Would you believe me if I told you that I was currently
in the middle of one of the most futuristic,
most modern cities in the world?
[swoosh]
Probably not and that's what we're going to talk about today, is the fact that China has such an amazing
dichotomy where you can go around the corner and think that you've gone back in time a few hundred years.
And then turn another corner, and you feel like you've jumped forward into the future a few hundred years.
[video tape inserting into recorder]
[button click]
Now for those of you who are familiar with my videos,
you will often see the sort of bright lights of Shenzhen. You'll see the...
ah.
The beautiful infrastructure. All the modern transportation.
You know the... the very posh shopping malls and supermarkets which can be found here.
But this is something you have to realize is only a small percentage of China.
In fact, the majority of China still
lives pretty much like you see around me here.
This does happen to be the oldest sort of urban village
in Shenzhen. I love coming here because it's a fantastic place to take photos or just to...
just soak up some of the cultures you see they've built these long alleyways.
How's it going? [to men in alley]
heh.
These long alleyways and they're still pretty much the way it used to be.
um.
You've got all sorts of interesting, sort of wet market things going on here.
You know, here's a dude selling a whole bunch of raw meat on the side of the road there.
and um.
We also have a whole bunch of... well
temple stuff. We've got a mini temple in here you can go burn your Joss... Joss paper and so on.
How's it going man? [to passerby]
um.
And yeah, you can pretty much
walk in here and feel as if you have
Gone back in time because this is a very sort of
almost "Middle Ages" sort of a thing going on here.
Fresh meat. Fresh... fresh vegetables you've got... There's a...
a woman sewing over here with a foot pedal sewing machine, which is kind of cool.
You know you got clothes hanging up to dry because...
Well, they don't have tumble dryers and that kind of thing. In fact,
Tumble dryers aren't really a thing in China anyway. So you see this kind of lifestyle
in pretty much all of the rural parts of China. Now, I'm lucky enough that my travels
especially my motorcycle adventures have taken me through
a huge amount of China.
You know, deep China being through all the, sort of, rural countryside farmlands things like that.
And I've been able to see with my own eyes a lot of things that most people
can't because it's actually very, very difficult,
no joke,
but it's actually very difficult for a traveler or a tourist to get out into the countryside in China.
Now you might not think so but getting to the countryside is incredibly difficult for a tourist.
I mean, there's infrastructure to get to the cities. There's airports.
You know... trains.
You've got taxis, etcetera. You can get to the big cities here in China. No problem.
You know, if you're coming from abroad.
But once you're in the big cities
You can sometimes get sort of long-distance buses or trains to other cities and other towns
but to actually get into the rural farm side
You know where you can see farmers working on the fields
and you can see the rice paddies and all that sort of thing.
It's actually very difficult to get to those places unless you have your own transport.
Luckily, I have, you know, my motorcycles
and of course my car so I have that option.
So I've seen a lot of what goes on and it's fascinating because you literally step out of the big cities
and life is like it was a hundred years ago
And, you know, they don't use very advanced farming equipment.
They still use sort of water buffalo to pull the plows.
They use very old sort of medieval forms of farming, and it's incredibly charming
and ah... I must say that's something that gives China a very specific and unique sort of a charm.
Now on the flip side, you get stunning, amazing cities like Shanghai,
Shenzhen, of course Beijing and all the other bigger ones where you know the infrastructure is just insane.
The way these cities have grown and improved over a short period of time is just
absolutely mind-boggling.
And if you've ever been to one of these places you probably would find it very difficult to believe
that the majority of people
here, in China, still live
like this
and... ah.
All it takes is a little trip to the farmlands, and you'll be able to see for yourself.
Anyway, I absolutely love exploring these little urban villages, which it's kind of a throwback.
I should probably explain to you why they exist and what they're all about.
So what is an urban village? I suppose I'd better try and explain that to you
You know these are sort of the settlements that were here before the big city was built.
So as Shenzhen was growing you'd have these sort of original, little pockets of
people living on farmland or what have you.
And because they sort of have the historical rights to the land,
the government couldn't really kick them out without compensation
so...
people would hold onto their property because they know it's incredibly valuable if they hold on to it.
um.
At some point in the future the government will offer them a huge amount of money
to, kind of, buy the land out from under them. And of course, lots of people just didn't want to move.
Full stop.
So you have these little urban villages dotted around the city
and it's... it's quite interesting because you'll have beautiful modern skyscrapers,
and then right next to it. You'll have this
sort of run-down,
um.
filthy little...
Although I say filthy, but I love it. You know I really do like this kind of thing by the way. It's very,
you know, it's very interesting to me.
You'll have these kind of filthy little villages where it looks like time stopped a few hundred years ago.
so... um.
There is one unfortunate thing and that is a lot of these urban villages are disappearing.
- [to man in alley] Xièxiè (谢谢)
A lot of them are disappearing and that's because of, of course, the march of progress and,
you know the...
the government wants China to be new and modern and so they're trying to knock
these places down and replace them with unfortunately,
fairly sterile, run-of-the-mill, cookie-cutter
concrete apartment blocks
And I've seen it already
There have been a number of these urban villages that I used to visit when I first got here
which don't exist anymore or at least have been completely gentrified beyond recognition.
And that's... that's the unfortunate thing but
At least you know that if you get out of the major cities, you'll be able to find this kind of
situation just about everywhere in China.
So I hope you enjoyed coming on this little adventure of mine through...
- [man] Hello. - Hello.
through Shenzhen's oldest urban village anyway.
I've quite often come here for photo walks and things like that
if you're more interested in seeing this kind of thing I can actually
- come out here, and do a proper video - [boy] Hello.
all about it.
Hello. [to boy]
Nǐ hǎo (你好)
- [boy] Stay awesome! - Oh very good
- [other boys] Stay Awesome! Stay Awesome! - [Winston] Hěn hǎo (很好)
Xièxiè (谢谢). [laughs]
Hǎo, zàijiàn (好, 再见).
All right cool, so that's it guys. I'll see you in the next one.
Hope you found it interesting and as always you know the drill. Like those kids just said,
"Stay Awesome!"
So I'm going to show you some drone footage of sort of the old and the new of Shenzhen
coming up in a minute. But first, please go check out this awesome video
that I did with my friend. His name's Premo.
He's from Shanghai. He has a...
a mixed daughter and they came down to meet me and I got to spend the day hanging out with his daughter.
Showing her around and you know he does a little show. It's kind of fun
and well without any further ado guys.
Let's get back to the drone footage. Let's get some GDS's in there.
[music starts]
[music continues]
[music stops]
[tape ejected]