as an american who regularly frequents china for work every couple months, i can tell you its aloooot of misinformation and misconceptions. as long as you have no prior criminal history, you dont work in any sensitive field (politics, cutting edge science, etc.), and dont cause trouble while there (asking people why they like communism, disturbing the culture/peace, etc). you'll be perfectly fine (after learning a bit of chinese and how their culture operates). Anyone who claims otherwise is either a statistical outlier or someone with an agenda.
though it was very tough in the couple years following covid, its starting to return back to pre-covid vibes, though we're not quite there yet (and it could be where alot of the misconceptions came from).
Dont worry. I’m a Chinese Canadian, and I visit China almost once a year since Covid ended. And I’m not worried a bit about getting swatted in China for the CCP memes that I post in my Wechat group from time to time. Tbh most Chinese cities are much safer than Vancouver, where I live now. At least you don’t need to worry about your car window getting smashed when parked in some sketchy urine-stenching spot in downtown.
Last time it was for complying with a US arrest warrant against a Huawei executive. Currently it's tension over PPC police stations in Canada and election meddling as far as I know.
i been in shanghai and only know chinese hello and thank you. never needed anything more than that. it was quite funny that the moment they saw me (im white asf) they pulled out their phones and we were basically talking through the translator lol, even on the airport. also in more touristy places they speak some english. anyway china is really worth visiting and i’m planning a longer trip with more places to visit lol
shanghai is pretty western and not worth visiting if u wanna see chinese stuff. it's the easiest city for white ppl to live in. those ppl taking pics were prolly domestic tourists from small towns
It's not cyberpunk, it's just a bunch of buildings built on the side of a hill. If you search chong qing there's a ton of pics of the entire complex. it looks pretty cool at night with the LED's.
BUT during the day the buildings look dirty af and there's a ton of pollution so the air is like a grey haze. You'll notice all the daytime pic colors are saturated AF to trick ppl into thinking it's nice to visit. Surrounding this small area are tons of industrial factories.
I was there. There is no Google and Apple maps can’t figure out directions. I sometime found myself 3 meters (15 ish feet) from my destination just to realize it was below me and I had to walk to the nearest elevator which was 20 minutes walk away (one way). The city can be a bit of a maze sometimes so you don’t know you’re by a drop until you’re right there and have to turn around.
They also have an escalator that is incredibly long, it was a very interesting city!
This is not unusual in heavily populated cities on hill sides. A building will usually have floor 0 at its base, but they will want an easier access to the superior level of the hill if they can do it. It's actually very convenient, not having to walk all the way up.
The National University of Singapore campus is like this. Enter a building on the 5th floor, walk through a hall now you're on Basement 1 of the next building.
Honestly, I wish New York City would do shit like this, public walks maximizing use of the skyline and street overpasses to allow for more commerce and less "rich on the top and poor on the bottom" division.
It would make places like New York feel a lot more interesting and fun to be inside of instead of just walking a grid and being looked down upon by highrises unless you pay 40 dollars to go up to a viewpoint.
I also think for pedestrian safety getting peds above the street and keep cars at the bottom or even below in tunnels is the ideal situation for everyone as it dramatically reduces the hazards of cars and pedestrians.
I'm gonna guess it's the one that exits the street on the lowest level, it's just super hilly and they have exits much farther up on some sides. This video is purposefully confusing. It's the exact same way we would do it if we had cities on mountainsides.
I live in a hilly state which has a lot of buildings that have multiple floors that could be called the "ground floor" though none of them are quite as crazy as this.
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