This post is an attempt to show you how many people are in China. These first two pictures are at the subway, the first is obviously on the subway. People honestly jam themselves onto the subway and push people out of the way when exiting. We caught on real quick that you CANNOT be polite when exiting. Just push, push and push. We were taller so sometimes people moved but normally we pushed people right out of the car and they had to crawl back in.
The 2nd picture is the hundreds of people waiting to pack into an already stuffed subway car. Only one time did not not get on because there was just too many people. Most of the time/every time we had to stand, but never worry about falling over because you are packed in like sardines.
Picture 3 is just a busy sidewalk on Nanjing Road. People pouring onto the street for lack of space on the sidewalk.
Picture 4 is the West side of Nanjing road at night. The camera did not really capture the impressiveness of the neon signs and the masses of people but at times it was overwhelming.
The video is at the very end of Nanjing Road, however thats how every, EVERY, intersection was. It was crazy to see hundreds of people crossing the same side of the street.
Wow, so many people. And for the first time I really feel the difference in height. These pictures are from Shanghai, right? And it was like this all the time? Wow! I've heard of how crowded the subways are in Japan but to see it also in China is kind of awesome. Did you go into any shops of cafes? Aside from being crowded where the people generally friendly? apathetic? hostile? I see mostly regular (i.e. Western?) style cloths. True? Also the language is very sing-song. Is it much different from Korean? Say Hi to Chris and thank him for his cameo roles in your videos!
ReplyDeleteTTFN Looking forward to more!
Yes, this is in Shanghai, and the height difference is noticeable more in China for sure. Anywhere there are people in China, there are this many people. There are certainly areas where people just don't spend time. But those areas that supported people with shops, restaurants, or anything tourist related was packed. People literally stopping traffic because they could not fit on sidewalks. Ugg the subways got real old real quick. Thousands of stinky people all rubbing shoulders, hips and butts. Ya no thanks. We went in several shops, mostly western style clothes. And we ate at several traditional Chinese restaurants, and had some very good food, I will probably post some pictures and talk about them later.
ReplyDeleteThe language is much different and the biggest difference is the writing. I guess there are over 70,000 or 80,000 Mandarin symbols. (don't quote me just what we heard from a local) But each symbol is a word, whereas Hangul has an alphabet. So when you learn the alphabet your good to go, most Chinese only know between 4-6,000 characters. They are the common ones I guess that everyone knows. The sound of the language was different also, and NOBODY spoke English so getting around was more of a challenge for sure, but we would find someone (usually the employees at the hostel) to write directions in Chinese for us so we could get home via cab if needed.
On the whole, the people were not very welcoming, the language barrier was so intense that we struggled to communicate with any locals. Nobody was outright rude to us, but not really helpful either.