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

I'm Oscar. And I'm Dan. And today we're in... Shanghai! The current tensions between the US and China can be seen all over the news in the West. The US and China have significant disagreements. Issues like trade, human rights, Taiwan, and of course COVID have all sparked controversy 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-COVID China, we headed to Seoul Incheon Airport to catch our flight. The journey to China begins in 2023. 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 it's 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 COVID test to enter. But luckily you can do it at home. You said a color test, I think. COVID test, COVID test. I'm pretty sure it's a COVID test. You need to 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 COVID test this morning in our hotel room. 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 if that was the case. So 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. It's time to go. Shanghai, here we come. 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. Guys, look how huge the notes are. They're so satisfying. They look very square. I don't know why this feels so cool. I think it's also like the adrenaline and the excitement and the fact we have so little time. We're just like, let's go. In the taxi and we just had this crazy thought after, 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, wait, he's like, don't you see? Like you should have just said that. 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's 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. Now with the rise of TikTok, 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, oh, I wonder what's going on in there. Okay, everyone has been so nice to us so far. It's amazing. 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 and 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 Oscar and I have this running joke with our friend April Lin from Singapore because we both started learning Chinese on Rosetta Stone. Like I was 14 or 13. We did like a few lessons each. 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 which means a girl is swimming, I think. Yeah. So we have made up this song that we always sing just for fun. It's It's so stupid. As we often do when we explore a city, we looked up a restaurant online and just started walking through the neighborhood. There's so many smells. Like that's the number one impression for me. Here on the street, it just smells like bao, 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. Think this is it. I think so. Okay, so we made it to the restaurant. It's a vegetarian restaurant I'm not sure if it's this branch specifically or if it's like, you know, if it's a chain. So it's a very old school vegetarian restaurant and we just got to show you some of the names in this menu. Anyone want some bran with the peas? Here we have some lentinus edogies. All right, we have some black pepper vegan beef, some sesame vegan chicken. And 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 is not like a new vegan thing in the West. This art of making malt 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, environmental, whatever, anything. 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 Aipay, like different Chinese apps. Like what? Aipay. Aipay, Alipay. What is it called? Alipay. Yeah, we're trying to get one off the street but they're not really stopping for us. So now after... Wait, wait. Sorry, just gonna fix. 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. Okay. We made it to the Shanghai Science Museum but our destination lies just underneath it. This is obviously not a science museum. This is one of the world's biggest and absolute best fake markets. 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 was 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 really have fakes of the most amazing stuff. This is like the epitome of everyone heckling you. Jason. Okay, Jason. Welcome to Sri Lanka. Hello, suitcase. I'm back. How many years are you here? Okay, thank you. The first order of business is trying to find glasses for Dan. 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. 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. Dan has landed in heaven. Very beautiful. Nice. This is a bigger size. I'll give you a plus, okay? Bigger size, I'll give you a plus. Okay, don't worry. One other store, they already told me this size. 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 pretty insane. Yeah, kind of sad. It's so crazy to me how like immediately Dan is just like yeah, this one is realistic, this one is not. I'm like, how can you tell instantly? Oh my god. Not me adjusting it in the store. He switched places. So now these are down. They're on the wrong side. Sorry. The worst part is the stress because this place is like closing any minute 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. Next up, a new backpack. That's still a lot. 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. I got a new wristband for my Apple Watch. From 150, no from 150 to 30. To 30, yep. And then back to pick up the glasses. Show us the new glasses. Whoa. Wow, so so clean. So now we have to drop? 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. I got this. I guess the only thing is like workout clothes. They're so expensive. I was thinking suitcases 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 dollars but that can of course be brought down if you haggle. We have been here like an hour and a half and we have bought so much stuff. I think our guy who was carrying like our stuff around for the longest time to all the different stores. For an hour and a half. Yeah, he got the craziest commission probably because he just paid for our subway ticket and he was like don't even ask, like I don't want anything for it. We're like so sweet. Like he was 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 ticket. 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 no just go. So how amazing. 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 has set which is the walkway along the river so we can see the iconic skyline when it's all lit up. I'm so proud of us for just improvising. We just got on the subway. We weren't even supposed to take it. Took it to the stop we thought would be close. We ended up getting out on this street so like it couldn't have been more perfect. I think for someone who's never been to China Shanghai just does not at all feel like what you would expect. Like it feels so cosmopolitan. Feels pretty much like any other city like any other big city in the west to be honest and I realize 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 Russians 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 your eyes to the world being so much more awesome than it's painted in the news. Am I really stupid or is this like middle eastern dessert? It's like turkey stew. Are we in a middle eastern dessert store and we just don't understand? 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. In other words carrying around this thing that just looks like trash. VR? Where am I? The stream of photo taking continues and we're not asking for the photos let's be clear. 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 foreign in China you will be asked to take a million pictures with 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. I found dinner. We're having the most Chinese dinner you could possibly imagine which is falafel and hummus. The reason is that pretty much all the restaurants with vegan options or vegetarian options for that matter were closed at this hour. They closed at like 8. Yeah they closed super early. So we decided to check out what the middle eastern scene of China is like. Definitely better than I was expecting for middle eastern food in Shanghai to be honest. Good morning! Wow it's so hot today let's go to the shade. We both like gasped as we went outside but what a day we had yesterday honestly. One of my best days of the year. Just so many amazing experiences. We were gonna head out at 9am. It's 8.30am so that's very accurate for us. Wait what do you mean? 7am you mean? 7 what did I say? 9 yeah. Oh that would not have been like this. No we meant to go out at 7am. 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 a jam-packed day. 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 we came to Shanghai now and I think we're gonna sit down and tell you more about exactly what happened then. But 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 and that 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'd just done our interrail trip around Europe. 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. So fondly 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 friend's 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 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 had to stare at the mask. But I'm so embarrassed about my skin under here so that's what we're doing in Shanghai. Actually fine but he doesn't want to take it off. Also it's so crazy to think about that we were 19 then. And 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 eyes 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. But 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. I'm making it. Not a sidewalk. Yeah what do you call it? A crosswalk. Sorry. A zebra crossing. I don't speak English. 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 were 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 one million. 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 homogenous. 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 a surprise fight. But another thing is that not a single person has told us off 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. Our first Chinese family mart. Okay, so we're finding all types of goodies. Yeah, some awesome vegan drinks. We love this. Milk made from plants is of course free of burden. Makes sense, right? Yes, taro flavor, yum. 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 get to try it. Okay, the taro flavor isn't that strong, but it's really nice. I like it. And it's not too sweet, which is good. 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. 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'd 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, it's that the reality on the ground for regular people is rarely what you see in the news. Although this was just a short stop 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 100 countries to show that anyone can travel off the beaten path, regardless of who they are. However, we realized 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.