We Discovered the Real Reason China is so Ugly

From North to South, Chinese cities largely look the same. But why? We find out.

Consider supporting us on Patreon or becoming a member of this channel (click Join next to the subscribe button)

Location -
Mohe, Heilongjiang, China

⚫Watch Conquering Northern China
10,000 km. on motorcycles across China's unexplored northern provinces. The Russian border, Inner Mongolia, and even North Korea!

ADV Podcasts - Our live weekly China current events show

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.

⚫ Watch Conquering Southern China NOW!
Winston and I ride 5000 km across 5 Chinese provinces and discover crazy food, people and customs!

Music -Cartoon Feat. Jüri Pootsman - I remember u

Grain/concrete articles -

[annaroitman]

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

[kateaye]

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.

[stevend]

"Soulless". The most accurate description of everything Chinese.

[BixbyConsequence]

The grey buildings match up nicely with the grey air.

[Homer-OJ-Simpson]

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.

[DonaldCicc]

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.

[berendharmsen]

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.

[TrangleC]

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.

[nix-consulting]

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.

[Tobi-lnxr]

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.

[chaptermasterpedrokantor]

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.

[himeccms]

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.

[GRAUZAHN.]

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.

[rumitaification]

I’ve been watching you guys for years and your back and forth is impeccable. It makes the videos a pleasure to watch 👌🏼

[Anonymous-ksel]

I'd really like to see you two play GeoGuessr China, how well can you find your location without accents to identify?

[paulrevere]

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...

[peterp]

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!

[gordonliu]

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.

[mytech]

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.

[__-pljg]

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.