Is China Polluted? One of the most common questions I get. I break it down for you, some places are beautiful and free of pollution, others are horribly polluted, come check it out.
It's often the case that certain things are kept from a People by their own government/society/etc. I remember that time when there was some corruption scandal in my local city, and public version in the press was just a regular deal, but city officials had talked openly to Chinese press who were interested in the case, so you could learn the full reveal of the crooked things going on in your own city from the Chinese press.
Your videos are wel done, you have a sort of professional manner that is not faked or superficial . respect to what you have done by yourself in China and here on youtube.
suggested video: how about do one on The Renewable Energy Revolution in China. I have heard that China is installing one huge wind turbine every hour of every day. I like your channel.
I agree! I think it's because a lot of his stuff is unscripted and just his own thoughts on the spot. Others write a script and do all this planning and the end result is lacking a sort of genuineness and end up feeling like they have a particular view they're trying to push instead of being objective. While serpentza's videos seem a lot more honest and genuine and ultimately, believable.
Shenzhen, or any place south of China is pretty clean. The further north you are, the worse (coal-burning, heavy industry etc.). Shanghai is OK, smog is not common nor is it rare. After you go past yellow river, air quality can getting really bad when you start to approach Beijing. The best way to experience this transition is taking a high speed train from Shanghai to Beijing.
I have relative in China, but i've never been there before. As there are so many "not so good" statements on the country. Well, after watching your videos. I guess i could visit them someday! ! Have always loved your video, very truthful, honest and informative!! ~ Your subscriber from Malaysia.
I travel to China regularly, but also to other countries in Asia and this is a topic often discussed. Personally speaking, pollution is an issue, but the worst air pollution I have seen is in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, where in winter in the outskirts people are burning coal or wood in their gers (yurts). You can smell it even indoors in modern apartments and flights are often cancelled. So this is not an issue for just China and China is not the worst. Just my five cents (or whatever currency you prefer :-D).
Just because the sky is blue and it's not cloudy doesn't mean there isn't air pollution. I use a couple sensors to count particles 3 microns down to .5 microns. The air pollution is often worst on the clear days. When a winter storm comes down from the north it can be 0 ug/m3. We also live near a fracking compressor station and it often releases spikes of air pollution 100, 200, 300+ ug/m3 which is extremely unhealthy and you wouldn't know about it unless you have a sensor.
best air cities are Haikou, Xiamen, and Shenzhen. It is no coincidence they are all on the coast where sea breezes can clear out the air. This is guy is very optimistic. . majority of cities in my own experience are badly polluted, especially in the winter time.
Unfortunately, you don't always SEE pollution. Micro particulate pollution? Can't see it, but it fucks with your respiratory system. Especially, the young and the elderly. Here in South Korea, we get warnings on our phone when the micro particulate pollution gets high. Sometimes the sky is sunny and clear. It's some pretty insidious shit...
My daughter teaches in a "private school" in a major Canadian city. Most of her students are Chinese kids sent to get North American/English language experience. When she asks them what they experience as a difference, it is air quality and how blue the sky is here. When they go home for holiday they experience a health set back like a flu, breathing difficulties etc. It takes them a few weeks to re-acclimate.
Hey Winston great video .this message is from Jenny and George who have visited you this summer :).Keep up the great work and creativity of your videos.About pollution in china is a big topic honestly i have went to 11 cities around china small and big ones and about Beijing i was very surprise about how good the air was and all around where i have been traveling...the only place that i can say that was just really bad was Xi'an...very polluted compare to any other place...anyways thanks again!!
the most dirtiest city ive visited was paris, the sewerage smell in the paris underground there makes anything ive smelt in china seem like a flower bed :)
@Dark Vadertrauebrein Not just Chinese say that, other people say the same thing about Paris. There are videos of Paris streets on internet. There are a lot of refugees and homeless everywhere.
@Dark Vadertrauebrein I have visited China. And many parts of China that I visited have clean, fresh air. I also heard that pollution in some parts, like Beijing, used to be far worse back then, but gradually gets better.
The video begins with blue sky and a sunny day. We had none of these for a full year in Anhui Province. We lived right next to a petrochemical plant. My lungs hurt and my eyes burned everyday. I loved my students and made great friends but felt sad for them when I left.
From my experience zhengzhou is the worst. And trust me i have been to many places in China. Dongguan is polluted in the south part, which is near Shenzhen. But the north part is really enjoying and the air is tolerable. Guangzhou is worst.
I know you don't like to talk politics but I really like your opinion its honest and a good take. Gives us stuck in America and Idea of your beautiful nation you've made home.
One thing that particularly bother me is the sand storm. It really feel horrible when you have to go to school but outside of the window is filled with brown colors. sometimes, sandstorm even cooperate with rain, and then it even drop some dirty rain onto my white shirts. Other than that, I want to say that there has people who put there efforts into this. More trees are planted, and more punishment has been set off for big corporations who initiated such pollution.
@serpentza I stopped in Guangzhou and Beijing en route to Europe last year and on both occasions had to leave the terminal building. The smell, particularly in Beijing, was reminiscent of Alexandra and Tembisa during a highveld winter (coal / peat type smell). The bit about "Microprofit" was lol. There are some business names here in New Zealand where I'm wondering what on earth transpired in the strategy meetings... Names such as "Boomerang Cars" and "Glacier Investments". Back in S.A. the manager I worked for at MTN and I were good friends. His landlords were Chinese, lovely couple. They invited us over to dinner for a (non-Western) Chinese dinner. This was the first (and to date only) time I've ever had what I now know to be a tea egg. None of my other "chinas" were brave enough to eat it. In all honesty I ate it with "long teeth" but it was okay. I empathise with you regarding the South African thing, I had to tone down that bizzo when I arrived too. Great video man - I enjoy meeting people too and in my travels I've found a lot of preconceptions to be shattered. That pita thing you're eating looks delicious!
The reason Shenzhen has a relatively reasonable air quality is it's so near the sea, also it's so close to Hong Kong. Even so, the air quality is far below what you can get in most North American cities. Water quality, is also considerably worse there. Heavy metal containts is folds higher than what you get in US or Canada and is not healthy to be drank directly. Despite my 30 yrs in China, I get sick nearly every time I get there in the past several years
If any of us remember those boring economics classes, we will soon discover we should have stayed awake! The infrastructure investment China has planned (exponentially) is going to make the western world very humble, and soon. I can't wait to go!! I dig the vids man, you're a straight hitter!
I go to China every few years. Last time was 4-5 years ago. That was Shanghai, Nanjing and Beijing for about 1 month. BJ was the worst. There days that is perfectly fine and other days? The sky is haze. I have very good sense of direction. I could see the sun on a very cloudy day, judging from the shadow and local time, I know the direction, such as North. In BJ, the whole sky was hazed. Like looking a frost light bulb, you could not tell the filament. In this case, I could not see the sun and I have no sense of direction. Yes, you could see about 3/4 mile (1km) with no issue. I do know if I am old (60)? No bad smell I could detect. I heard there are days much worse. Frankly, I do know if that was pollution that gave the haze. But I have never been to a place that I could not see the sun. Hope this helps?
It has more to do with climate and air flow. The same reason Los Angles is far more smogy than New York City, even though New York city has more cars and more heavy industry, and even coal burning powerplant inside the city.
for example people in Beijing worry about the air and people in Shanghai worry about the water. Shenzhen is a relatively clean city because it's in subtropical area and doesn't have much heavy industry. However, no matter where you are in China, you need to be aware of the unhygienic foods.
my wife &kid have just returned to hubei , about 3 hours west of wuhan, her hometown, , she told me the air was polluted, she never complained about it before, but she has been living in the southeast USA, returning home has, placed her back into a dirty air area, now she understands why i told her the air was like a code red day in a large west coast USA city, , i found yes there is air pollution in china but its not crippling, , shanghai shenzen, hangzhou, wuhan,&others, not a problem for me
My first trip to Shenzhen it had not rained in a long time and I could feel discomfort in my lungs but the level of pollution was reasonable compared to other places. I was just getting over a chest cold so I was more susceptible to noticing it. Now compare Shenzhen to Chengdu and you would think Shenzhen has no pollution. Chengdu has never seen a blue sky and I suspect it is due to pollution but perhaps there is another scientific reason.
It would be nice if there were some longer videos from Winston, however, the video length depends on his internet speed, and how quickly his PC can render the videos. It can take him 12 hours or more sometimes to upload a video (not likely but it can happen). Longer videos would mean a longer time between recording it and it being online. It would also take Winston longer to edit these videos, so all in all, I would rather have the same length videos :)
i'm now living in Boston and i realized that how American cities have good air quality. blue skys are not common in Nanjing, where i came from China near Shanghai
one of my school teachers used to live in Nanjing and he said sometimes you could chew on the air, as you would be breathing in grit and all sorts of crap that was just floating about.
I'm looking at teaching in Xiamen in a few years. The Fujian Provence seems to have consistently low levels of pollution from what I've seen. Plus, I'm a tea junkie. :)
A little more about Guangzhou. I'm from South Africa too. I'm coming over in a couple weeks to teach english in Guangzhou. How would you rate that city?
When I was young, my home is just near a little brook. A polluted brook I mean. But I find it quite interesting because it seem that the garbage didn't bother me very much. I usually gather with my group of pals to hanging around the brook and find anything interesting. I used to remember one of my pals talking about a secret chamber he find near the brook, I put a lot of imaginations into it.
Most large cities in China such as Beijing are heavily polluted, well some smaller coastal cities are not as polluted, but they're still no match for Australian cities for air quality.
To whom are concerning the air quality before going to China, I suggest you look up the AQI data for that city. You can obtain the hourly updated data by some mobile apps which is in international standard or by looking up online websites(if you know how to search that in Chinese, searching for "PM2.5") which is in China national standard. Two standards are basically collected from the same source but with different mathematical formulas. For the latter, literally below 75 is equivalent to the good condition for the former.From my perspective, air pollution is generally more serious in north than in south, in winter than in summer. So if you have acute symptom in respiratory, better to stay in south. Recently the situation gets better than several years ago.The casualties of pollution are far more beyond the politic issue IMHO. An innocent hypothesis is that there were two main parties in China, one standing for the north and one representing the south. There would be a big fighting debate on this topic without any real solution. The north would fight for their benefit from heating system and the south would fight for their right of healthy breath (they didn't need the heating system). That's the game of different interests (notorious).
That's only partly true, coastal cities also have very high humidity, which can cause fog far or mist far more often. Fog and mist is what creates smog (smog is fog or mist with pollution particles attached to the water molecules in the air). So in a sense, you can get the ocean winds blowing dry pollution away, but if a morning is humid it will be far worse than in a more dry climate, since the humidity will create this thick gross air.
I know you didn't want us to discuss politics, but frankly I can't see how USA, the UK or my own Sweden could possibly be able to handle one billion people during an industrial revolution. A billion people whos needs should be met. It's a monumental task to even get the majority to be content. There's always gonna be problems naturally with that huge scale, I'm amazed it's gone as smoothly as it has.
I don't see the pollution problem as political so much as one of a developing industrial economy. I feel as they progress farther, pollution control will happen. All of this free economy and manufacturing is relatively new to them compared to Europe or North America. If you think about it, back when we were that new to it all, we had massive pollution problems too, it took a combination of everyone seeing the damage it does, and technology/our familiarity with it for us to start applying it to limiting pollution while still being able to make things quickly and at a reasonable cost. China will get pollution figured out, but it will likely take some time.
great vids-cool doc style...I'm thinking of moving to china for work, was considering either dalian (saw your travel vlog for that as well) or shenzen area and was wondering which city has better/cleaner air?
The price to pay for economic growth is a proportional increase in demand for energy. To meet this continuous increase in demand for energy, China has to rely on its own cheap coal source as it has no abundant source of oil or gas of its own. China tries hard to diversify its energy sources (nuclear, wind, solar, hydro), but ultimately the biggest chunk of its electricity is generated by coal-fired power plants.
Hey, thanks for the videos. I enjoy them all. I was wondering if you could do a video on the big cities in China -- perhaps for each one, you could say what it is well known for, tell us something strange about it, or how the Chinese view the city.
Dear Winston Can you please make your videos longer! 25 mins would be good as I don't watch much TV and your info is very valuable to me as I am moving to China early next year. ps Buy another suit in a different colour ffs :) A three piece pin strip would suit you very well mate haha
7:45 Exactly. I think politically obsessed people forget that China is a nation of over a billion people. Having what essentially is a modern equivalent of an industrial revolution with a billion people is bound to cause some chaos and pollution, not to mention the social shifts and class changes that we see.
When I was in China about 2 years back the only place we ran into a lot of smog was Beijing. You couldn't even see the end of the street in some places. It didn't really bother me too much buy my buddy had to wear a breath mask all the way through the Forbidden City cause he couldn't stop coughing.
Question, 12 hour layover in HK next month. I want Rosted Pig and Roasted Duck, also I want to find Bamboo Noodles, while I am there. Its been so long I dont remember where they are.
awesome videos ..really helpful ...am planning to visit tianjin in a week's time and stay is going to be few months ..could you please tell howz the air quality
Politics doesn't mean taking sides. At least you should look at history. And history and politics often go hand in hand. It's hard sometimes to only talk about what you see but not why it is this way. Also the older I get and the more places I lived, the more interests I have towards politics in different countries and their effect on people and economy.
The nearest large city to me is Atlanta, Georgia (about 30 miles away), and it's been fined millions of dollars for poor air quality (fined as in "lost federal revenue"). It's all due to automobile pollution. Out here where I live it's not so bad, but it's not great either. Thumbs up for avoiding the whole political garbage.
Comparing West standard, HeFei is bad but still acceptable. Since it is not a heavily industrial city. Most factories in China sit near sea coast for exporting purpose. HeFei is not so close to sea, so it's much better than "city of factories" like DongGuan.
12,000 is good salary in shanghai, and living cost is higher as well, but, you dont have any financial pressure, 12,000 is fairly enough for having good live in shanghai, well, the average salary in shanghai supposed to be around 5,000 per month( I mean office worker).
Thanks for this. I've always wondered about pollution there. Sorry about Beijing tho, I have a friend there that can hardly breath. Nothing but haze. Catalytic converters do wonders. Now that we use them on all our cars in L.A. we don't have nearly the smog problem we had in the past. (How far is Shenzhen from the ocean?)
Do you know the pollution levels of Hefei, Anhui? I will be there for 6 months starting from January, and I can hardly find any English information about that city, and despite having learned Chinese for 1.5 years, I'm still not good at reading it :P
Well, if you want a very comfortable life in the city such as Shanghai, Shenzhen or Beijing in China, believe me, 12k RMB per month is not that enough, especially you also need savings. It is a good income but it just can give you the median level of life, you will feel comfortable if you plan it well but definitely not classic life. Median apartment, median transport and median food, all just median stuffs. If you insist on very comfortable life, no problem, but trust me, no savings left.
first point, the climat is different, north of china has dry weather, it has four distinct seasons。 south of china has humid weather. second point ,different culture base. of couse we are one unitid country, but the different of north and south of China is like different of north and south europe. (i observed that the difference between chinese dialects are more grand than serval languages of europe likes between french， spanish and Portuguese)
Your videos are really interesting! Thanks for sharing and uploading. +sub My favorite was talking about stores and purchasing cracked products and how public it is to do those kinds of things. China's culture is really interesting, like paying someone to watch your bike. It seems that everywhere you go there is someone willing to do something for money.
Sanya is beautiful, and maybe is the least-polluted city in China, but the air quality there is still not better than that in New Zealand in general, I've been these two places several times, and I've been taking notice of the air quality of Chinese cities for quite a long time, most of the time, Sanya is on the top of the least-polluted cities list of China, but generally speaking, it's still not that good compared with many cites in Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the U.S.
Oddly enough, I hear a lot of complaining about it, but I thought the air quality in Hong Kong isn't all that bad. Shenzhen is nice. Guangzhou feels like your sucking in exhaust fumes no matter where you are.
some places are beautiful and free of pollution, others are horribly polluted, yeah，especially big city with 10Million people and too much car， factory Industrial city or the edge of the desert city，some places feel like heaven，I hope china government ‘s one trillion money can bring my childhood environment back
As a chinese, I learnt a lot from this foreign guy
me too 我也是的 真的好多事情都不知道 尤其是南方的文化
It's often the case that certain things are kept from a People by their own government/society/etc. I remember that time when there was some corruption scandal in my local city, and public version in the press was just a regular deal, but city officials had talked openly to Chinese press who were interested in the case, so you could learn the full reveal of the crooked things going on in your own city from the Chinese press.
@@wanderer8038 You´re using a VPN. I will tell Winnie.
Your videos are wel done, you have a sort of professional manner that is not faked or superficial . respect to what you have done by yourself in China and here on youtube.
+bitesizefirst thanks mate, means a lot
suggested video: how about do one on The Renewable Energy Revolution in China. I have heard that China is installing one huge wind turbine every hour of every day.
I like your channel.
I agree! I think it's because a lot of his stuff is unscripted and just his own thoughts on the spot. Others write a script and do all this planning and the end result is lacking a sort of genuineness and end up feeling like they have a particular view they're trying to push instead of being objective. While serpentza's videos seem a lot more honest and genuine and ultimately, believable.
Drink every time Winston says "nonsense"
Shenzhen, or any place south of China is pretty clean. The further north you are, the worse (coal-burning, heavy industry etc.). Shanghai is OK, smog is not common nor is it rare. After you go past yellow river, air quality can getting really bad when you start to approach Beijing. The best way to experience this transition is taking a high speed train from Shanghai to Beijing.
I have relative in China, but i've never been there before. As there are so many "not so good" statements on the country. Well, after watching your videos. I guess i could visit them someday! ! Have always loved your video, very truthful, honest and informative!! ~ Your subscriber from Malaysia.
Some of the pics shown were beautiful, lush and green, and this is the beginning of winter. He lives in a very nice environment, IMO.
I really hate when the rain cooperates with sand storms :) Thanks for the comments, I know exactly what you mean.
I travel to China regularly, but also to other countries in Asia and this is a topic often discussed. Personally speaking, pollution is an issue, but the worst air pollution I have seen is in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, where in winter in the outskirts people are burning coal or wood in their gers (yurts). You can smell it even indoors in modern apartments and flights are often cancelled. So this is not an issue for just China and China is not the worst. Just my five cents (or whatever currency you prefer :-D).
Just because the sky is blue and it's not cloudy doesn't mean there isn't air pollution. I use a couple sensors to count particles 3 microns down to .5 microns. The air pollution is often worst on the clear days. When a winter storm comes down from the north it can be 0 ug/m3. We also live near a fracking compressor station and it often releases spikes of air pollution 100, 200, 300+ ug/m3 which is extremely unhealthy and you wouldn't know about it unless you have a sensor.
best air cities are Haikou, Xiamen, and Shenzhen. It is no coincidence they are all on the coast where sea breezes can clear out the air. This is guy is very optimistic. . majority of cities in my own experience are badly polluted, especially in the winter time.
You forgot Fuzhou.
Unfortunately, you don't always SEE pollution. Micro particulate pollution? Can't see it, but it fucks with your respiratory system. Especially, the young and the elderly. Here in South Korea, we get warnings on our phone when the micro particulate pollution gets high. Sometimes the sky is sunny and clear. It's some pretty insidious shit...
I lived in TDC north of Seoul. My hair was always dirtier when I came back from Seoul.
My daughter teaches in a "private school" in a major Canadian city. Most of her students are Chinese kids sent to get North American/English language experience. When she asks them what they experience as a difference, it is air quality and how blue the sky is here. When they go home for holiday they experience a health set back like a flu, breathing difficulties etc. It takes them a few weeks to re-acclimate.
Hey Winston great video .this message is from Jenny and George who have visited you this summer :).Keep up the great work and creativity of your videos.About pollution in china is a big topic honestly i have went to 11 cities around china small and big ones and about Beijing i was very surprise about how good the air was and all around where i have been traveling...the only place that i can say that was just really bad was Xi'an...very polluted compare to any other place...anyways thanks again!!
the most dirtiest city ive visited was paris, the sewerage smell in the paris underground there makes anything ive smelt in china seem like a flower bed :)
Dark Vadertrauebrein Struck a nerve aye mate?
@Dark Vadertrauebrein
Not just Chinese say that, other people say the same thing about Paris. There are videos of Paris streets on internet. There are a lot of refugees and homeless everywhere.
@Dark Vadertrauebrein I have visited China. And many parts of China that I visited have clean, fresh air. I also heard that pollution in some parts, like Beijing, used to be far worse back then, but gradually gets better.
@Dark Vadertrauebrein And, I have visited both China and Paris. I need to support the fact that Beijing and Shanghai are cleaner than Paris now.
The video begins with blue sky and a sunny day. We had none of these for a full year in Anhui Province. We lived right next to a petrochemical plant. My lungs hurt and my eyes burned everyday. I loved my students and made great friends but felt sad for them when I left.
Yeah it’s terrible
The last bit was the funniest ... MicroProfit !! :)
Great video as always Winston, but I must say that I was quite surprised that you didn't mention Linfen.
I found pollution in Shanghai is no more worse than any other big city such as London or Manchester.
lonndon had ever been polluted in 20th century
Bronze Goblet They say it used to be really bad before coal. when they used wood instead
At least Shenzhen doesn't have Chav's !! :)
From my experience zhengzhou is the worst. And trust me i have been to many places in China. Dongguan is polluted in the south part, which is near Shenzhen. But the north part is really enjoying and the air is tolerable. Guangzhou is worst.
And now it is 10 years worse.
Lianyungang (Jiangsu) is fantastic for air quality. Being coastal and moderately developed it really benefits, lots of tourists for the beaches.
I know you don't like to talk politics but I really like your opinion its honest and a good take. Gives us stuck in America and Idea of your beautiful nation you've made home.
One thing that particularly bother me is the sand storm. It really feel horrible when you have to go to school but outside of the window is filled with brown colors. sometimes, sandstorm even cooperate with rain, and then it even drop some dirty rain onto my white shirts. Other than that, I want to say that there has people who put there efforts into this. More trees are planted, and more punishment has been set off for big corporations who initiated such pollution.
i really think winston is just simply afraid of talking about politics rather than not liking it, which is understandable
@serpentza I stopped in Guangzhou and Beijing en route to Europe last year and on both occasions had to leave the terminal building. The smell, particularly in Beijing, was reminiscent of Alexandra and Tembisa during a highveld winter (coal / peat type smell).
The bit about "Microprofit" was lol. There are some business names here in New Zealand where I'm wondering what on earth transpired in the strategy meetings... Names such as "Boomerang Cars" and "Glacier Investments".
Back in S.A. the manager I worked for at MTN and I were good friends. His landlords were Chinese, lovely couple. They invited us over to dinner for a (non-Western) Chinese dinner. This was the first (and to date only) time I've ever had what I now know to be a tea egg. None of my other "chinas" were brave enough to eat it. In all honesty I ate it with "long teeth" but it was okay.
I empathise with you regarding the South African thing, I had to tone down that bizzo when I arrived too. Great video man - I enjoy meeting people too and in my travels I've found a lot of preconceptions to be shattered.
That pita thing you're eating looks delicious!
The reason Shenzhen has a relatively reasonable air quality is it's so near the sea, also it's so close to Hong Kong. Even so, the air quality is far below what you can get in most North American cities. Water quality, is also considerably worse there. Heavy metal containts is folds higher than what you get in US or Canada and is not healthy to be drank directly. Despite my 30 yrs in China, I get sick nearly every time I get there in the past several years
If any of us remember those boring economics classes, we will soon discover we should have stayed awake! The infrastructure investment China has planned (exponentially) is going to make the western world very humble, and soon. I can't wait to go!! I dig the vids man, you're a straight hitter!
the pollution in major cities are mainly air or water, but in the rural areas the soil pollution is quite severe and you dont even notice
Have you gone to Nanning yet? I plan on seeing it if/when I travel there in October this year.
I go to China every few years. Last time was 4-5 years ago. That was Shanghai, Nanjing and Beijing for about 1 month. BJ was the worst. There days that is perfectly fine and other days? The sky is haze. I have very good sense of direction. I could see the sun on a very cloudy day, judging from the shadow and local time, I know the direction, such as North. In BJ, the whole sky was hazed. Like looking a frost light bulb, you could not tell the filament. In this case, I could not see the sun and I have no sense of direction. Yes, you could see about 3/4 mile (1km) with no issue. I do know if I am old (60)? No bad smell I could detect. I heard there are days much worse. Frankly, I do know if that was pollution that gave the haze. But I have never been to a place that I could not see the sun. Hope this helps?
southern China has better air than the north from my experience
Northern China is major Chinese coal producing area and thousands of tons of coals are burnt there as fuel every day.
It has more to do with climate and air flow. The same reason Los Angles is far more smogy than New York City, even though New York city has more cars and more heavy industry, and even coal burning powerplant inside the city.
for example people in Beijing worry about the air and people in Shanghai worry about the water. Shenzhen is a relatively clean city because it's in subtropical area and doesn't have much heavy industry. However, no matter where you are in China, you need to be aware of the unhygienic foods.
my wife &kid have just returned to hubei , about 3 hours west of wuhan, her hometown, , she told me the air was polluted, she never complained about it before, but she has been living in the southeast USA, returning home has, placed her back into a dirty air area, now she understands why i told her the air was like a code red day in a large west coast USA city, , i found yes there is air pollution in china but its not crippling, , shanghai shenzen, hangzhou, wuhan,&others, not a problem for me
My first trip to Shenzhen it had not rained in a long time and I could feel discomfort in my lungs but the level of pollution was reasonable compared to other places. I was just getting over a chest cold so I was more susceptible to noticing it. Now compare Shenzhen to Chengdu and you would think Shenzhen has no pollution. Chengdu has never seen a blue sky and I suspect it is due to pollution but perhaps there is another scientific reason.
It would be nice if there were some longer videos from Winston, however, the video length depends on his internet speed, and how quickly his PC can render the videos. It can take him 12 hours or more sometimes to upload a video (not likely but it can happen). Longer videos would mean a longer time between recording it and it being online. It would also take Winston longer to edit these videos, so all in all, I would rather have the same length videos :)
i'm now living in Boston and i realized that how American cities have good air quality. blue skys are not common in Nanjing, where i came from China near Shanghai
Hello Serpentza, Have you been to Nanjing? I am thinking of moving there next month. Any input about the pollution there would be appreciated. Cheers.
one of my school teachers used to live in Nanjing and he said sometimes you could chew on the air, as you would be breathing in grit and all sorts of crap that was just floating about.
Very interesting video.
Thanks!
How is Tianjin for pollution? Is it better than Beijing, or pretty similar?
Thanks for all the videos, really enjoying them.
I'm looking at teaching in Xiamen in a few years. The Fujian Provence seems to have consistently low levels of pollution from what I've seen. Plus, I'm a tea junkie. :)
Another great learning video
A little more about Guangzhou. I'm from South Africa too. I'm coming over in a couple weeks to teach english in Guangzhou. How would you rate that city?
When I was young, my home is just near a little brook. A polluted brook I mean. But I find it quite interesting because it seem that the garbage didn't bother me very much. I usually gather with my group of pals to hanging around the brook and find anything interesting. I used to remember one of my pals talking about a secret chamber he find near the brook, I put a lot of imaginations into it.
Most large cities in China such as Beijing are heavily polluted, well some smaller coastal cities are not as polluted, but they're still no match for Australian cities for air quality.
To whom are concerning the air quality before going to China, I suggest you look up the AQI data for that city. You can obtain the hourly updated data by some mobile apps which is in international standard or by looking up online websites(if you know how to search that in Chinese, searching for "PM2.5") which is in China national standard. Two standards are basically collected from the same source but with different mathematical formulas. For the latter, literally below 75 is equivalent to the good condition for the former.From my perspective, air pollution is generally more serious in north than in south, in winter than in summer. So if you have acute symptom in respiratory, better to stay in south. Recently the situation gets better than several years ago.The casualties of pollution are far more beyond the politic issue IMHO. An innocent hypothesis is that there were two main parties in China, one standing for the north and one representing the south. There would be a big fighting debate on this topic without any real solution. The north would fight for their benefit from heating system and the south would fight for their right of healthy breath (they didn't need the heating system). That's the game of different interests (notorious).
Great video, I've been watching all of your stuff recently, I learn alot. Thanks :)
That's only partly true, coastal cities also have very high humidity, which can cause fog far or mist far more often. Fog and mist is what creates smog (smog is fog or mist with pollution particles attached to the water molecules in the air).
So in a sense, you can get the ocean winds blowing dry pollution away, but if a morning is humid it will be far worse than in a more dry climate, since the humidity will create this thick gross air.
Good stuff dude. Loving the channel, even though Im I may never go there. But I can see via your videos :)
I know you didn't want us to discuss politics, but frankly I can't see how USA, the UK or my own Sweden could possibly be able to handle one billion people during an industrial revolution. A billion people whos needs should be met. It's a monumental task to even get the majority to be content. There's always gonna be problems naturally with that huge scale, I'm amazed it's gone as smoothly as it has.
Great video, thanks for showing the difference between some of the cities. Now if we can get MicroSooft and MicroProfit to collab? :)
I wish I could have "thumbs up" twice- once for the general content of the video and once more for the end. 😆
No, not at all, it's no secret or anything. It's an awesome looking plant, I've driven past it a few times.
I don't see the pollution problem as political so much as one of a developing industrial economy. I feel as they progress farther, pollution control will happen. All of this free economy and manufacturing is relatively new to them compared to Europe or North America. If you think about it, back when we were that new to it all, we had massive pollution problems too, it took a combination of everyone seeing the damage it does, and technology/our familiarity with it for us to start applying it to limiting pollution while still being able to make things quickly and at a reasonable cost. China will get pollution figured out, but it will likely take some time.
great vids-cool doc style...I'm thinking of moving to china for work, was considering either dalian (saw your travel vlog for that as well) or shenzen area and was wondering which city has better/cleaner air?
dalian is more better
The price to pay for economic growth is a proportional increase in demand for energy. To meet this continuous increase in demand for energy, China has to rely on its own cheap coal source as it has no abundant source of oil or gas of its own. China tries hard to diversify its energy sources (nuclear, wind, solar, hydro), but ultimately the biggest chunk of its electricity is generated by coal-fired power plants.
Yeah, Shenzhen is somewhat clean but try next door in Guangzhou. A different story indeed...
Hey, thanks for the videos. I enjoy them all.
I was wondering if you could do a video on the big cities in China -- perhaps for each one, you could say what it is well known for, tell us something strange about it, or how the Chinese view the city.
Dear Winston
Can you please make your videos longer! 25 mins would be good as I don't watch much TV and your info is very valuable to me as I am moving to China early next year.
ps
Buy another suit in a different colour ffs :) A three piece pin strip would suit you very well mate haha
you are a very honest person, i like your video and i will watch more
I was hoping you would cover about the humidity level in China i find it more difficult to cope with when i was last there.
7:45 Exactly. I think politically obsessed people forget that China is a nation of over a billion people. Having what essentially is a modern equivalent of an industrial revolution with a billion people is bound to cause some chaos and pollution, not to mention the social shifts and class changes that we see.
When I was in China about 2 years back the only place we ran into a lot of smog was Beijing. You couldn't even see the end of the street in some places. It didn't really bother me too much buy my buddy had to wear a breath mask all the way through the Forbidden City cause he couldn't stop coughing.
I already knew the reasons behind the whole "takes ages to upload" scenario, but thanks. :)
Yes! A new episode!
Question, 12 hour layover in HK next month. I want Rosted Pig and Roasted Duck, also I want to find Bamboo Noodles, while I am there. Its been so long I dont remember where they are.
awesome videos ..really helpful ...am planning to visit tianjin in a week's time and stay is going to be few months ..could you please tell howz the air quality
Have you thought about doing a trip around Europe, like you are doing in the US?
Your videos have completely changed my mind on China thank you.
depends what you want to do and what you can do
Politics doesn't mean taking sides. At least you should look at history. And history and politics often go hand in hand. It's hard sometimes to only talk about what you see but not why it is this way. Also the older I get and the more places I lived, the more interests I have towards politics in different countries and their effect on people and economy.
How do you film?
I sometimes see your camera looking to the sides of your motorcycle while your hands are free.
Lol, "Double Vision" by Foreigner. Excellent choice for the topic!
The nearest large city to me is Atlanta, Georgia (about 30 miles away), and it's been fined millions of dollars for poor air quality (fined as in "lost federal revenue"). It's all due to automobile pollution. Out here where I live it's not so bad, but it's not great either. Thumbs up for avoiding the whole political garbage.
Comparing West standard, HeFei is bad but still acceptable. Since it is not a heavily industrial city. Most factories in China sit near sea coast for exporting
purpose. HeFei is not so close to sea, so it's much better than "city of factories" like DongGuan.
In Chongqing the rivers recently turned red. "It is sediment" yeah, right. My wife from Chongqing can never remember red sediment in the rivers.
there's actually an iphone app called "China air quality" that shows the hourly pollution levels in a large number of Chinese cities
12,000 is good salary in shanghai, and living cost is higher as well, but, you dont have any financial pressure, 12,000 is fairly enough for having good live in shanghai, well, the average salary in shanghai supposed to be around 5,000 per month( I mean office worker).
2022.... ten years; how things have changed.
He turns from a youtuber to a propagandist.
That's what living in China for 15 years does to you
thanks for the appreciation of Shenzhen~~Shenzhen is such a beautiful city deserving the visit of you
Thanks for this. I've always wondered about pollution there.
Sorry about Beijing tho, I have a friend there that can hardly breath.
Nothing but haze. Catalytic converters do wonders. Now that we use them on all our cars in L.A. we don't have nearly the smog problem we had in the past.
(How far is Shenzhen from the ocean?)
Do you know the pollution levels of Hefei, Anhui? I will be there for 6 months starting from January, and I can hardly find any English information about that city, and despite having learned Chinese for 1.5 years, I'm still not good at reading it :P
Well, if you want a very comfortable life in the city such as Shanghai, Shenzhen or Beijing in China, believe me, 12k RMB per month is not that enough, especially you also need savings. It is a good income but it just can give you the median level of life, you will feel comfortable if you plan it well but definitely not classic life. Median apartment, median transport and median food, all just median stuffs. If you insist on very comfortable life, no problem, but trust me, no savings left.
Random question, but how much did those Ray Bans cost you? Are higher end goods like that much cheaper in China? Thanks
first point, the climat is different, north of china has dry weather, it has four distinct seasons。 south of china has humid weather.
second point ,different culture base. of couse we are one unitid country, but the different of north and south of China is like different of north and south europe. (i observed that the difference between chinese dialects are more grand than serval languages of europe likes between french， spanish and Portuguese)
Hey mate. I'm in taiwan at the moment studying chinese but i hope to come over to china and visit you some time
Your videos are really interesting! Thanks for sharing and uploading. +sub
My favorite was talking about stores and purchasing cracked products and how public it is to do those kinds of things. China's culture is really interesting, like paying someone to watch your bike. It seems that everywhere you go there is someone willing to do something for money.
Sanya is beautiful, and maybe is the least-polluted city in China, but the air quality there is still not better than that in New Zealand in general, I've been these two places several times, and I've been taking notice of the air quality of Chinese cities for quite a long time, most of the time, Sanya is on the top of the least-polluted cities list of China, but generally speaking, it's still not that good compared with many cites in Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the U.S.
Do you prefer South China cities? Are there any nice Chinese cities in Northern China you would recommend living in?
dalian, tianjin, harbin
Changchun is pretty bad, my wife is from there, we now live in pristine western Norway.
wow! just in time! thanx
Oddly enough, I hear a lot of complaining about it, but I thought the air quality in Hong Kong isn't all that bad. Shenzhen is nice. Guangzhou feels like your sucking in exhaust fumes no matter where you are.
Hmm, I see. But asides from pollution, is it a nice place? Or are there things I should be warned about?
5 years old this video. 12yrs now uv lived here?
the ending was epic. keep on rocking my African Chinese brother!
I've read that's parts of China are especially bad recently. Staff safe out there my friend.
thank you serpentza,for your objective view about china.
some places are beautiful and free of pollution, others are horribly polluted,
yeah，especially big city with 10Million people and too much car， factory Industrial city or the edge of the desert city，some places feel like heaven，I hope china government ‘s one trillion money can bring my childhood environment back
I just can't stand the occational mosquito bite at night. Oh the ichy horror.
Yea for anyone with asthma, and planning on visiting China it's not the best thing.