him, surprisingly hot too
Too busy routing thru the lawn grass looking for evergreen seedling sprouts..
You might be interested in checking out how Chinese built apartment buildings in Tbilisi, Georgia a few years ago and now they're already falling apart.
Made in China stuff hardly lasts.
The same applies to today's Britain by and large. I live in a town in Surrey that is rapidly becoming yet another what I call 'anywheresville' with huge over-dense characterless blocks of flats (with no private parking provision) creating soul-less canyonised streets. It is being repeated in other towns up and down the country - hence my description of 'anywheresville'. The only difference to the China you are describing is that at least these monstrosities don't have bare concrete!
I guess they haven't been paying attention to all the mistakes we've made in design and planning here in the US.
because the building contracts where all done by a few companies who were the councils or PM friends, now we have all this copy and paste council flat blocks or suburbs with just one house design
We have to house our unnaturally growing population some how...
Sounds like hull
Travel there. Uniformity in China is far greater.
This would make a great podcast episode on 99 Percent Invisible. They love talking about architectural design and how the mind of the people shape it.
I recall in my trip around China, when visiting Xi'an in October, it was quite beautiful, but the guide stated sadly that in a few days the central coal heating plants would be turned on and everything would be dreadful and sooty. Many cities were not pretty, and Beijing stank...
keep up the documentation u guys r real heros
The map artist is brilliant! My favorite bit is subway station in the middle of a field.
Mine is 'Copy of a famous building'. How very Chinese!
You two guys are so awesome, such respect for you both. You do a great service informing people like myself who have never been to China and even if I think I know something about it, it pales in comparison to what you know and understand from first hand experience i trust. Thanks!
You guys are such a cute couple. Thank goodness you both got kicked out of China so you can continue your bromance.
“Northsouthy”? 😂
that was the video file title, I think TH-cam glitched out and showed that instead lol
Sorthweast 👍
@@ADVChina lol I was wondering abut that.
I worked in Hangzhou. Buildings were constantly getting torn down and high rises built, but West Lake is absolutely beautiful.
Vancouver is gradually being bulldozed and all the character homes are disappearing and being replaced with bland concrete and glass buildings with zillions of concrete platforms that supposedly are patios that no one uses because for most of the year Vancouver's weather is too awful, but it permits a mark-up of 10% or so on the price of the condo unit, depending on how high up the structure it is. The world is all becoming the same... build as cheaply as possible and sell for as much as possible so that all you end up with are cookie-cutter, bland-looking structures, which is why so many cities in Canada have become literally unaffordable and impossible to live in with a regular salary.
Speaking of Data brokers, here is a tale of how Instagram is listening to you when the app is closed. My wife is Turkish, and one day we happened to be talking about the old style Turkish toilets that are basically a ceramic pan in the floor you squat over and do your thing. One day later, I open Instagram and what ad appears before me? But one for a Turkish Toilet (the old style). Now that is about non-coincidental as you can get. Instagram and other apps are listening to you when they are closed. Unreal.
Exactly ..cheap housing!!!xxx
It is staggering how many ancient pyramids are covered up in China. Great video gents!
I was researching overseas Chinese remittance flows back to the greater Canton area, mostly late-19th C and there are a couple reasons beyond grandeur or vanity to build diaolou. The first is that the area was pretty lawless, outside the main city and town gates, so a 3-4 story building was more easily defended. The second is that it's basically a swamp, and gastric illness, malaria etc were considered to come from vapors, or the noxious effluvium of the swampy areas. The third is that the higher you go, in a hot and humid climate, the more breeze you get, which makes life a bit more bearable, and if you have to stay in the main residence rather than go up to the hills. The rest of the piece, on exposed concrete, toilet tiles, and blue glass is just aesthetic barbarism. Paint is functionally useless on any structure south of about Wuhan - it's bad paint badly applied, usually, but it looks like crap after about 5 years.
I do envy your travels in China...
It's your language skills that made it possible ...
Sounds like Los Angeles. If someone plopped me down in Los Angeles, I would have no idea where in the city I was. Every part of LA looks exactly the same.
Your take on Chinese architecture is true. It is mostly all concrete 'blah'. I found a few exceptions. Buildings not yet obliterated in Lhasa are different. Then there were classic Western style enclaves like the German sector of Qingdao, because of the Tsingtao beer interests.
One of the most bizarre architectural anomalies I saw is on the island of Gulang Yu. The piano island where even bicycles are banned. Look it up.
I also witnessed the destruction of a classic village with rambling curving narrow streets, with a concrete grid containing soulless concrete homes with tiles on the front. 300 year old homes with curled roof tiles, original village gates, with overhead monks rooms - all being demolished asap.
About time!!! miss the the content on wheels :D
Those power poles are totally maxed out on wire capacity
Judging by the background video, China also has a lot of Dingbat-style buildings, just like in Latin America and other 3rd-world countries, where most of the rural buildings are made of brick, glass, and plaster. DiaoLou is the "European-style" design that doesn't really shout "European". It's what you would find in countries south of China, like Vietnam, Malaysia, or Indonesia, countries with architecture from their colonial days. But in China, it's like you can't tell where you're at anymore because the architectural environment is all the same. It's like you go to the Midwestern US, and you can't differentiate whether you're in Kansas or South Dakota because the towns and rural landscapes are all too similar.
That would be a horrible existence... I never want to go there! Thanks for your great videos. ;)
Just what I was needing today
I think the blue glass was a response to laser induced sound gathering listening espionage
I n t e r e s t i n g.
That's interesting!
You guys were in China when we went through the boring 1990s. I could go to a shopping plaza in any city in the US. The wife wanted a sandwich shop. I said look two shops to the right of the anchor grocery store. I was right. Then she said, Ice Cream. That would be two doors to the left of the grocery. Correct again.
We would travel hundreds of miles in a day and the city would have the same apartment buildings as the city we were in yesterday.
We quit the RV lifestyle because we realized how boring and uniform the country was. Even state RV camps had the same showers and campground layout. Bare concrete? Do a search of "st vincent hospital" Pick a city, or not. They all are bare concrete.
I want to comment but I think it best to keep silent and say yes, USA is Hao San, Hao Sui, Hao Ji Mo (Good mountain, good water, but very boring) and throw in some shootings to make things dangerous and interesting!
China 🇨🇳 #1, make China great again!
Yeah the US is a relatively new country. They seem to suffer from that cookie cutter effect that comes with rapid development within a short historical period, alongside a culture that doesn't particularly value beauty in design.
Appalachia seems to be the best place for architecture in the US. A lot of different styles from different time periods, built by people who arrived from different parts of the world. Not to mention the stunning natural beauty of the region. I really need to visit it some day.
You quit RV lifestyle because the buildings are boring?? Tf? The point of RV life is to see the countryside ffs 👊
@@RogueReplicant How many times do you want to go to the same overcrowded national parks.
I read that Chinese fond are A LOT more expensive to create, the the file sizes are much bigger, because of so many unique characters. This would explain why so many sign look so similar, there are just way less fonts available.
Happy Saturday Patriots
One can't tell one fast food row from any other fast food row in any place in US either: they all look the same anywhere.
Interesting topic!
I can totally agree. I lived and traveled china in 2004/05 and 2007/08 -- all looks the same except some landmarks. I was lucky to be in Tianjin and Harbin and see some special architecture mostly old and foreign.
Thank you for your interesting content. I learned a lot.
Finally got to view this episode. Very interesting, and informative. I guess lack of competition turns into lack of imagination and variety.
Keep up the good work guys!
If you freeze frame at 0:00 Winston looks mega blazed and Matt is trolling The Game
Interesting discussion guys. Socialism and communism are all about suppressing differences or novelty. The reason is that everyone and everything are required to be materially equal. This extreme version of equality results in drabness and apathy.
In North America, it's parks and municipal facilities, and road stops. All built the same, and all very standardized park benches, parking lots, washrooms, etc that are the identical.
Yeah the image of China in my head and from what I had seen on TV was so different then when I was actually there for 3 weeks. I was going like where are the rice fields? The beautiful nature? the traditional houses etc? Yeah I saw some of it in Bejing, Shanghai and such but not much. Then we went to Pingyao and stayed there in the old city center for 2 days and I was like this is how I pictured it cute house, little shops etc. Along with the boat trip on the Li river where we went to visit an old village and finally saw the rice fields.
Ty guys for this informative vid..
I've spent a lot of time in China. Your videos are very helpful for me to understand both what I saw and why it's like that. Great work.
Some nice nature footage in this one. Also, I noticed some interesting architecture in Vietnam, concrete buildings. I wonder if there is some relation to this Kaiping place
I lived in China for 4 years and the thing that disappointed me most was how similar every city was. Shanghai was an exception, but I visited Xi'an, Nanjing, and Zhengzhou and asked myself if they were worth the lengthy train rides and flights when most of the landscape was tall, recently build apartment blocks, super wide streets with tons of traffic, and shopping malls that had no distinguishing characteristics.
I'm from vietnam, and if you replace all the Chinese sign into Vietnamese one, you wouldn't be able to tell if the footage is from vietnam or China
I think most of the inspiration may have come from Romania. They were good comrades during the Ceausescu era - brothers in bleakness.
Most countries are like that, if you've seen Dallas you've seen Los Angeles, Portland, or almost any American city.
Lingering effects of communism. We have the same in Hungary. The saddest part it that the communism was overthrown more than 30 years ago in Hungary :'D
The BEST episode in a LONG time !!! Fantastic content, here.
You should drive your motorcycles around Monaco. 😆
These buildings are the same all over Asia. Same thing in India, Thailand, Bali, etc. -- brick, concrete, and tile boxes; echoey and tasteless. It's sad, especially when they replace quaint traditional buildings. I think it's more about the mentality in developing countries than specific to Chinese communism. Air conditioning and running water may be new and exciting for these building owners, whereas traditional materials and architecture are new and exciting for us tourists from the West.
What you see as uniqueness and diversity disappearing, locals might see as an improvement in quality of life they've been dreaming of.
@@user-qp1zn8su5e true. I know there are benefits to these soulless concrete structures. I live in one. But it’s sad to see taste and style count for so little.
I noticed that when I go to Google Maps, there are no street views except for very specific places in China. It is as if the Government just doesn't want you to see their own cities.
As a fan of architecture, I really love the houses by American, John Lautner. Check his stuff out if interested.
Check out Frank Lloyd Wright homes too!!!
My Niece and Nephew in law are both architects and just got back from their sabbatical traveling all over the world to work on their architectural studies & work projects.
Looks like a slightly fancier commy block
This is very sad what's been done to China.
But it reminds me of an episode of The IT Crowd (British sitcom) where smoking was banned except for a small area outside the back of the building where they worked. Whenever they would meet in that spot the exterior was all grey and depressed looking, and they would be dressed in Russian-style winter clothing, speaking in Russian accents. They would describe it as "it's so...Soviet".
It was a commentary but also very hilarious.
Thanks Guys!!
You should come and see Box Hill in Melbourne, Australia. Hugely Chinese area. The council has been corrupted by the influence of rich Chinese property developers (brown paper bags of money). The central area is horrendous - soulless ugly glass towers everywhere
Yeah, my wife used to live in Box Hill, it was pretty sleepy about 10 years ago - saw some videos of the place recently, it's insane, so much high rise and development. But sadly most of the big cities here are selling out to developers, whether Chinese or otherwise, and the density and design is killing off any heritage buildings and spaces or interesting designs. Our premier in NSW is the worst, totally in the developers' pockets and opposed to keeping heritage like some pallid neo-Mao.
Those buildings give me a sense of a government that wants to distance it's self from the beauty of its own culture.
I'm a Westerner so I would have expected to see more red and gold. I would have expected to see sweeping shapes. Ornate designs in Hanzi.
The reality is very different from what I imagined.
What about the west distancing itself from western culture. All new building is modern stuff that looks drab five years on.
Its so sad they lost all their Unique Culture. I always wanted to see all of that when I was young and learning it was all lost was just so sad. How they let one man convince them to destroy everything that made their Civilization Unique is beyond me.
That is called communism.
Taiwan is now the true bearer of the ancient Chinese culture
it's called modernization, do you see any east asian country still building those kungfu panda houses you always dream about? And the culture is very much intact, but sadly this channel won't show you this or else it will go against their narrative.
@@lucasliu2575 Yes you do. Might want to bother looking at these Countries before spouting your nonsense. Of course I am sure I am talking to a CCP 50 Cent Army Shill, but what can I expect from someone who defends destroying ones own Cultural History in order to put up Cement Block Apartments instead. Its truly sad that you fail to see how much beauty was destroyed.
@Nobal Kain name me one asian country that is still building these types of houses on a large scale, and im not talking about one-off things, but scales at least to the size of american suburbs. I will always defend my country's culture, but i also won't compromise my country's well-being just to appeal to these Western fantasies of this "exotic" china. Just because people dont live in these ancient houses doesn't mean they're gone. They're now mostly tourist attractions or are in rural areas because those types of houses can't facilitate such a growing urban population. If you ever step foot in china, you will realize how vibrant the culture is. But why do that when you can just watch a white guy on TH-cam rambling about it?
My brother and I (Dutch) lived in Beijing for a year (13-14) and had a wonderful time and made many friends. We lived in a hutong in Xiyuan (by choice). Stunningly beautiful and absolutely disgusting at the same time; you guys know what I'm talking about. We lived there with some of our friends.. we'd go skateboarding with them at Zhongguancun every day and eat street food in our hutong at night. So many memories and only a handful of photos.. Sadly, shortly after we left, we heard that the government made a big move to destroying the hutongs and replacing them with standardized homogeneous buildings.. leaving hundreds of people in my hutong alone homeless.. most of them had to return to live with their families in who-knows-where, which was not what they wanted.
So, afaik, hutongs in Beijing are also being lost or at least removed from the inner parts of the city. They are illegal and people there don't pay taxes etc., but it's still a beautiful aspect of Chinese life being pushed out and removed. I don't know how accurate my info is though, it's old info and only hearsay, but still.
When you got there most of the Hutongs had already been removed. They removed a whole bunch more just prior to the 2008 Olympics when I was there.
@@MrTynanDraper Ah, makes sense. I guess ours was just next on the chopping block and that's when I first heard about it. Breaks my heart that there was no support, as far as I'm aware, for the people living there. Can't blame the government for removing them but still..
Nice one, good to see you again
At around 14:03 in this video, I can see a bird. Earlier videos said "China had no birds"...
That was hyperbole. There is very little wildlife of any kind (including birds) in Chinese cities.
Great channel. I've been following you for years!
I have noticed slight differences in buildings through the videos you have taken in the north of China and south.
Up in Inner Mongolia and 东北, I see a lot more of inspiration from the Soviet khruskevka (the buildings are shorter and longer and have those cantilever balconies that have the windows on them.
In southern China like in 广东 and the likes, I notice a lot more buildings that are taller and have that pool tile aesthetic that you talk about. They also seems to be more buildings being built with tight spaces in between rather than right next to each other.
I know in eastern China, there’s is a concept of a building called a Danwei (但为）which is more conceptual to the Soviet apartment buildings, but has a lot more Chinese characteristics than those found in 东北.
What's with the "nail house" on the middle of the ring road (belt road around the city) on the typical chinese city map ? That was hilarious, is it a rebel owner embattled with the city against demolition of his house or is it humor to show the road will have nails that flatten tires ?
Handled right, tiles can be really beautiful.
Looks like the Villas in Argentina. Concrete homes, soul crushing.
You bros belong together
👥🗣🗣🐲🐉🧮☑️
Its interesting in that Mao took the uprooting of old culture far further than the Soviets ever did. Sure, Soviet cities had their soulless Khrushchev and Brezhnev (Stalin era ones are actually quite nice) era apartment blocks, but the pre-revolutionary parts of cities were left more or less intact and survive to this day.
On a side note, about the being taken from one part of the country to another and not realizing it, there is a great old Soviet comedy, The Irony of Fate (Ирония судьбы) based on that premise. Its tradition in former USSR countries to watch the movie on New Years and it can be easily found with English subtitles on TH-cam.
Might be an interesting watch, especially given the arch of events we've seen since the end of the USSR and Putin's takeover. 🤔
@@erinmac4750 There actually is quite a lot of good, classic Soviet cinema. If you compare it to Putin era movies, well, there is no comparison the Putin era ones are mostly unwatchable schlock.
I'm sure you could instantly jazz up the place with a subway wonderman and a gaggle of shamate.
Wow, and Communism is what many of our youth want for America! Disaster!!! I think this video should be required viewing for all high school students. I don't think they realize the true diversity of choice Americans have, and I think our students would be horrified to learn that they couldn't get all the things they desire.
Lol who is asking for full blown communism? I always hear people saying this but I have yet to see any actual communists. Can you actually name any politicians who are pro communism?
I think you're wilfully misinterpreting the basics, and living conditions for young people in America. The lack of secure housing, secure jobs, an environment worth bringing kids into, etc.
Clutch your pearls, the free market will fleece them off you.
All that China really does is control its domestic market and industry, which strongly relies on producing goods for the American and European markets. It's still capitalism, just state capitalism where the boss is swapped with a state official.
Cop on
No they don't, you need to stop smoking all the fox news bs and propaganda!
We're actually acting like "communist" countries more than we act like the rest of the free developed world. We have a wage gap closer to that of China's than Western European countries, we have terrible access to healthcare and decent public education like China, etc. Funny thing is, we're following China's footsteps when we get rid of social programs, but many think that we're doing the opposite of them just because they lie and for some reason people believe it.
@@toyotaprius79 😂 Wow, as an outsider, you have swallowed hook line and sinker the cult religion of Critical Marxism. There is no such concept as "State Capitalism", only Capitalism. It's like saying "Death Living", or "Hot Cold. To place a qualifier in front of term like Capitalism, is to change the very nature of the concept itself.
"State Capitalism" is an anti-concept build on floating abstractions, the word you would use if you were honest is called Communism. What you just did here is a prime example of an individual deep in the cult religion of Critical Marxism. All the signs are there. I wouldn't doubt if you are actually a CCP operative trolling this account. If you are not, I'm sure they have a job for you.
There seems to be some thing in Asia where they build a modular style home with no side decoration, assuming another modular will be slotted in either side. But it never happens so they look pretty silly
Copying others ideas and ways is the fastest way to succeed. China shows it at all levels and angles. ‘Soul crushing” is the best description when you see cities and towns losing identity and culture. It is all about chasing economic progress.
Didn't know those had a name. Saw 'em all over when I trekked across southern china in 2019.
Oh I love the blue glass!😃
The Chinese signature concrete box building looks exactly like in Vietnam. How surprising!
and all over SE Asia and South Asia, although they were doing it before China had any influence in the world. I think everyone gravitates to the cheapest "architecture", so that is what they construct.
What's with all the overhanging second floors, though?
Thanks!
One thing this video really made me think of is how generally bad the art of construction patterns has been in the modern, industrialized era across the world. Not always of course, but generally the model I see almost everywhere is the mass production of buildings for rapid profit gain, with not usually a lot of thought about its legacy; how people will use it or if they will enjoy it. China represents mass production to the extreme so you see it more, and of course in poor countries when the paint chips and is never replaced, you see how truly soulless the design actually is. Now you don’t notice this as much in the US or western cities because there is usually a historical city center, and you can see the phases of different types of development. However now, in the last few decades, the sprawl that forms around US cities quite often take the ctrl-c, ctrl-v model of giant apartment complexes with 15 boxes that all look the same and isn’t a place to do anything other than park your car and sleep. And even the trend of sterile modern skyscrapers doesn’t do anything to inspire the human spirit the way buildings like the Vatican or the Louvre do. I hope the world learns how to reprioritize originality, individuality, novelty, and human centered design again. Because as is, I doubt the people 200 years from now will be as impressed with what we’re building, as we are with what people built 200 years before us
The architecture of China is, as Winston has often said in past videos, "soul-less".
It's funny i lived in gaoming/foshan for a year and your right, everytime I watch one of your videos I'm always looking to see if i recognize something because it looks so similar.
same thing happens in brazil, maintenance is not a thing, the way something is built, will still be that same way when it's going to be demolished in a thousand years from now. here in the favelas the houses don't have paint on the sides, not even concrete, the bare bricks are exposed, they only care to put tiles on the front of the house
title? 😛
Communism 101