Our Eye-Opening 24 Hours in CHINA in 2023 (has Shanghai changed?)

I'm Oscar and I'm Dan today we're in Shang freaking high oh my God the current tensions between the US and China can be seen all over the news in the West U.S and China have significant disagreements issues like trade human rights Taiwan and of course kovid have all sparked controversy and made the image of China painted by Western media far from Rosie we both agree on the need to stabilize our relationship although we've been to China three times in the past we hadn't visited in five years and we had honestly let the media narrative affect us a bit we recently had the opportunity to spend 24 hours in Shanghai Without Really knowing what to expect from a visit to post covet China we headed to Seoul inchon airport to catch our flight the journey to China begins [Music] ha so we're making our way home towards Europe for summer and this time the best way to fly home was via Shanghai on China Eastern so that means we're gonna have 24 hours of transit in Shanghai a city that we were in last time in 2018 was it obviously a lot has changed since then you may have heard of the little glitch that happened in 2020 and China of course being the origin of where this glitch originated obviously has changed a lot as a country so we're very interested and intrigued to see what it'll be like during our experience there for these 24 hours also it goes without saying since we were in China five years ago the sentiment in the west about China has changed a bit so we're also feeling you know a little more uncomfortable I'd say last time I wasn't uncomfortable I was super excited but now I'm like things are so tense so we really just want to lay low China still requires a covet test to enter but luckily you can do it at home so you can do it like a you said a color test I think cover test covered test I'm pretty sure you check if you're colorblind by the way the reason I'm wearing this beautiful colorful mask which is not colorful is that I got some sort of allergic reaction to the water in Thailand a few days ago I'm hiding it for your viewing pleasure no but yeah anyway so the point of what I was saying was that we did the Kobe test this morning in a hotel room so and by the way because I know that some people are gonna come for us in the comments and say oh this is sponsored by the Chinese government and they're just being flown there to promote China or whatever first of all they probably would have made us stay longer than 24 hours about the case but yeah not only that we actually haven't worked with a single tourism board or any like country's government at all to this point not opposed to doing that in the future if it's the right country though so if you know someone at any good tourism boards feel free to connect us but um yeah yeah go Shanghai here we come [Music] [Music] oh my God we have made it to China suddenly so excited you can go around the world you can go to a lot of different places but China even though we've been here quite a few times still feels like one of the most exotic [Music] guys look how huge the notes are they're so satisfying they look very uh Square I don't know why this feels so cool I think it's just like the adrenaline and the excitement and the photographs so little time we're just like let's go [Music] we're now in the taxi and we just had this crazy thought after uh not a conversation an interaction with our taxi driver he was asking us about the neighborhood we were going to but he didn't understand what we were saying I said yes I did thumbs up but even that wasn't like communicated so then eventually I said Dwayne he's like oh just say like you should have just yeah so the point is the thing that's so interesting is that in almost every country in the world where they don't know English which is very very common everyone understands yes no thank you like those are words that almost everyone in the whole world understands and that I remember the first time we came to China we realized that this is really its own world people don't need to know a single thing about the outside world just like people don't know it in the US it just adds another interesting and exciting layer to traveling I will never forget when we first landed in Shanghai and the feeling of seeing China from above on that first approach like I get goosebumps every time I think about it because that was our first time ever in Asia and still to this day I feel that way a little bit about China because I mean we've been around Asia so much it's our favorite continent but still China just feels like this massive black hole smack in the middle of the continent [Music] now with the rise of tick tock we get a much bigger view into Chinese homes and that type of thing and you know the viral trend of showing all these like crazy super exaggerated Tech things in Chinese homes that's just what I'm picturing looking at all the apartment buildings like I wonder what's going on in there okay everyone has been so nice to us so far it's amazing like the hotel service is lit one thing I wanted to say is that I didn't think we would be like this sentimental coming here we've traveled so so much in Asia spent years here this was the very first place we came in it's just so like wow look how far we've come we're so excited to head out the view from our room is insane so it's gonna have this running joke with our friend aprilyn from Singapore because we both started learning Chinese on Rosetta Stone like I was 14 or 13. we did like a few lessons yeah and they teach you the most random stuff like the boy is swimming the boy is eating a sandwich yeah so one sentence we remember is you get new heights yeah which means a girl is swimming I think yeah so we have made up the song that we always sing just for fun [Music] it's so stupid [Music] thank you as we often do when we explore a city we looked up a restaurant online and just started walking through the neighborhood [Music] there's so many smells like that's the number one impression for me right here on the street it just smells like Belle like buns basically then secondly it's not sweet chili sauce but it's like that kind of like you know sweeter type of real chili sauce where you can see all the chilies in it I think this is it think so okay so we went to the restaurant it's a vegetarian restaurant that was established in 1922 I'm not sure if it's this Branch specifically or if it's like you know if it's a change so it's a very old school vegetarian restaurant and we just got to show you some of the names in this um in the menu anyone wants some brand with a piece here we have some lentiness so the ingredients are the same all right we have some black pepper vegan beef some Sesame vegan chicken and uh Dan was like this looks like something else and I was like why did you have to say that also I just want to use this meal as evidence that wanting to imitate or mimic meat it's not like a new vegan thing in the west this art of making milk meat goes back thousands of years in Asia and it's made with soy with gluten all types of different things it's not that vegans or vegetarians don't want to eat meat it's just that you know we choose not to for ethical reasons we're doing our best to get a taxi we were trying to use the Chinese version of uber but you can only pay with like WeChat or IP like different Chinese apps yeah we're trying to get one of the street but they're not really stopping for us so now after so now after dinner although there is so much we want to do the number one thing I think if we have to choose anything to do in Shanghai it's going to a science museum that's suspicious but it's not quite what it sounds like [Music] okay we made it to the Shanghai Science Museum but our destination is just underneath it this is obviously not a science museum this is one of the world's biggest and absolute best fake market so you can buy all types of branded stuff some of it comes straight from the factory where the real stuff is made and you can get incredible prices we had no idea what it would be like here after covid we read a lot of stuff is closed down but apparently it's starting to come alive again and it seems pretty good right now so the market is right in the subway station for the science museum which is why people call it that we've decided to blur the faces of all the vendors not because everyone is necessarily doing something illegal but because we wouldn't know who could get in trouble so we don't want to risk it for anyone they rarely have faith of the most amazing stuff this is like the epitome of everyone heckling you okay I'm back okay thank you the first order of business is trying to find glasses for Dan I mean this is the best place the most important skill at the fake Market is of course haggling we're definitely no experts but more than five years of full-time travel have definitely taught us a thing or two about getting a good deal at a market foreign the craziest thing about buying prescription glasses here is not the price but that they are ready in just 20 minutes we had time to go to a few other stores before returning to pick up Dan's new glasses I feel like coming to the fake Market is like the ultimate cure for loneliness there's always someone willing to take you somewhere [Music] oh my God the woman with the airplane models just wanted to charge us 1 550 for one model but we already heard in another store that it would be 180 and she just like immediately went down to that price so the haggling range here is um it's so crazy to me how like immediately then it's just like yeah this one is realistic this one is not like how can you tell Instagram oh my God places so now these are down they're not on the wrong side sorry you know the worst part is the stress because this place is like closing any minute yeah so we're just like give us the stuff we're really doing our best to squeeze as much as we physically can into these 24 hours [Music] next up a new backpack right yeah this is real life yeah for you okay [Music] so backpack down from 1 800 to 480. which I hope is a good deal like yeah I think it's a lot yeah it still feels like a lot for a backpack but I mean it's good it's nice yeah [Music] I got a new uh recipe from 150 no from 150 to 30. yep [Music] wow yeah let's see more and more shops are closing have we done everything we wanted to do I don't really know what we wanted to do well we bought a backpack we bought airplanes we bought glasses we got this I guess the only thing is like workout clothes they're so expensive cases but we don't need it yeah you should know that the number one thing people buy here are fake removers we asked for the price of one and for the best quality it started around 800 or 900 but that can of course be brought down if you haggle [Applause] we have been here like an hour and a half oh yeah so much stuff I think our guy was comparing like like to all the different stores hour and a half yeah he got the craziest commission probably because he just paid for our Subway ticket it was like you don't even ask like I don't want anything for it really so sweet like you are so nice helping us out carrying all our stuff for an hour and a half and I was like oh my God how much is he gonna charge like what do we tip him yeah we were like how much are we gonna have to give you for this and then he ends up paying for our tickets yeah he was like no no I'll pay because you don't have QR code we're like What then we'll have to pay him even more we'll be more confusing he's like no no just go so how amazing thank you [Music] okay yeah we're trying to make it okay where are you we're trying to make it to the fund now that the sun is set which is the walkway along the river so we can see the iconic Skyline when it's all lit up foreign [Music] we just got on the subway we weren't even supposed to take it took it to the stuff we thought would be close we ended up getting out on this street so like it couldn't have been more perfect [Music] not at all feel like what you would expect like it feels so Cosmopolitan it feels pretty much like any other city like any other big city in the west to be honest and I realized that can sound a bit strange what we mean is that especially people in the west will have this very specific perception of what you know a Chinese person is or what a Chinese City would be like same with you know a Russian city or Russian but you know when you're here it just feels super normal which I mean it kind of goes without saying I think but if you have preconceptions then you know you might be proven wrong I'm getting so sick of this mask but I just want to hide my face sorry but one thing I want to say that is so important is that I think my very favorite thing of all about travel is proving my own preconceptions wrong and that's crazy to say because we've already been in Shanghai three times and I still had preconceptions since it had been so long and there's nothing more fun than being proved wrong to me and opening your mind and opening our eyes to the world being so much more awesome than it's painted in the news [Music] am I really stupid or is this like Middle Eastern dessert it's like Turkish time we're in a middle eastern dessert store and we just don't understand [Music] we always feel that Dubai has the best futuristic Skyline in the world but this is probably the only one that actually comes really close might actually be on par so cool I love how we're carrying around this thing that just looks like trash [Music] hey thank you the stream of photo taking continuously and we're not asking for the photos let's be clear [Music] I just want to explain what happened there with the pictures in case you're not familiar with this Chinese phenomenon but it's very well known that if you're someone who looks far in in China you will be asked to take a million pictures the people who are just really curious everyone's really nice about it we should add that it's mostly Chinese tourists from other provinces who will do this as people in cities like Shanghai and Beijing are used to foreigners [Music] thank you I found dinner which the most Chinese dinner you could possibly imagine which is falafel and hummus [Music] the reason is that pretty much all the restaurants with vegan options or vegetarian Ultras without matter we're close at this hour so they close at like eight yeah they close super early so we decided to check out what the Middle Eastern scene of China is like [Music] definitely better than I was expecting for Middle Eastern food in Shanghai to be honest [Music] good morning oh it's so hot today let's go to the shade yeah we both like gasped as we went outside but yeah what a day we had yesterday honestly oh one of my best days of the year just so many amazing experiences we were gonna head out at 9 00 a.m it's 8 30 so that's very accurate for us wait what do you mean seven a.m seven what did I say nine yeah but we would not have been like this no yeah we meant to go out seven so now we have about an hour an hour and a half to do as much exploring around here as possible and then we have to go have breakfast and head back to the airport yeah it's uh a jam-packed day thank you [Music] so we're just entering People's Park on our way to People's Square and we're having so many thoughts about the first time came to Shanghai now and I think we're gonna sit down and tell you more about exactly what happened then but uh yeah we'll find a spot so the reason we even came to Shanghai the first time was that we had a friend in high school a friend that I spent three weeks in France with to learn French so I got to know her family and they are one of those incredible families that you just love as a kid to make you love in general where they're so welcoming they just welcome you in as their own kid immediately so we felt super comfortable with them from the start and they ended up moving to Shanghai but basically we just texted them all like hey do you mind if we visit you guys for a bit because it was during our Gap year so we were just traveling all around we just don't know and we were on such a budget so we were like if we can stay somewhere for free in China that's the best so we ended up coming here to visit them and we had the most amazing time we really look back on that so so positively yeah and it was so nice you know the first time in Asia having someone who was from Sweden to make it a little bit more familiar it's such a nice time when you're in your late teens or early 20s when you can still sort of make those connections with your friends parents like I think that's so cute and I Aspire for us to someday be those types of parents yeah who make other kids always feel so welcome yeah so warm and like just open yeah so thank you Ava and thank you everyone we love you guys and yeah I'm still so annoyed that you guys just have to stare at the mask but I'm so embarrassed about my skin under here so that's what we're doing anything actually fine but he doesn't want to take it off [Music] also it's so crazy to think about that we were 19 then in China was our 19th country we weren't even at 20 yet and now we've been to 100 countries and we're back like it's just we've come so far as people we've grown so much we've seen so much our perspectives have widened like immeasurably it's just so unfathomable to think about how much we've changed and still this place just feels like it felt like when we were here last time but we view it with completely different ice now this building right here reminds me a lot of Tashkent Uzbekistan I'm not gonna lie we're trying to figure out how to get to People's Square yeah but it seems like all the underpasses are closed and we can't cross the street so maybe the whole square is closed and I see people walking there look okay we'll find a way where there's the will there's a way we found a sidewalk not a sidewalk a crosswalk sorry zebra cross okay I never learned English I'm learning English in China just a bit of an observation so many people here in Shanghai have iPhones and I think we're just surprised in general how prevalent Western and American brands are to the point where most ads are with Western models which you don't even see in Japan and Korea so it's just like so weird when you think about the sort of tensions between these countries yet Americans and westerners buy so much stuff from China and vice versa which leads us to a very surprising fact that we discovered yesterday as we were Googling about you know the demographics of China because we're trying to figure out how many foreigners live here and we were expecting it to be you know like maybe a few million it turns out it's less than 1 million that in 2018 there were 600 000 foreigners in total in the entire country which means that there's about 0.05 foreigners in the entire country of China a country of 1.3 billion people 600 000 foreign-born people is less than there are in the entire country of Sweden a country of 10 million people and honestly even more surprising to us there are much higher percentages of foreigners in both South Korea and Japan two countries we always think about as so homogeneous but China like it's just so insanely homogenous obviously there are many parts of China or many regions with other people groups than Han Chinese but still there are so few people who were born outside of the country's borders that live here it's just so crazy and also I feel like we're just listing things for Surprise Play but another thing is that not a single person has told us all for filming like in so many countries especially police will always be so suspicious as soon as we're recording even though we're just using our iPhones to record but here like not even any suspicious looks or anything everyone's just completely okay with us recording everything we see which is really surprising honestly but really cool [Music] First Chinese family month [Music] refining all types of goodies yeah some awesome vegan drinks we love this milk made from plants is of course free of bird makes sense right yes Taro if they were young [Music] go get the Taro Shake Taro is such a good flavor oftentimes there's always like milk powder in the Taro like mix we rarely don't try it okay the Toro flavor isn't that strong but it's really nice I like it and it's not too sweet which is good Shanghai it's time to head back to the airport already and as always we are running very short on time so we'll talk to you when we get there foreign and just like that our overnight layover in Shanghai came to an end this brief experience was a healthy reminder that the world is not as scary as you think especially when an Us Versus Them narrative is pushed in the news all the interactions we had with people in Shanghai were pleasant even inside the rather hectic environment of the fake Market if there is anything we want you to take away from this video is that the reality on the ground for regular people is rarely what you see in the news although this was just a shortstop in China and we hope to come back in the future and see more parts of the country we haven't been to before we hope this video at least gave you a new perspective on the world and on the world's second most populous country guys thank you so much for your continuous support we appreciate all of you so much and hope to see you again in our next video Until then as always see you around the world I'm Oscar and I'm Dan and we're on a mission to see as much of the world as possible during our youth so far we've traveled to a hundred countries to show that anyone can travel off the beaten path regardless of who they are however we realize that constantly chasing new countries isn't necessarily the most fulfilling way to live life so now we're finding a balance by exploring more of our favorite countries and seeing new places at a more sustainable Pace we'd love for you to come along for the ride see you around the world [Music]

Channel: Oskar and Dan

Views: 264,491

Keywords: oskar & dan, Oscar and dan, oskar and dan, Oscar & dan

Id: z328kVoh3Lo

Length: 27min 3sec (1623 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 23 2023