This Is Where Foreigners Live in Shanghai! | China Vlog

Welcome back to Shanghai. Today's video is going to be very very cold. It's going to be very chill but it's going to be very very interesting because we are going to see one of the most unique areas of Shanghai. This is the former French concession. There are many many people here right now and everybody is looking at that. That is the Wukong building. It is very very similar to the flat iron building in New York City. If I did have to choose I would say the former French concession is my favorite area of Shanghai but it definitely does not feel Chinese. You'll see in a second because I'm going to show you the streets. I'm going to show you some of the buildings but it's a very very beautiful area. It is very touristy. Currently celebrating the year of the horse. The Chinese new year just started here in Shanghai and the city is pretty empty so you might see all these people and think wow it's so busy. No it is usually way busier than this. There is a Dairy Queen. Way too cold for that today. It is currently 40 degrees. It feels like 30. Yesterday was 70 so we lost 30 degrees in one day but we're going to take a walk around the former French concession right now and I'm going to show you some of the sights around here because it is a very very interesting place. I have shown Starbucks many times in my previous videos. Please don't go to Starbucks when you come to Shanghai. There are more coffee shops in this city than any other city in the entire world. So many independent smaller coffee shops. Don't go to Starbucks. So this area is called the former French concession and yes of course it is got something to do with France. So in 1849 France and China became friends so they decided to develop this area of Shanghai to what it is today. They built some very very beautiful roads, some big mansions. There's houses in this area which is extremely rare especially for Shanghai because I don't know anybody that lives in a house. Everybody that I know lives in apartments but there's some huge mansions here and this is a very very expensive area. If you live in the former French concession you are doing pretty well because you need to be making a lot of money to live in this area. But I can show you the streets here. They are so cool but unfortunately there are no leaves on these trees. So I'm going to be coming back in the springtime in the summertime to show you what it looks like because the streets are so cool when the trees are overhanging the road like that it looks beautiful but you still get to see the beauty of the streets right now but it looks a lot better in the summertime in the springtime. I'm going to go to the middle of the street just to show you a little bit but look at that. So literally all of these walls behind them are big houses and a lot of them are still houses but many of them have been converted into cafes into restaurants into bars which is kind of sad. That is the perfect example Look at that house. Look at it. Some very very rich people live there. This is a very very well-off area and this is where a lot of foreigners choose to live and I would not want to live in this area to be honest because it's always going to be crowded. Even now on a less busy day it is still crowded but it is a very cool area. It's a very trendy area. I was trying to think of like the equivalent in the New York City. I don't know where the trendy people live but it's kind of like a shoreditch in London. You know like trendy people and cafes and artists and things like that. This is kind of that area but a lot of foreigners are here. A lot of foreigners. So you can see the streets. Just imagine the trees overhanging the road. It would look even cooler than it looks. You have to be very very careful on these roads just because they're very slim. They're very skinny roads and the cars go very fast. There are scooters everywhere but just look how cool these streets are. This is Wukan Road. It's very very famous here in Shanghai and I'm going to show you somewhere where you can accidentally become famous. It's happened to many many people. They didn't even know it was happening but because this is a trendy area a lot of artists and and foreigners live here. There's a lot of photographers in this area and if you are a foreigner and you put on some nice clothes I think you can come here and it'd be very very easy for you to become famous on Chinese social media because just down here it's a photographer's corner and they like to take random pictures of random people. Like I said sometimes if people don't even know that their picture's being taken it gets uploaded onto Chinese social media and then they become famous. It's very very strange to be honest. A lady just took my picture literally right in my face. I swear she was like two feet away from my face. Some people are so subtle about it but some people make it so obvious. Let me show you the streets again. They are very very cool and there's a lot of balconies like that and I'm trying to find the house that is called the Romeo balcony. I think it's just down here. People like to come and take pictures because of course it reminds them of Romeo and Juliet. Again behind here is just huge mansions. I have no idea who lives there. You need to be making a lot of money. See that cool little store over there? Feels like they just put it into the wall. Like I said 1849 is when France and China became friends and they decided to build this area so we're coming up to 200 years since I mean I'm sure it didn't look like this 200 years ago but we're coming up to 200 years of the former French concession. It is a very very cool area. I just wouldn't want to live here just because you can't get away from it you know. I want to live outside and I can travel in whenever I want to but I don't want to live right here. There's a lot of bars here, a lot of trendy coffee shops. I don't know how trendy a coffee shop can be because coffee is coffee. Let me cross the street here. You can see down the street. Yeah I love coming here when the weather is good. Summertime, springtime but I like coming here at like 6am because there's going to be no people here. The roads are going to be empty. I can ride a bike, I can walk and you can just have the streets to yourself. If you haven't seen the streets of China before they are very very clean, very very rare that you see trash on the ground. There's no homeless people here so I hope that you're pleasantly surprised seeing the streets of China for the first time if you randomly clicked on this video. Hello my name is Ben. I'm from England but I live here in Shanghai. I'm working here as a primary school teacher and I've been here for six weeks now and I'm very very excited to show you what the real China looks like because maybe you didn't know that Shanghai has an area that looks like this. I assume those decorations are for Chinese New Year. Looks like Christmas though. These people are taking a picture of the former residents of Bajin. Everybody knows Bajin right? There is a huge mansion right there but that's your gate. Like who wants to live on a main road like this? I don't want to. I'm sure they're nice big houses but it is not an ideal place to live. Again look at that one. Huge. Absolutely massive. I couldn't even guess how much that cost. Could not even guess. Just such a cool area. So cool. Tell me if you can see an ice cream shop. Can you see it? Can you see it? That small little window there? It's an ice cream shop. Here are some of those trendy restaurants and bars. I think I've been in that one before. I think I went upstairs. See that Tesla? So I'm a foreigner in China but I'm going to expose some foreigners in China right now because there are some people that come here and purely because of where they come from or what they look like they expect special treatment. They expect to be treated like a VIP and they think they're special and I'm here to tell you you're not that special. I'm here to tell you that whatever way you think people should treat you when you come here is completely wrong and it's pretty disrespectful to be honest just because everybody's human being. It doesn't matter where you come from we're all just people and yes some people look better than other people. I've witnessed this many many times and I know some people like this. I work with some people like this. They think they're special purely because they are not Chinese but they're in China. Maybe they're making more money than Chinese people. Maybe they come from a country that's richer than China. I honestly have no idea what they think. There's a cute little coffee shop there. Like I said more coffee shops in Shanghai than any other city don't go to Starbucks but I never understood these people and especially in this area because like I said this is a very very trendy area and a lot of foreigners like to live here because it has those coffee shops it has those restaurants and bars and stuff and they seek out other foreigners even though they're flown across the world to live in China. This is something I've never done and this is I've never felt this way. I've never felt like I'm special being here because I'm not like nobody is literally nobody is but I've never seeked out other foreigners like why would I want to come to China to hang out with British people like I've never understood that feeling. Of course it's nice to have friends. It's nice to have some familiarity. You can talk about things that you both know about and you speak the same language but still I want to I want to see China if I come to China and there's a lot of people that they come here and they think they're special. So this road is Anfu road and that road is Wukong road and this is a very very famous corner or intersection because this is called photographer's corner and you are going to see many many many photographers here. You're going to see a lot of people live streaming on Chinese social media and the reason I wanted to talk about foreigners just then is because they are very very popular on Chinese social media. I think it's very very easy for a foreigner to become famous or popular on Chinese social media if they have a certain look. So the photographers like to come here and they like to take photographs of good-looking people. I don't just mean foreigners, I mean good-looking people. So if they're stylish, if they're wearing nice clothes and if they're beautiful or handsome then they will definitely take their picture and they will upload it onto Chinese social media and maybe they will randomly become famous. These people don't even know this is happening. These people didn't ask for this. Some people do ask for it. Some people know for a fact there's going to be photographers here so they wear their best clothes and they just walk up and down. They're going to walk there, they're going to come back, they're going to walk again, they're going to cross the street and they will literally do it 10 times hoping that more and more people take their picture and then they will become famous. I've seen people do this. I know people that do this and it's very very sad to be honest that people need this. People need this kind of attention like you know they're looking for I don't even know what the right word is. Reassurance that they look good. I never understood it but yeah this is a very strange corner to be honest because many many people have accidentally become famous even though they they didn't know it was happening. So I guess if you want to have your photo done then come to the corner of Wukong Road and Anfu Road. It is right here. I see a few photographers not too many at the moment just because the crowds are pretty low but in the summertime in the springtime there is going to be hundreds of people here hundreds. I came here one time and the street was just full of people like security is usually here like getting people out the street just because people are literally just crowd around anybody that looks beautiful anybody that looks handsome but they will literally chase them down the street like I've seen photographers chase foreigners down the street trying to get their picture because of course like the photographers make money themselves when they post these things so it's not just about the people like the photographers are trying to make money too I guess you can say the closest thing to being famous like paparazzi you know like paparazzi will chase the famous people and they make money from selling their pictures right to the newspaper or whatever the same thing happens here but purely because of purely because of what someone looks like like they don't even know who they are they're nobodies like they're literally nobodies but yeah it happens here I know I just spoke a lot there but this is something that I want to I don't know any other place that it happens so I'll give you a perfect example like across the street right now there are two foreigners and they have a little dog in like a cart like if there was photographers here which there are not too many they would have the picture taken and they would upload it to Chinese social media and maybe they will become famous overnight it's pretty strange I honestly have no idea if you find that interesting but it does happen here and it happens to people that don't even know it's happening I think that's that's the that's the interesting thing but going back to like the foreigners that want attention purely because they're a foreigner in China like they come here and wear their best clothes and walk up and down up and down up and down like purely because they want people to take picture of them like it's kind of sad to be honest so if you're one of those people what do you want anyway enough about that rubbish definitely something I don't agree with something I've never done I've never tried to get attention purely because I'm a foreigner in China but I guess if you do want to see beautiful people then come here but there's going to be people that are looking for attention it's kind of sad but yeah this area is a it's pretty strange area just because it doesn't feel like China it doesn't look like China but we are not too far away from some very very Chinese areas and very very Chinese streets there's some very old areas in here they're called Shukumans which are like old lanes and old streets I'm going to show you in another video because that that's worth a lot like that's worth its own video just because it's so interesting but yeah this area former French concession let's take a walk we have some more interesting things to see in this area so everywhere I go today in today's video is going to be in the description so you can come here too there is a primary school right here I'm a primary school teacher here in Shanghai if you didn't know that but I think I'm going to make a whole other video about what it feels like to be a foreigner in China because it's a pretty unique experience and I've never I've been to 70 countries 70 70 and nowhere else feels like feels like China I haven't had the same experiences here that I've had in other countries like things only happen here and they don't they don't haven't happened anywhere else and I'm going to talk about a little bit now but I'm going to make a whole video about it but people have asked me do do Chinese people look at me and do Chinese people look at foreigners in general not just me but the do I get looked at yeah every single day it's happened a lot here every single day people look at me and people take pictures of me and people want to speak to me in English and there is absolutely nothing you can do about it if you have a foreign face nothing you can do about it it's definitely it's definitely an interesting experience because I think it's the closest thing you can get to being famous like because I didn't do anything to warrant that purely because of what I look like like I didn't do anything to to get that attention but I do get that attention and most of the time I'll say 90% of the time I love it it's so much fun and I have fun with it and kids want to speak to me in English and you know people don't expect that I speak Chinese so when when they see a foreigner and then I start speaking Chinese like it definitely surprises them so I like that part of it but the 10% of the time I mean everybody has these moods where I don't want anybody to look at me I don't want anybody to speak to me and that is no different here it happens in England too like don't look at me don't speak to me and I'm just not in the mood to deal with anything so I definitely have those times too so I will literally wear a hat I'll wear my hood I'll wear my sunglasses and I will literally try and be like this to try and hide my face just because I'm not in the mood for anybody to talk to me or look at me or take a I would definitely be interested to know how much apartments cost in this area because of course the houses are very very very expensive but I'm not sure about the apartments I assume I mean I know they're going to be very very expensive but I'm not too sure how much they are going to cost especially the high-rises like I don't know how much it will cost to live up there I assume it's a lot more expensive than my apartment because I don't live in this area I don't want to live in this area but I'd be interested to know I assume the houses are probably over a million dollars I'd love to know your opinion about this by the way so when you've been traveling do you get very very excited like for example if you're American do you get excited if you meet another American in Spain or another American in Australia like do you get excited about that because for me I don't want to meet British people in Spain I don't want to meet British people in China like I don't want to do that but I understand that some people like to do that do you I'd love to know your opinion I'm going to talk about these again so there's one there there's one there there's one there there's one there so these are portable chargers for your phone so I can take my phone and scan this QR code this is going to pop out and then I can charge my phone it's going to cost about one US dollar to completely charge my phone and then I just find an empty slot it doesn't even need to be the same box I put it back in and then it's returned very very convenient look how close that but that bus is to the bikes swear the roads here are so dangerous I've had people ask me some extremely strange questions about life in China somebody did ask me do they have banks here of course they do here's a bank ICBC this is my bank you see what I mean about trendy stores down here like this store just sells little cups and bowls how do they make enough money to stay in business I have no idea many many clothing stores down here this one is not sure what that is spices not sure shoe store real estate you show you the empty streets here because this is extremely rare the only reason the streets are empty is because it's Chinese New Year and most people have already left left left Shanghai gone back to their hometowns but I just saw a foreigner family over there it was mom dad and two kids the kids were maybe 10 and 12 years old and I think it's such good experience to show the kids a different country from their own and different culture and different language different food like different people like everything is different here everything and I've had so many people write comments to me send me emails and messages to say Ben after watching your videos I now want to visit China and that's great I hope that you come here one day and I hope that you see it for yourself because I don't care if you visit here I don't care what you think of China like I'm not trying to change your opinion I honestly don't care what you think about China I'm just showing you what what real life is like here I'm just pick up my camera point it at the street and say hey look at this this is what China looks like that's all I'm doing really so the people that have told me I want to visit China now great why not like that's all I can say is why not so the people that are considering visiting here why not do it like why not do it I'm not trying to convince you I don't care if you come here but you have to be prepared you have to be prepared to see a country that is completely different from your own you have to be open-minded you have to realize that nothing is wrong here nothing is wrong it's just a different culture it's just a different way of life and it's an extremely safe place so I think China is a good place to go that has a different culture but you're also I've never felt in physical danger here never and I know there's many many countries that I want to go to that have a completely different culture from my own from the UK but I don't want to go there because maybe it's not safe for me to go there so just come here like why wouldn't you come here that's that's all I have to say but I don't care if you come here or not it doesn't affect me in any way but I encourage you to come here looks like all of these places are completely closed down so I assume the owners of these places have uh gone back to their hometowns weather today is absolutely grim another big mansion over there so I originally wanted to film this video yesterday but the air quality was really really bad so a normal air quality I mean zero is good but yeah right now it's like 20 or 30 but yesterday was 140 AQI and anything over 100 is dangerous and yesterday was 140 you could literally see the pollution in the air it was really really bad and then I was going to film it this morning but it was pouring with rain but it is very very cold right now if you're wondering about food here you can get absolutely any western food that you want so Charlie's that's a burger place of course they have the regular McDonald's KFC stuff like that Starbucks which I've already showed you so if you're worried about food you don't have to worry because anything you want you can still get it but of course I highly recommend you eating Chinese food and embracing the culture and eating noodles and rice and it's delicious it's so delicious but you're also going to be saving money because it's so much cheaper to eat Chinese food here than western food and I've been trying to think all day what the stupid question I got yesterday was and I just remembered it somebody turned somebody asked me do the products in China say made in China what what somebody literally asked me that do things say made in China in China yes they do yes because they are made in China okay I'm going to cross the street right now just to show you something that is completely normal here that would never ever ever happen in the UK it's not going to happen in the US but this is something that I see every day let me cross the street and show you and that is I've already talked about how safe China is and this is another thing that happens look they're packages they're literally left out in the open nobody's guarding them there's no delivery driver here he's on his way to pick these up but look package is just sitting there in the street no one's going to steal them and that is completely normal here if you think it's normal that people do steal them then no that is not the way life should be so these packages just sit in there in the middle of the street no one's going to steal them here is what we are celebrating here is the year of the horse 2026 I hope that you get rich this year I can't wait to come back to the former French concession and film a video when the weather is good and when the leaves grow back on the trees because remember this video if you hit subscribe and in a month's time or two months time I'll come back and film a video here remember this one because it's going to look very very different than now and I'm going to come very very early in the morning too when there's no people but we're going to see one more thing that's not too far away from here and it is a big big big landmark here in Shanghai and it's definitely somewhere I recommend you visit if you ever visit Shanghai it's just down the street here and then I can go home and get warm because I am so cold here are those shared bikes again each bike has its own QR code so if I take my phone and scan this QR code then the bike is going to unlock and then that is my shared bike I can ride it for as long as I want and then I can lock it up and that's it someone else is going to pick it up again another thing that makes life here in China very convenient I don't recommend visiting China during Chinese New Year by the way because you're not going to get the full experience for example this is one of the busiest areas in the city and most of the things are closed just because the owners have gone back to their hometowns they're not from Shanghai they come back to their hometowns for the holiday and you're going to miss out on a lot just because there's not going to be everything available if you visit during this time and also it's a pretty strange time of year to come because 25 million people live in Shanghai and apparently the population is going to half this week it's going to half over 10 million people are going to be taking trains and planes out of Shanghai so yeah don't come during Chinese New Year so we have arrived we've almost arrived at our next destination there is the metro station it is just across the street our next destination is right there it is golden we have arrived at what I think is the fourth best landmark here in Shanghai I think it goes the and then the pepsi store no I'm joking welcome to Jing'an temple it is a 1700 year old buddhist temple it is beautiful that night is going to be lit up gold but it is a must visit if you ever come to Shanghai you have to go to Jing'an temple go very very early in the morning so the crowds are going to be lower but it is beautiful inside I'm definitely going to go inside Jing'an temple not today because that is going to be its own video and they got some tulips tulips lining the road and it looks like there's a market across the street let's take a look looks like we're going to see a lot of homemade stuff souvenirs very cool very nice a lot of foreigners here again because they like to see Jing'an temple oh there's some food stores here so there's some French people behind me and I think it's so funny that when Chinese people see foreigners in China they automatically expect them to speak English and I remember seeing a video the guy was like an influencer or whatever but he lives in China but I think he was like Spanish or Russian or something but he didn't speak English that well so when people speak to him he speaks Chinese but so when people speak to him in English they would say no no let's speak Chinese because they don't speak English so they just they just expect every foreigner to speak English it's pretty funny that is octopus I had that in a in Japan not a fan there's tofu there there is stuffed mushroom with shrimp paste there's a lot of different stuff barbecue smells delicious there is Jing'an temple it always makes me laugh historical places in in China they always looked after very well but they're always surrounded by state-of-the-art things for example there's like a modern shopping center here right next to a 1700 year old Buddhist temple it's pretty funny and then on the other side there used to be an Ikea it's not there anymore but the Ikea used to be there and then built into the temple is like jewelry stores and clothing stores it's always funny but of course it's good that they look after the historic stuff but can you see it can you see it yes that is a Mi Xue Bing Chang this is the greatest thing in the entire world but I'm going to resist I'm not going to get anything today let me teach you some more survival Mandarin things that you absolutely need to know whenever you visit China so there is Jing'an temple 1700 year old Buddhist temple and there is Burger King Burger King is Han Bao Wang Jing'an temple is a very bustling busy area a lot of shopping restaurants and of course the temple we're going to end this video getting some delicious lunch because I am starving let me teach you some funny Mandarin Chinese so lollipop lollipop is bang bang tang bang it means stick and tang it means sugar so it's literally stick stick sugar bang bang tang lollipop got some more market stalls here we are going to go inside the crystal plus mall let's get some delicious food this is what a standard shopping mall looks like they're always very very clean very big I did make a video previously showing a shopping mall and people were very very impressed by it they were like wow but this is literally what every single shopping mall looks like nothing special and you will see interesting and unique things in every single shopping mall here there's dogs do you know any shopping malls that have dogs in the middle I think it's an adoption thing or do you like rent them for an hour or something I think those dogs are up for adoption very very cute but I don't like that look at this place look at it it is massive wow just be aware that usually the best restaurants are not going to have an English menu because that is when you get the the most authentic food so you definitely want to go to a place that does not have an English name just like I think I'm going to go to this place it's noodles it looks absolutely delicious and it makes me miss Tokyo yeah we're doing this place definitely look at this place pretty cool definitely Japanese though so I'm going to scan this QR code and let's take a look at the menu so if you have WeChat you're going to scan the QR code and it's going to look like this but if you go right to the top you press the three dots you press translate and now we have an English menu so it's going to be a lot easier to choose something that you like because you can only get so much information from the pictures because sometimes you're ordering something and there's going to be an ingredient in it that you don't want for example I don't want spicy so I need to make sure that I choose something that is not spicy so let me look at the menu and I'll tell you what I get in a second definitely going to be noodles wow that was absolutely delicious so the beef noodles with a crispy pork chop and an iced tea was 56 yuan which is here is my receipt that is eight US dollars and that is expensive for China standards just because we're in a shopping mall you can get it way cheaper if you go outside so remember I said go to a place that doesn't have an English name so this place doesn't have English name but you have to be careful because this place is my McDonald's so these boxes here they're for the delivery driver so the delivery driver will come he has a code puts the code in and then the door open and then that's his delivery I haven't had any burgers or fast food since I've arrived in Shanghai if you are interested in seeing some western fast food then let me know I can definitely make a video about it look at this place I definitely don't have shopping malls like this where I live that is the end of this video thank you so much for taking the time out of your day to watch my video I hope that you had fun watching this and I hope that you enjoy seeing real life here in China hit subscribe if you want to see more videos from China have a great day see you next time goodbye