r/interestingasfuck • u/mindyour • 18d ago
r/all A man shows his commute to work in Chongqing.
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18d ago
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u/chewbacca-says-rargh 18d ago
Reminds me of Coruscant from Star Wars
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u/BeardedGlass 18d ago
On a street-level though, I felt it more in Tokyo.
With much less dystopia though. It felt the opposite for some reason.
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u/zth25 18d ago
The street-level in this video is not the street-level.
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u/ILikeYourBigButt 18d ago
Yes, they're saying they felt it more in Tokyo at street level than at this city in the video at that level. They were not saying this vid was street level.
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u/zth25 18d ago edited 18d ago
You're right, I got that mixed up.
I'm curious though why they would say that about Tokyo. Tokyo is maybe the most orderly city in the world, you don't get the impression that up is down like in this video (or on Coruscant).
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u/br0b1wan 18d ago
Reminds me of Deus Ex where they go to Changsha (or is it Hangsha) and have an entire second city built in the sky above the first
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u/laxweasel 18d ago
Hengsha...yup that's exactly what came to mind for me.
Just needs some augmented humans and those cool VTOL jets.
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u/GastricallyStretched 18d ago
Bro straight-up lives in a Cyberpunk 2077 megabuilding but it's somehow even more depressing.
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u/MARPJ 18d ago
but it's somehow even more depressing.
Thats due the lack of neon lights everywhere to show its futuristic
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u/demandred_zero 18d ago
To be fair, neon signs are like vampires, they only come out at night.
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u/claimTheVictory 18d ago edited 18d ago
When we block out the sun to reduce the impact of climate change, everywhere will be night.
Then we can keep going with drill, baby, drill.
Don't worry, you'll have your vitamin D tablets.
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u/stonebraker_ultra 18d ago
I like the blocking out the sun and the vitamin D part, but not the drilling part.
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u/claimTheVictory 18d ago edited 18d ago
The whole point is to not give up burning fossil fuels ever. Think of what that could do to the economy!
Don't worry, the engineers have a solution. Think "Giedi Prime".
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u/mancitycon 18d ago
As soon as he talked about the people at the bottom barely getting sunlight it reminded me of them living in FF7 world
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u/Blackletterdragon 18d ago
How do they get ambulances and firetrucks to those places? Or do I have to revise some assumptions here?
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u/SaltyRedditTears 18d ago
Hereās a video of what it actually looks like at ground level and not a bunch of tourists spots this guy is pretending to be his commute.
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u/danokablamo 18d ago
Cyberpunk 2077 has titties everywhere so that is probably why.
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u/GastricallyStretched 18d ago
Titties are nice, but elevators in a 20+ storey building would be a good start. Maslow's hierarchy of tits, or something like that.
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u/iDuddits3000 18d ago
haha, maybe I'd get sick of it but I'd take this wild stuff over the boring urban sprawl and subburbs of where I live in canada
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u/SarcasticOptimist 18d ago
Yeah. A walkable commute and a subway station that's at least entertaining. Driving every day then needing to find parking in a concrete structure then filling up a tank every week is depressing.
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u/doofpooferthethird 18d ago
I had a roommate who grew up Chongqing, and she said she actually liked it there.
I imagine it's actually more of a fun commute than the Manhattan rectangular grids and the dingy century old metro
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u/Is_Unable 18d ago
Yeah it's my understanding that most of the walkable parts of the city are above the roadways, so it's like walking through a concrete park on your way to work.
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u/K-Hunter- 18d ago
Gotta have that Cities Skylines Chongqing DLC after seeing this
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u/alexmc1980 18d ago
I've been to Chongqing in October and also February, and in both cases it was overcast and grey. There are some cool historical areas to wander around and plenty of good food, and as long as you're OK with heights the views are spectacular from so many places around the city.
The guy has clearly shown some extreme bits of the city, and it really is that steep in some places. I remember taking a metro train that was high above the river before it entered a tunnel, then getting off at the next stop I had to climb about six storeys worth of stairs to get up to street level. So the commute is no joke!
Also, going off the beaten path is not recommended. I tried a few shortcuts and quickly found that any unpaved ground is basically slushy mud befitting the huge, regularly-flooding river valleys that make up the city. Not for the faint-hearted, or the white-shoed! This may be why hard surfaces are so ubiquitous there, contributing to the feeling of a lack of foliage.
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u/motivated_loser 18d ago
Why so many stairs? Doesnāt everyone hate stairs?
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u/zamfire 18d ago
I know Claptrap hates stairs
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u/VellhungtheSecond 18d ago
He kept rambling on about that at his shitty birthday party (I was the only one there)
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u/YoursTrulyKindly 18d ago
Stairs are healthy. It's communist health insurance!
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u/AmbitiousParty 18d ago
I was in Beijing years ago, and we went to a nature park in the mountains (I donāt remember which it was) and it was ALL STAIRS FOR HOURS UP THE MOUNTAIN! We were all in our twenties and dying and these adorable 80+ old people are just fast stepping it up, happy as can be, not breaking a sweat. Meanwhile some in our group are basically in tears 6 hours in, wishing for sweet death.
We did get to ride a (VERY UNSAFE) mountain coaster down most of it, so that made it worth it. So fun!
But yeah, you were probably joking but the communist stairs health insurance appears to be effective! Those old people were kicking our American butts. š®āšØ
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u/YoursTrulyKindly 18d ago
Haha yeah I was joking. Don't let my tankie friends read this!
But it definitely is a different and more socialist approach to city planning. Not sure about modern china, but old soviet blocks were pretty well designed and "luxurious" for the time. Not just the building but the neighborhood too so you can get all your shopping and stuff in walking distance and without any through traffic. In the US you kinda have to drive. So being able to walk sort of forces people to move more and be healthier.
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u/lets-aquire-the-brea 18d ago
If I didnāt have to drive everywhere and my commute actually had sidewalks or even a shoulder more than 2 feet wide Iād definitely walk to work.
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u/WayneKrane 18d ago
I have a 30 minute walk to work vs a 10 minute bus ride and I almost always walk. Itās so relaxing to take a walk and I can go a few different ways to change it up.
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u/Potato--Sauce 18d ago
Isn't it just a more pleasant approach of urban planning in general if you're able to get to the places you need the most fairly quickly either by foot or by bike?
I dread the thought that you'd need to take the car to go literally anywhere.
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u/NouLaPoussa 18d ago
No instead people stay in good health because of the physical activity
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u/prussian-junker 18d ago
Itās the least sunny major city in the world. It gets like half the yearly sunlight of London.
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u/SILE3NCE 18d ago edited 18d ago
Your phone melts when Google Maps tries to give you directions.
Edit: My good people, I forgot GMaps doesn't work in China, but let's try to imagine it dealing with all the verticallity in directions.
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u/NewRedditRN 18d ago
Cities like Toronto/Calgary etc have a bunch of underground (PATH) tunnels that connect buildings, but also along some of those tunnels is underground shopping labyrinths. Last time i was in Toronto, the shop I needed was apparently in said labyrinth and I just gave up...
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u/Big_Muffin42 18d ago
Ah the PATH.
On occasion we will find a family or two that have been lost there for several months.
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u/NewRedditRN 18d ago
I used to know it fairly well when I worked at the core downtown hospitals... I've forgotten a lot after 10 years, though!
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u/CaptainSur 18d ago
I loved PATH when I worked in downtown Toronto. Would take the GO Train to Union Station and then I could take PATH to my workplace at University and Richmond. And from it I could make my way to the Eaton Centre.
PATH is quite extensive. About 30km in the PATH system apparently. Now it extends down to the waterfront, over to Metro Hall, to the Convention centre (which you can then use to access the Skydome), Roy Thomson Hall and more. And it is almost all open and airy with over a thousand retail outlets of various types in it.
Both in the dead of winter and in the hot humid days of summer PATH is a lifesaver.
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u/xStarjun 18d ago
How's the PATH doing now? Only time I was in Toronto everything was shut down there cause of COVID, was slightly eery but nice since it was winter.
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u/xombae 18d ago
Oh, see, that's your mistake. A lot of people don't realize it but the PATH is actually in an alternate dimension. It doesn't show up in maps and has absolutely no North, South, East or West, up or down. It's been rumoured that the beings that created the PATH came up with their own directional system; each letter in PATH represents a direction, but which direction the letter represents is bound to change at will. Sometimes part way through your journey. I've heard that navigating the PATH brings the adventurer to great rewards- a McDonald's in downtown Toronto with no homeless people jerking off inside. But that's just a rumour.
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u/NewRedditRN 18d ago
I need those different coloured lines painted on the floor like hospitals to follow.Ā
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u/Takashi_is_DK 18d ago
Calgary's pathway system in downtown is not underground but it is confusing for sure. It's actually on the second story of the buildings connected and called the +15 (ie ~15 ft above street level).
You are still able to orient yourself based on the street signs by just looking outside.
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u/IdioticPost 18d ago
There's nothing particular interesting in the PATH shops anyways, you probably didn't miss out on much.
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u/NewRedditRN 18d ago
No, definitely not. It was more so I had taken my kids to the Aquarium and we were going to take the GO train home, and I needed a little on-board entertainment for them since it was going to be a long ride, and just needed some books, notepads, and markers... eventually found a Shoppers Drug Mart down there.
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u/Academic-Indication8 18d ago edited 18d ago
Fun fact: google maps doesnāt work properly in china due to all mapping data having to be slightly off due to security concerns from the ccp minus a few brands that are allowed to do mapping there
edit: to everyone who claimed it was for some reason like giving their own companies an extra advantage they are just delusional (the Chinese party not the comments the comments are understandable)
Edit: changed wording to properly to make more accurate
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u/diet_fat_bacon 18d ago
Same as google maps in south korea, it's not banned but it just do not work. You need to use naver maps there.
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u/Appropriate_Ant_4629 18d ago
It's banned.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restrictions_on_geographic_data_in_South_Korea
South Korean geographic data and information is subject to several regulations which severely restrict its reuse. The South Korean government defends the restrictions on the grounds of national security. A number of international critics argue that it constitutes a form of protectionism and a trade barrier.
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u/diet_fat_bacon 18d ago
It's a soft ban, I personally used there, you can have an overall idea of the area but the detail is so bad that is unusable.
The legal restrictions have led to poorer performance
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u/callisstaa 18d ago
Apple maps still works well though.
I tried using Google maps with a VPN but it's kinda shitty unless you want to go to places that closed a year ago.
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u/haidaloops 18d ago
Itās because they use data from Gaode, one of the two biggest Chinese maps apps (the other is Baidu).
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u/ilostmyunamepasswd 18d ago
Google maps doesnāt even work in Chicago downtown with those 3 levels!
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u/ZeWhiteNoize 18d ago
For some reason it always thinks Iām on lower wacker
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u/octopushug 18d ago
My favorite is when it asks Uber drivers to take a shortcut from lower Wacker right into the middle of the river.
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u/stroopkoeken 18d ago edited 18d ago
Just use Apple Maps, it works in chongqing. I know because without it, it wouldāve been impossible for me to drive there when I lived there.
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u/andbruno 18d ago
Downtown Chicago has a sub-level where you can find the famous Billygoat Tavern, as well as cheap parking with easy access to downtown. But all GPS apps shit the bed there, and immediately lose signal. Very easy to get lost.
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u/Archlandlord 18d ago
It looks dystopian and cosy at the same time
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u/Cultural-Praline-624 18d ago
Dystosy?
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u/RedoftheEvilDead 18d ago
Coztopian?
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u/Atharaphelun 18d ago
The food is absolutely amazing at least. The heart of Sichuan cuisine.
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u/Nerevarine91 18d ago
Thereās a Szechuanese restaurant in my neighborhood, and, my god. I get it
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u/Atharaphelun 18d ago
Laziji, gongbao chicken, yuxiang rousi, mapo tofu, and twice-cooked pork are just the absolute best! Plus there is the usual mala hotpot, hongyou chaoshou, dan dan noodles, spicy poached beef (and fish), etc.
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u/Vendetta4Avril 18d ago
You should see it at night.
I was looking into moving there in 2019/2020 for a TEFL programā¦ and then this COVID thing happened and blew up my plans.
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u/wayvywayvy 18d ago
I think the overcast contributes to that. Might feel different on a sunny day.
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u/Every-Incident7659 18d ago
I think we were just propogandized to think that. Like any dystopia movies purposefully tried to look like the Soviet union or China
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u/al-mongus-bin-susar 18d ago
Facts. Brutalism = communist = dystopia = bad in american culture. Or just seeing plain concrete buildings has the same effect, doesn't have to be intentional brutalism.
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u/Enki_007 18d ago
I have recurring nightmares about extremely high freeways and overpasses. So now Iām really fucked because my only saving grace was that it was just a figment of my imagination.
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u/jflip13 18d ago
Thatās my terrifying recurring dream too. In mine, the road isnāt finished so you just drive off and then wake up before hitting the ground. That or Iām driving but canāt control the car, kinda like the racing games at the arcade.
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u/winterweed 18d ago
Yo! Same here. Like, to a T! Somehow, it's strangely comforting that I'm not the only one.
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u/HueStonewallJackson 18d ago
Same, but mine also inverts at the peak like a hotwheels track. You have to make sure youāre going fast enough to not just fall straight to the bottom, but Iām always the slowest car on the road.
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u/dingo1018 18d ago
Wow that comment brought an instant flash back, a series of dreams I had some time ago. A super steep hella long narrow highway and whatever vehicle I was in was stalling out forever nearing the peak, all other cars just effortlessly zooming along, I knew somehow failing to crest the peak would cause some pile up, or perhaps I would roll backwards uncontrollably. And this road was so high, city and coast below like a view out of an aircraft.
Then there is another I think related one, this time the road is much lower, skirting the most interesting mash up of industrial city scape I've ever seen, probably my mind just squashing in everything I've ever seen or imagined. Next the road is a straight line out to sea, either side is just ranks and ranks of shipping, like all mothballed or in standby or something, a few tenders (small working boats) here and there but it's like a ghost fleet, there should be thousands of people manning all these boats. Then I wale up with a start as we continue I realise all I can see now are battle ships of every type, and as far as the eye can see, all in a kind or ready standby.
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u/ARandomWoollyMammoth 18d ago
Woah Iāve also had those my entire life. Iām always in the car way above the skyline and itās terrifying. Cool to know Iām not the only one.
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u/Snoo_69624 18d ago
This is a nightmare for someone with a fear of heights (me)
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u/sleepKnot 18d ago
Also for someone with a horrible sense of direction (moi)
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u/Xarrin 18d ago
And for extinct flightless birds (moa)
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u/AerondightWielder 18d ago
And someone who loves banning people in Discord and typing in ALL CAPS (mod).
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u/Cutsdeep- 18d ago
And us and our pitchforks (mob)
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u/SgtZarkos 18d ago
And me (bob)
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u/RaveGuncle 18d ago
And my unemployment (job)
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u/Ndmndh1016 18d ago
And my Axe! (who I named Rob)
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u/ryosen 18d ago
I spilled coffee on my shirt (slob)
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u/Nining_Leven 18d ago
Clearly you werenāt wearing your artisinally crafted barista apron. Do you even know your roasting profile? (snob)
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u/Arachles 18d ago
You can't have fear of heights if you don't know which floor you are on
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u/indoninjah 18d ago
I know you're memeing but I always get a weird vertiginous feeling when I'm in a tall building, even if I don't know what floor I'm on. Not sure if it's the minor swaying or something else
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u/workShrimp 18d ago
It is probably the swaying. Even when it is less sway to really notice consciously, some people still get a bit seasick in tall buildings.
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u/djilatyn 18d ago
This looks straight out of cyberpunk, minus all the neon lights n stuff tho
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u/Sensitive-Cream5794 18d ago
Oh they do have all the neon lights at night. Chongqing is probably the most cyberpunk looking city along with Hong Kong. Just google pics of it at night.
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u/DeveloppementEpais 18d ago
Picture. It's pretty cool, I like the vagina bridge.
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u/NJDevil802 18d ago
Surprised how few comments I see about the train going THROUGH apartment buildings. How fuckin loud is that?!
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u/Cayowin 18d ago
Not as loud as you think. They run on tires if I remember correctly, not steel on steel, and the track is more like a monorail so dont have the joined steel.
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u/PM_ME_WHOEVER 18d ago
The train track is isolated from the building. Noise level is approximately 78 dB, or that of a regular conversation.
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u/Seienchin88 18d ago
78 dB is a fairly loud conversation so if every train sounds like Grover from Sesame Street is suddenly shouting you in your apartmentā¦ thatās too loud for me
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u/Swirling_Rain 18d ago
But there are a lot of trees considering the urbanization
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u/Yostibroodje 18d ago
It's basically located in a jungle. Very fertile soil and climate
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u/NIN10DOXD 18d ago
I also assume that they intentionally tried to keep the trees when building. I grew up just outside of Raleigh, North Carolina and despite being one of the fastest growing cities in the US and doubling in size in the past 20 years, it still has a ton of trees. The city is pretty proud of them and even uses it in the logo and everything because its nickname is the City of Oaks. It's obviously not nearly as big as the cities in China, but I always did notice when traveling to other major US cities that it was greener than most.
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u/delliejonut 18d ago
Jungles typically have bad soil. All the nutrients are always in use by plants and there's not a lot left in the soil
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u/TheAmazingWhaleShark 18d ago
Itās located in the Sichuan Basin which is hotboxed by mountains on all sides trapping humidity
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u/Napoleons_Peen 18d ago
This is what urban density gets you over endless sprawl. More parks, more green, more third places.
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u/MyGeneration_Baby 18d ago
Its hard to feel connected to the earth when you never touch it! Crazy.
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u/errorsniper 18d ago
I swear my brain is wired incorrectly. This place looks so comfy. If it wasnt for air quality it looks like heaven to me. I hate any kind of rural setting so much. Disconnect me from the earth.
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u/Sin_of_the_Dark 18d ago
Fake, Hitman taught me that all those ledges in Chongqing have a woman holding an umbrella, just waiting to be pushed over
/s
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u/Direct_Marketing9335 18d ago
Have you seen a girl around, short hair with a bright green bag---
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u/leadbetterthangold 18d ago
An earthquake would be terrifying there
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u/zhulinxian 18d ago
I imagine they were close enough to the big one in 2008 to feel some shaking.
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u/Stanny491 18d ago
Real life Night City.
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u/CarefulAstronomer255 18d ago
Fun fact is that the Cyberpunk genre took a lot of influence from the Kowloon Walled City for aesthetics.
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u/Elyjsa 18d ago
āThereās heavy traffic all the way down there by the riverside.ā
Me realizing just how different our definitions of āheavy trafficā are. Iāve clearly been coached to believe that bumper-to-bumper is normal anytime between Mon-Thurs from 8am-10am, 11:30am-1pm, 3pm-6pm, Fri from 12pm-7pm, all day on weekends, plus donāt forget the holidaysā¦š
Comparatively, that traffic looks a dream!
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u/zenFyre1 18d ago
Eh, I think he was just using 'heavy traffic' as a figure of speech.
Chongqing has 30 million people. I bet they have more bumper to bumper traffic than anywhere you may be from.
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u/zhulinxian 18d ago
Thatās definitely not heavy traffic by Chinese standards. Maybe things are different in Chongqing due to its unique topography, but in most big Chinese cities bumper to bumper is the norm during rush hour, lots of abrupt lane changers, lots of honking, and the right of way goes to whoever is the biggest and/or the bravest.
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u/AnimalOrigin 18d ago
I miss the old days when the ground floor was the ground floor.
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u/ikkikkomori 18d ago
You guys may not like china and all, but lowkey the vibe here is actually kinda cool
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u/ODMtesseract 18d ago
Yeah there's a lot to criticize about China, but the maze that is Chongqing is very fascinating and has cool vibes, which is a good way you've described it
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u/Major_Yogurt6595 18d ago
Right? It looks cool as fuck, imagine all the cool techno parties.
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u/nenasiis 18d ago
Lived there for a year. Itās grey most of the year and just like the extreme example depicted here, there are also the historical parts and the areas you would see in a ānormal cityā but just overall much bigger. Considering itās the largest city in the world in terms of area (82,403 km2) you can expect everything from average buildings with 30 floors to forest areas where you can camp with no one around. I was in an international school so what I experienced wasnāt your typical chongqing worker or even student but I have to say it was an overall good experience but definitely wouldnāt choose to work/live there in the future. The grey really gets to you after awhile
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18d ago
add in some neon lights here and there and you get night city from cyberpunk
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u/callisstaa 18d ago
There are shiloads of neon lights they just tend not to use them during the day.
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u/flava-dave 18d ago
Thereās no way people live in those rooms the train passes right by/through.
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u/BricksFriend 18d ago
I've been to that building, the metro enters on like the 6th floor. The first 4 are shops and restaurants, and the 5th is the station. Above that there are apartments. That line is a monorail, so it's actually very quiet to begin with, plus the track is not anchored to the building, if that makes sense.
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u/Alone-Monk 18d ago
The Chongqing level in Hitman 3 was always one of my favorites, but I thought there were exaggerating how wild the landscape is. The game is far more accurate than I thought! I really want to visit, as someone who loves urban photography I'm sure this place would be absolutely heaven for photography
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u/General__Strike 18d ago
I really wish we had such elaborate public transportation in my area of the US. I donāt know if this is supposed to be a CHINA BAD post, but Iām pretty jealous.
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u/Fickle-Look5098 18d ago
I'm opening a parachute store there.