Latest / Stuff You Should Know / Living Underground in Beijing

Transcript

Living Underground in Beijing · Stuff You Should Know

0:00
Speaker 1: Welcome to you Stuff you Should Know from House Stuff
0:03
Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
0:12
Speaker 1: Josh Clark, There's Charles T. W Chuck Bryant, There's Jerry
0:15
Speaker 1: So it's Stuff you should know. The Chinese Edition, right,
0:21
Speaker 1: which probably isn't even hurt in China. Yeah, we say that,
0:25
Speaker 1: and then we always hear from people like, no, you're
0:27
Speaker 1: not banned. I get to hear you guys all the
0:29
Speaker 1: time actually promote you for being such communist lackeys. They're like,
0:33
Speaker 1: they send a guy to my house to read your
0:35
Speaker 1: transcripts right at gunpoint. Uh, yeah, this is the China edition.
0:41
Speaker 1: And you wrote this too, didn't you. Yep, just an
0:43
Speaker 1: old one. Yep, you just dug it out from the
0:45
Speaker 1: old memory banks. Yeah. It was on the list. I
0:49
Speaker 1: think I just ran across it randomly and I was like, oh, yeah,
0:51
Speaker 1: this one pretty interesting and think yeah, I think so too.
0:56
Speaker 1: So um. One of the things that interested me was
1:00
Speaker 1: I did it. I got to do like some historical
1:02
Speaker 1: research on it. Initially, Are you familiar with the Sino
1:07
Speaker 1: Russian conflicts along the border starting in the mid seventeenth century,
1:14
Speaker 1: the uh roman Off Czars versus the Manchu in later
1:18
Speaker 1: Ming dynasties. I'm more familiar now than I ever have
1:21
Speaker 1: been before in my life, let's put it that way.
1:24
Speaker 1: So but it did surprise me. I just kind of thought,
1:28
Speaker 1: I don't know, I didn't know much about Comy Heart Commy, right, Yeah, yeah,
1:32
Speaker 1: I mean that's what I would have thought too, UM,
1:35
Speaker 1: And apparently I did at some point. But now once
1:37
Speaker 1: I started researching, turns out those guys didn't like each
1:40
Speaker 1: other so much, and it it actually did go back
1:43
Speaker 1: to the six hundreds for sure, where UM China apparently
1:48
Speaker 1: didn't trade outside of China and UM didn't have any diplomats.
1:55
Speaker 1: The emperor controlled all trade with with other countries, and
1:58
Speaker 1: it was through a system of trip you where like
2:01
Speaker 1: you give the emperor the best stuff you got and
2:03
Speaker 1: he'll see what he wants to give you back. UM.
2:06
Speaker 1: And the Russians didn't like that very much, so they
2:09
Speaker 1: just kind of we're a little more tense, a little
2:12
Speaker 1: more tense, not the best of neighbors. But then yeah,
2:14
Speaker 1: after World War Two when UM Russia starts taking over
2:19
Speaker 1: Eurasia and China follows of the Union rather right, thank you,
2:24
Speaker 1: And then China follow suit with Mause Dun's Communist Revolution. Um. Then, Yeah,
2:31
Speaker 1: basically this whole area was red, and that's how we
2:34
Speaker 1: were taught to view it. Right, it's all red, so
2:37
Speaker 1: it's all the same. But that's that's very much an
2:40
Speaker 1: oversimplification of the geopolitics of that area. Yeah, like you said,
2:44
Speaker 1: Commy Hart, Commy, that's kind of what I always thought
2:46
Speaker 1: was that they were neighbors. They were politically aligned in
2:51
Speaker 1: the broadest sense, so they what what issues would they have?
2:55
Speaker 1: But as usual, it's like Nancy Reagan said, kill all
2:59
Speaker 1: the commie He's like, God, sort them out. You remember
3:02
Speaker 1: that Saturday Morning cartoons. Um, as usual, the beef is
3:09
Speaker 1: in the land and neighbors. Oftentimes, whether it's a Georgia
3:17
Speaker 1: and Tennessee fighting over a river it's water, or it's
3:22
Speaker 1: um Israel and Palestine, there are a lot of neighbors
3:26
Speaker 1: that say no, that that stuff is ours, not yours.
3:30
Speaker 1: And that seems like to be the the heart of
3:33
Speaker 1: the beef between China and Russia. So I think that
3:38
Speaker 1: the the border disputes were actually a symptom of a
3:43
Speaker 1: larger thing, which was which was so MAW Chairman Mao
3:48
Speaker 1: used to publicly deride the Soviets as revisionists, that they'd
3:53
Speaker 1: abandoned the roots of revolutionary communism and it were basically sellouts. Interesting, yeah,
3:59
Speaker 1: and he used to publicly say this stuff about him,
4:01
Speaker 1: and the Russians would be like, we're sticky you now,
4:04
Speaker 1: you're you're you talk too much trash, shut up, uh,
4:08
Speaker 1: and he would talk more trash, Like he criticized um
4:12
Speaker 1: Khrushchev for backing down from the human missile crisis stuff
4:16
Speaker 1: like that, Right, it's really like poking them a lot,
4:19
Speaker 1: and the Soviets, in retaliation withdrew all military and economic support,
4:24
Speaker 1: and then they recalled all of like the scientists that
4:27
Speaker 1: were over there working on joint projects, and the scientists
4:30
Speaker 1: all left with the blueprints to whatever they were working on,
4:34
Speaker 1: even if it was Chinese technology. So there was like
4:36
Speaker 1: a lot of tensions, and it seemed to erupt in
4:38
Speaker 1: the border disputes rather than it was over the border distructions,
4:42
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. So what we when we
4:45
Speaker 1: say erupt, we mean erupt with gunfire. And then uh,
4:52
Speaker 1: the spring of nineteen sixty nine, some bad stuff went
4:55
Speaker 1: down and marched. Specifically, there was an attack on a
4:59
Speaker 1: patrol boat. Um what was the name of the river,
5:01
Speaker 1: the Usuri River, and that's in the eastern border of China,
5:05
Speaker 1: of course, and twenty four Soviets were left dead and
5:11
Speaker 1: stuff got real after that. Yeah, the Soviets were like, okay,
5:14
Speaker 1: it's like that, yea. So they rolled into the area
5:17
Speaker 1: with tanks, they used missiles, aircraft and took out like
5:22
Speaker 1: eight hundred Chinese and retaliation that same year, yes, only
5:26
Speaker 1: losing about sixty of their own, which was a big victory.
5:29
Speaker 1: And so they said, you see that there's more where
5:32
Speaker 1: that came from, if you don't mind your peas and cues. Yeah,
5:36
Speaker 1: And they were saying this to using the New York
5:38
Speaker 1: Times as this like international mouthpiece, basically threatening one another
5:44
Speaker 1: through the international press. China said, what are peas and cues?
5:49
Speaker 1: We we don't have those letters. Well, they have cues
5:53
Speaker 1: and peas well as you know. It's just a joke. Um.
6:01
Speaker 1: So mouse Tong says, I understand that this. You're coming
6:06
Speaker 1: after us now, Um, I think we should have a
6:08
Speaker 1: plan in place because I don't want you creeping into
6:12
Speaker 1: let's say Beijing, our capital with all your tanks like
6:16
Speaker 1: you did along the river there. So here's what we'll do.
6:19
Speaker 1: Six of the population, go red dawn and head for
6:23
Speaker 1: the hills. Uh the other Um, here's what we'll do.
6:28
Speaker 1: Let's all get to work building an underground bunker, but
6:33
Speaker 1: one that can house of our seven million, which is
6:39
Speaker 1: quite hit that that number was that about two point
6:43
Speaker 1: eight millions something like that. Okay, they made enough for
6:46
Speaker 1: three thousand people. It's not even close, but it's still
6:50
Speaker 1: a pretty neat accomplishment that they created. Right. Yeah, and
6:53
Speaker 1: this is um what would be become known as do
6:57
Speaker 1: you know how to pronounce it? It's exactly like it's spelled.
7:00
Speaker 1: I looked it up, so go ahead. Dixia Chang. Okay,
7:04
Speaker 1: I thought that was Chinese for Dixie Chicks. I thought
7:09
Speaker 1: it would might have been Disha Chang or something. But yeah,
7:11
Speaker 1: I thought so too. That's why I was like, I'm
7:13
Speaker 1: not getting this one wrong. I looked it up and
7:16
Speaker 1: I couldn't find it. I found there's I don't remember
7:19
Speaker 1: the site, but there's a site where I guess users
7:22
Speaker 1: submit and say what what language they speak naturally? Naturally um,
7:26
Speaker 1: So then it will have like this whole list of like,
7:29
Speaker 1: you know, um Spanish from Catalonia or um like Spanish
7:36
Speaker 1: spoken by Mexican person or Scandinavian or whatever. But if
7:42
Speaker 1: you listen to all of them, they're all saying it
7:43
Speaker 1: the same way. DIXIEA Chang. It's funny some people say shang,
7:47
Speaker 1: but it's wrong in the uh in the office here,
7:50
Speaker 1: I know people think we probably never look up pronunciations,
7:53
Speaker 1: but we do. And YouTube has a lot of them.
7:56
Speaker 1: Now you know where they will that little thing will
7:59
Speaker 1: spin and reveal the word, and then the polite lady
8:02
Speaker 1: computer lady will say it. But here in the office
8:05
Speaker 1: a lot because it's not worth it to get out
8:07
Speaker 1: the headphones for just that. So like I'll hear strickling
8:10
Speaker 1: to the left or Holly over there the right or me,
8:14
Speaker 1: and you'll just hear random computers all day long with
8:16
Speaker 1: like Dixia Chang or manarchy. Can you just hearr words
8:21
Speaker 1: kind of popping up and everyone's like, sorry, sorry, but
8:24
Speaker 1: I think we all get it. Yeah, alright, so Dixia Chang,
8:28
Speaker 1: And I mean we should say, we'll get to the
8:31
Speaker 1: to the meat of this stuff. But an underground bunker
8:36
Speaker 1: capable of housing three hundred thousand of Beijing's residence was
8:41
Speaker 1: built because Chairman Mao got paranoid that the Soviets were
8:46
Speaker 1: going to invade. Also, to a lesser extent, he was
8:48
Speaker 1: worried about American imperialism extending to China. But really he
8:53
Speaker 1: was worried the Soviets were going to either invade or
8:56
Speaker 1: launch some nukes on his people. Um. It was like
8:59
Speaker 1: my dad when we saw the day after exactly, except
9:02
Speaker 1: he just put my brother and I to work, whereas
9:05
Speaker 1: the chairman put I think it was three hundred thousand people.
9:10
Speaker 1: I found that somewhere. Three thousand was how many people
9:13
Speaker 1: it could it could house. I thought I was three
9:16
Speaker 1: hundred thousand working. Maybe it was more than that even No,
9:18
Speaker 1: I see what you're talking about. There's three hundred thousand
9:20
Speaker 1: right there. But um, you know, women, children, men, all
9:25
Speaker 1: kinds of people digging by hand. Yeah, we found this
9:27
Speaker 1: really cool um blog posts from like two thousand and
9:31
Speaker 1: ten by a guy named Anthony Tao Um or Dow,
9:35
Speaker 1: depending on uh, I guess how you say it, um,
9:39
Speaker 1: And he said that it was basically like an urban
9:43
Speaker 1: exploration posts. There's a lot of pictures of this abandoned stuff.
9:48
Speaker 1: It's really cool. But it turns out his relatives, including
9:51
Speaker 1: his mother, helped build this, so that he includes some
9:54
Speaker 1: of their recollections in it where they're like, um, like yeah,
9:58
Speaker 1: we used to go to school. Then you'd come home
10:00
Speaker 1: from school and you'd work like several hours building this,
10:04
Speaker 1: like making bricks or digging or something like that. And
10:07
Speaker 1: so this excavation was being carried out by the very
10:10
Speaker 1: people who were going to use it as part of
10:13
Speaker 1: this um this cultural revolution, this great communist experiment that
10:18
Speaker 1: Chairman Mau was carrying out, like, everybody, just get to
10:22
Speaker 1: work because the Russians might invade. And he said, very famously, um,
10:27
Speaker 1: shen madong changji li yang, I'm not saying this correctly,
10:33
Speaker 1: and then boo chang bah, which means it means dig
10:38
Speaker 1: deep tunnels, store food, and prepare for war. He told
10:43
Speaker 1: his population that, and that's what kicked off this thing
10:45
Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty nine. He really like to get to
10:47
Speaker 1: the point. Yeah, uh yeah, nineteen sixty nine to nineteen
10:51
Speaker 1: seventy nine is when this was going on. And uh,
10:54
Speaker 1: we'll take a little break here and tell you a
10:56
Speaker 1: little bit about Dixie Chang. You know, everybody, if you're
11:05
Speaker 1: starting your own business, you will find that it can
11:08
Speaker 1: be difficult. But developing your online presence doesn't have to
11:11
Speaker 1: be that's because Google and Squarespace have teamed up to
11:14
Speaker 1: give small business owners what they need to succeed online.
11:17
Speaker 1: Accustom domain, a business email, and a beautiful website all
11:21
Speaker 1: in one place. That's right. With Google and square Space,
11:24
Speaker 1: you can stand out, look professional, and increase your team's productivity.
11:27
Speaker 1: When you create your squar space business website or online store,
11:31
Speaker 1: you can receive a free year of business email and
11:34
Speaker 1: professional tools from Google. It is just that simple. Yep,
11:37
Speaker 1: go ahead and visit squarespace dot com slash Google to
11:40
Speaker 1: start your free trial and use our offer code works
11:44
Speaker 1: for ten percent off your first purchase Google in Squarespace.
11:48
Speaker 1: Make it professional, make it beautiful. Yeah. I think it
12:02
Speaker 1: sounds like I'm saying chang with an A, but it's
12:05
Speaker 1: ching chang with an E. I'm just not good at
12:09
Speaker 1: It's a Southerner. I'm not going to pronounce in the
12:11
Speaker 1: E in words like pen. I say pen pen like
12:15
Speaker 1: P P I N E N chang. Yeah, we got
12:21
Speaker 1: it alright. So this you say Dixie, I'll say chang.
12:25
Speaker 1: You say Dixie, I'll say chang DIXIEA chang terrible? So,
12:33
Speaker 1: uh what lies underground beneath? About twenty six to sixty
12:37
Speaker 1: feet depending on where you are. There are eighteen miles
12:41
Speaker 1: roughly of tunnels. Supposedly it connects every district in the city. Yeah,
12:46
Speaker 1: and for those of us who don't live in the
12:48
Speaker 1: US or Liberia, that's thirty kilometers of basically underground living
12:54
Speaker 1: space fifty two square miles five kilometers squared. And um,
13:01
Speaker 1: it was calling an undertaking. Was as an understatement. It
13:06
Speaker 1: was a big deal, requiring lots of hands. Yeah. So
13:12
Speaker 1: they used a lot of the old city gates, um,
13:15
Speaker 1: the city walls as construction material. But again they were
13:18
Speaker 1: also making their own bricks and they weren't using like
13:21
Speaker 1: back hose or anything like that. They were using shovels
13:24
Speaker 1: and removing dirt with bamboo baskets and making their own
13:28
Speaker 1: bricks on site. Um. And they constructed this this is
13:32
Speaker 1: just amazing labyrinth of of not just tunnels, but also
13:36
Speaker 1: they had bomb shelters. In the bomb shelter, they had
13:41
Speaker 1: ventilation shafts that were designed to keep out um fallout
13:45
Speaker 1: and contamination from nuclear weapons or biological or chemical weapons.
13:49
Speaker 1: I guess they built a great wall. They're like, yeah,
13:51
Speaker 1: this is nothing exactly. Um. They had recreational stuff too,
13:56
Speaker 1: like a movie theater. I think a roller skating rink,
13:59
Speaker 1: basketball courts. Yeah, they had a barber shop, they had restaurants, um,
14:04
Speaker 1: they had if you wanted to get down in here.
14:06
Speaker 1: This is kind of the coolest part to me is
14:08
Speaker 1: there were about ninety different entrances um around the city
14:12
Speaker 1: that were sometimes in parks, sometimes in a private home,
14:16
Speaker 1: sometimes in a shop that you needed a black light
14:19
Speaker 1: to read a special map on the wall. It's like
14:22
Speaker 1: kind of neat when you think about it like that.
14:24
Speaker 1: Oh yeah it is. It's like all the residents of
14:26
Speaker 1: Beijing or clued into this this big secret, you know,
14:31
Speaker 1: this official secret. Yeah, it is like a speakeasy, except
14:36
Speaker 1: those places. Come on, didn't that kind of hadn't that
14:40
Speaker 1: run its course? Uh? Yeah, Like they just opened one
14:44
Speaker 1: in Atlanta right here next door to us. Where at
14:47
Speaker 1: the City Winery. Oh really there's a speakeasy day? Yeah,
14:51
Speaker 1: now there's a speakeasy downstairs. If you know the code word,
14:53
Speaker 1: you say it at the unmarked door. What's the co Man?
14:56
Speaker 1: New York did this twenty years ago? What's the cod
15:00
Speaker 1: this week? Actually wrote it down. So I'm going to
15:02
Speaker 1: a show there tomorrow night. They have shows at the
15:06
Speaker 1: Speak even will know. At the City Winery. Um, I'm
15:09
Speaker 1: going to see Blitz and Trapper my boys. Wow. Yeah,
15:14
Speaker 1: they're doing like this acoustic storyteller tour. It's neat. Yeah.
15:18
Speaker 1: Apparently if you go there and you say you know
15:19
Speaker 1: Miss Violet this week, they'll let you in. It's I'm
15:22
Speaker 1: gonna go down there and make fun of them and
15:26
Speaker 1: probably get a drink and leave a big tip. Yeah,
15:29
Speaker 1: that's what you gotta do. That's right. You're gonna go
15:32
Speaker 1: there and it's gonna be overrun with people. I just
15:34
Speaker 1: wonder if you go to one of these places, especially
15:36
Speaker 1: in Atlanta, like I get it. In New York when
15:38
Speaker 1: they're supplying demand, they can literally say no, turn around
15:41
Speaker 1: and go home. But in Atlanta, I would be like, dude,
15:44
Speaker 1: come on, I don't know the password. Just let me
15:46
Speaker 1: in the freaking building. And if they literally say no,
15:50
Speaker 1: then they're dead to me. In fact, on the I'm
15:53
Speaker 1: not gonna say I know Miss Violet. Oh yeah, you're
15:56
Speaker 1: gonna test them, huh. I'm gonna say no, Miss Scarlett.
15:58
Speaker 1: Let me know how that pans out. Well, Ms Scarlett,
16:01
Speaker 1: I'll send you a text of either me sitting on
16:03
Speaker 1: the sidewalk drink drinking. Yes, this, it's a substitute. I
16:12
Speaker 1: used to drink the occasional forty in college, back when
16:15
Speaker 1: you thought you were cool to do so because the
16:17
Speaker 1: Beastie boys did it. Yeah, like, drink this swill and
16:22
Speaker 1: it's totally hot after about the first like ten minutes. Well,
16:25
Speaker 1: you have to hold it up around the neck. Oh,
16:27
Speaker 1: is that the deal? Like Champagne I was. I never
16:31
Speaker 1: got to the bomb because I was pouring some out
16:32
Speaker 1: for my homies. That's pretty thoughtful of you. So where
16:38
Speaker 1: were we speakeasies? That's right? Uh no, even further back
16:43
Speaker 1: than that. Well, yeah, that this the complex. And by
16:47
Speaker 1: the way, Dixie Ching literally means underground city. Yeah, like
16:50
Speaker 1: that's it. You don't even capitalize it. Yeah, it was
16:53
Speaker 1: never used because, um, the Big Apocalypse never happened. Well
16:58
Speaker 1: not only that chair amount and apparently I didn't know this,
17:01
Speaker 1: but shortly after he died, I think in the seventies, Um,
17:06
Speaker 1: his cultural revolution seems to have died with him, which
17:10
Speaker 1: was news to me because I thought that China was
17:15
Speaker 1: communists to the core up until a couple of years ago.
17:19
Speaker 1: But apparently there was a real opening of their culture, um,
17:25
Speaker 1: like starting pretty much and slowly and incrementally right after
17:30
Speaker 1: Chairman Mao's death, um and so I saw a bunch
17:34
Speaker 1: of different stuff. This is part of the problem with
17:37
Speaker 1: researching China without ever going to China, because like the
17:42
Speaker 1: dispatches you read from the place where you know, they
17:46
Speaker 1: just very wildly in the the accounts. And this is
17:50
Speaker 1: a good example that I saw somewhere that um uh
17:56
Speaker 1: they so Chairman MoU died nineteen six as saw that
18:00
Speaker 1: by one they had the place open for tours and
18:05
Speaker 1: it costs like ten Chinese cents a ticket, and that
18:09
Speaker 1: you if you were Chinese, you could not even get in.
18:11
Speaker 1: It was only for tourists. I saw in my own
18:15
Speaker 1: article that they boarded up and forgot about it, and
18:18
Speaker 1: it wasn't until like two thousand that people like started
18:21
Speaker 1: to find their way in. I had the same problem.
18:23
Speaker 1: I was trying to find out like literally the current state,
18:26
Speaker 1: because I saw that in two thousand eight uh, in
18:29
Speaker 1: preparation for the Olympics they closed it for renovations and
18:32
Speaker 1: it's still not open um And I've tried to find
18:36
Speaker 1: out like the most recent information. I couldn't. So I'm
18:38
Speaker 1: going with not even myself. I'm not even going with
18:42
Speaker 1: my own article, the article where they recounted that it
18:46
Speaker 1: was ten Chinese cents a ticket to get in back
18:50
Speaker 1: in one. I'm thinking that's probably right. So you're going
18:53
Speaker 1: with that because it has numbers in it, right, this
18:56
Speaker 1: thing is legitimate. All right, Well, let's take our final
18:59
Speaker 1: break here and we'll come back and talk a little
19:00
Speaker 1: bit about the rat tribe of Beijing. So Chuck um.
19:21
Speaker 1: One of the first things that happened, whether it was
19:23
Speaker 1: in or two thousand, was people started to move into
19:27
Speaker 1: this area illegally. And at first I get the impression
19:31
Speaker 1: that they opened up businesses and there was actually like
19:33
Speaker 1: an official stretch like about a one kilometer stretch of
19:38
Speaker 1: dixiea Chang that was open for tours like underground Atlanta. Yes,
19:44
Speaker 1: But then the other like twenty nine kilometers were closed
19:46
Speaker 1: off permanently and frozen in time. Right. Well, that kind
19:49
Speaker 1: of stuff attracts people like moths to a flame, especially
19:52
Speaker 1: like urban explorers. Um. And again, go check out Anthony
19:56
Speaker 1: Tao's post last visit to Beijing's underground City. It's got
20:00
Speaker 1: some great photos of this abandoned stuff. But over the
20:04
Speaker 1: years there are people who have you know, worked their
20:07
Speaker 1: way into like the other shut off twenty nine kilometers
20:10
Speaker 1: and have reported back that it's just like eerie a
20:14
Speaker 1: time capsulers like posters of Chairman Mao on the walls
20:18
Speaker 1: with um slogans like dig the tunnels deep, accumulate grain
20:22
Speaker 1: opposed to geminy. Yeah, pictures of it. It's pretty neat, right,
20:28
Speaker 1: And then get this if you were let's say, like um,
20:31
Speaker 1: Ronald Reagan had told us all this when we were
20:33
Speaker 1: kids for the people prepare for war, prepare for famine.
20:37
Speaker 1: It's kind of unsettling when they keep you on your toes. Um.
20:41
Speaker 1: So there's a lot of it that's like just this
20:45
Speaker 1: kind of rotting time capsule. Because again, like you said,
20:48
Speaker 1: it was never used, but then plenty of it has
20:51
Speaker 1: been used. Yeah, And that that's I couldn't even figure
20:55
Speaker 1: out for sure. These are definitely parts of that complex
20:58
Speaker 1: where people are living. Yes, okay, I didn't know if
21:01
Speaker 1: it was other shelters. It's both, Okay, it's both got
21:06
Speaker 1: You're right, all right, So what we're talking about or
21:09
Speaker 1: is the rat tribe or the sho zoo uh. And
21:12
Speaker 1: it's basically about a million people. They don't know exact numbers,
21:17
Speaker 1: but about a million people in Beijing have moved underground,
21:21
Speaker 1: um about a million of the one million people who
21:24
Speaker 1: lived there. Yeah, and if if you talk about a
21:27
Speaker 1: population boom in there were about nine million people in Beijing,
21:31
Speaker 1: now there's twenty one million. UM. That's a lot of
21:34
Speaker 1: people and not a very long span of time. So uh,
21:38
Speaker 1: it's expensive to I really don't know that like median
21:43
Speaker 1: incomes compared to housing. But this article made it seem
21:47
Speaker 1: like the only reason these people were doing it is
21:50
Speaker 1: because they can't afford to live above ground, or that
21:53
Speaker 1: there's just such a shortage, Like your your choice is this.
21:57
Speaker 1: You can live above ground in a door rom like
22:00
Speaker 1: room with six to ten people in the suburbs and
22:03
Speaker 1: pay about what you would pay for your own room
22:06
Speaker 1: below ground, which is about fifty to seventy American dollars
22:10
Speaker 1: a month. Right, So you want to go a little
22:13
Speaker 1: with six to ten people in a dorm mountain suburbs,
22:16
Speaker 1: or you want your own cozy, little eight ft by
22:19
Speaker 1: eight foot concrete room underground. A lot of people are
22:23
Speaker 1: saying I'd rather be underground, and they're normal people, they're
22:26
Speaker 1: not Um, it's not like a situation like, uh, I'm
22:31
Speaker 1: trying to think of something comfarable. But this woman interviewed
22:35
Speaker 1: a lot of these people. Uh and net Kim from
22:38
Speaker 1: USC southern California. Go Trojans for our friend Brian Bishop.
22:44
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, congratulations to Brian on the birth of his child.
22:48
Speaker 1: Yeah that too. So what she found out was that
22:51
Speaker 1: as she suspected, these are computer programmers and waiters and
22:57
Speaker 1: waitresses and uh barbaras and they are literally just mainly
23:04
Speaker 1: migrants that have come there from the countryside to work.
23:08
Speaker 1: And they're not weirdos. They just they're like, you know,
23:11
Speaker 1: this is what I can afford. I have a job
23:14
Speaker 1: above ground, and h this is just what I how
23:17
Speaker 1: I choose to live because we don't have a lot
23:19
Speaker 1: of options. So there's like the specter of MAO is
23:22
Speaker 1: still around because apparently part of the UM the housing
23:27
Speaker 1: code in China or in Beijing at least, requires that
23:32
Speaker 1: if you are going to build like a building, you
23:35
Speaker 1: have to build something between one to three stories of
23:39
Speaker 1: basement or um bomb shelter below ground. That's still the thing. Yeah,
23:46
Speaker 1: so um in addition to people squatting in dixia Chang,
23:50
Speaker 1: which does happen, these people are going to the owners
23:55
Speaker 1: of the building and saying can I please stay here.
23:58
Speaker 1: I'll give you seventy bucks a month. Yeah, they like sure,
24:01
Speaker 1: and even though it's illegal. Yeah, the owners are like, yeah,
24:04
Speaker 1: just leave it, leave it under the trash can out
24:08
Speaker 1: front and I'll come find Yeah, like I'm not using
24:11
Speaker 1: that tiny room, right because these are you know, small spaces.
24:15
Speaker 1: They're communal toilets uh and showers. You gotta pay like
24:19
Speaker 1: fifty cents for a shower for five minutes, is that right? Yeah,
24:22
Speaker 1: I didn't see that. Yeah. There's this um photographer Sim
24:25
Speaker 1: Chi Yen based in Beijing and he has a collection
24:30
Speaker 1: called China's Rat Tribe if you want to look at pictures,
24:33
Speaker 1: and um, you know it's not there's a stigma to it.
24:37
Speaker 1: First of all, a because it's illegal. They call him
24:39
Speaker 1: the rat Tribe and be yeah, because you know, they
24:42
Speaker 1: interviewed some of these people and the guy was like yeah,
24:44
Speaker 1: my dad was like, son, no, you can't. You can't
24:47
Speaker 1: live down here. And he's like, Dad, this is what
24:50
Speaker 1: I can afford. I've got a job and I don't
24:52
Speaker 1: want to live with ten people in a room and
24:55
Speaker 1: there's no windows, it's dark. Apparently there's signs in some
24:58
Speaker 1: of these tunnels. It advised people to go up and
25:02
Speaker 1: get fun stuff like that. It's thoughtful, sure. Um. I
25:06
Speaker 1: think one of the other reasons too why they're considered
25:08
Speaker 1: like the rat tribe is in a lot of the
25:11
Speaker 1: cases they're living beneath um fairly tony apartment buildings. So
25:18
Speaker 1: the people above ground there's like a huge class difference
25:21
Speaker 1: in the same like sprout of of living space in Beijing,
25:28
Speaker 1: and the people above ground are not in contact with
25:31
Speaker 1: the people below ground, and they do not trust them.
25:33
Speaker 1: They're weird, they're different, they're poor, they're from the country. Um,
25:37
Speaker 1: so they don't they don't communicate with one another, but
25:40
Speaker 1: they know they're there. So the people above ground are
25:42
Speaker 1: very suspicious of the people below ground. H Yeah, apparently
25:46
Speaker 1: mold is a problem, yeah, because it's you know, undergrounds
25:49
Speaker 1: kind of dank, so they have to work to keep
25:52
Speaker 1: mold at bay. And I don't think we mentioned that
25:54
Speaker 1: the original plan too, with Chairman Maus to grow things
25:59
Speaker 1: like mushrooms, like things that you didn't need the sun
26:01
Speaker 1: right to grow down there. You know how fast you
26:05
Speaker 1: wed get sick of eating mushrooms if that's all you
26:07
Speaker 1: had to eat. If it was me, it would be
26:10
Speaker 1: one bite of mushroom later you don't like mushrooms, can't
26:13
Speaker 1: do it? What if you put soy sauce and mayonnaise
26:16
Speaker 1: on it? I mean I could choke it down. But
26:19
Speaker 1: it's a texture thing for me. Uh yeah, you know
26:22
Speaker 1: it's not even the taste. What about uncooked raw It's
26:27
Speaker 1: almost got like a bit of a crunch to it.
26:30
Speaker 1: I'll try one. Yeah, yeah, try like a white button mushroom,
26:34
Speaker 1: little salt like lick at first. Put a little salt
26:37
Speaker 1: on it. Think a bit. It's not like the mushroom
26:40
Speaker 1: you're describing that that slimy texture doesn't have that although
26:45
Speaker 1: wash it off first. Yeah yeah, you give it a
26:47
Speaker 1: good scrub with your tongue. I'll bring you one. I
26:52
Speaker 1: don't want to work. Actually, I have one here in
26:54
Speaker 1: my pocket. I'm good, okay, pocket mushrooms. No you got
27:00
Speaker 1: anything else? Uh no? Do you know? Oh? I do
27:04
Speaker 1: have one other thing. Um. So they were a long time.
27:07
Speaker 1: There were long standing rumors that they had built like
27:10
Speaker 1: secret tunnels in this underground bunker Dixie chang Um that
27:15
Speaker 1: connected to like the People's Hall and other government buildings,
27:18
Speaker 1: and no one knew if it was real or not
27:20
Speaker 1: until when the ten m and Square uprising happened, and
27:24
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, all these government troops come out
27:27
Speaker 1: of nowhere, flooding out of the People's Hall to quell
27:29
Speaker 1: these protesters. They're like, oh, those underground tunnels really are real. Yeah,
27:34
Speaker 1: And apparently there's only out of the ninety original entrances.
27:38
Speaker 1: There's only a handful of those left. Yeah, because the
27:41
Speaker 1: the the area where this was built beneath is the
27:44
Speaker 1: called ken Mien I believe for kenyan Um, and it's
27:49
Speaker 1: a very famous stretch of like shops uh in Beijing,
27:54
Speaker 1: and it's been just recreated and rebuilt so much, especially
27:57
Speaker 1: since right before the Olympics that a lot of these
27:59
Speaker 1: olds are being leveled and there there to go the
28:03
Speaker 1: entrances to the places and the fluorescent maps. So it
28:06
Speaker 1: is in danger of being lost, but it'll still be
28:09
Speaker 1: there for people to go find. Yeah. Go check out
28:12
Speaker 1: the pictures. Pretty neat. Yeah. Uh. If you want to
28:15
Speaker 1: know more about Beijing, type that word in the search
28:18
Speaker 1: part how stuff works dot com see what comes up.
28:20
Speaker 1: Press your luck. Since I said press your luck, it's
28:22
Speaker 1: time for listener mail Ah. This was about the mining episode.
28:29
Speaker 1: So it's been a bit but um, we always like
28:31
Speaker 1: good information. So here it is. I've been listening to
28:34
Speaker 1: your show for about a year now, been blissfully enlightened
28:36
Speaker 1: on so many topics. Currently pursuing my master's degree in
28:40
Speaker 1: economic geology. Whoa uh in the unlikely state of Iowa,
28:45
Speaker 1: and I have a few friendly clarifications. On your mining episode,
28:49
Speaker 1: you mentioned hard and soft rock mining, and we're unsure
28:52
Speaker 1: of the difference between the two whether it comes for
28:54
Speaker 1: the rock or the ore. The term soft and hard
28:56
Speaker 1: rock mining relates to the hardness of the rock from
29:00
Speaker 1: which the ore is being extracted, not the ore itself,
29:04
Speaker 1: so that clears that up good. I think that's what
29:07
Speaker 1: I said. I don't remember, actually, I think I hedged
29:11
Speaker 1: and said it could be either one, so that was
29:13
Speaker 1: right right either way. Uh So, soft rock mining typically
29:17
Speaker 1: pertains to sedimentary rock, where's hard rock typically pertains to
29:21
Speaker 1: igneous or metamorphic rocks. Furthermore, just finish your wonderful episode
29:26
Speaker 1: on ice ages and giggled a little from your pronunciation
29:30
Speaker 1: of Lois. I was always told it was pronounced luss,
29:33
Speaker 1: and even though Lois is a bit more fun to say,
29:36
Speaker 1: I just thought i'd let you guys know, keep up
29:39
Speaker 1: the amazing work. Thanks for making my ears happy. And Megan,
29:43
Speaker 1: that is exactly how you send in corrections in a
29:47
Speaker 1: very nice, friendly way, and that's how you get on
29:49
Speaker 1: the air, right exactly. And we we love our corrections, uh,
29:53
Speaker 1: and we tend to favor the ones that are hospitable
29:57
Speaker 1: because it's just nice in life, right. Thanks Megan, Thank
30:01
Speaker 1: you for the demonstration. Top notch. If you want to
30:04
Speaker 1: get in touch with us too, uh and possibly get
30:06
Speaker 1: complimented by Chuck, you can tweet to us at s
30:09
Speaker 1: Y s K podcast or josh um Clark. You can
30:13
Speaker 1: hang out with us on Facebook at Charles W. Chuck
30:15
Speaker 1: Bryant or Stuff you Should Know. You can send us
30:18
Speaker 1: an email to Stuff Podcast at how stuff Works dot
30:21
Speaker 1: com and has always joined us out at home on
30:23
Speaker 1: the web. Stuff you Should Know dot com for more
30:30
Speaker 1: on this and thousands of other topics. Does it how
30:33
Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot com