My Ranking of China's Biggest Cities - For Dummies
Yo
I've been in China for over 4 years and travelled to almost all of China's biggest cities. I know most people only know about Beijing and Shanghai, but trust me, China has plenty more of such cities that make New York look like a countryside village.
The 7 cities I have been to (according to population) are as follows: Shanghai, Beijing, Chengdu, Tianjin, Guangzhou, Qingdao, Xi'an. I will now rank them from best to worst based on my overall experience in the city. These are my personal opinions. The video goes into much more detail on my ranking. This blog post will give you the jist for all of you that are allergic to viewing other people's content.
#1: Xi'an
Pros: Awesome food, lots of history and a perfect blend of traditional and modern architecture.
Cons: None
#2: Chengdu
Pros: See above pros.
Cons: Everything is spicy. While I like spicy food, I don't like it that much where I have to eat it all the time like the people do here. The food in Xi'an is better IMO.
#3: Qingdao
Pros: Great beer. Nice beaches and very laid back. Feels a lot like my city (Qinhuangdao) and even has a similar sounding name.
Cons: A little too laid back. I guess it didn't make as much of an impression on me as the other 2 cities.
#4: Beijing
Pros: Lots of history and culture. I love the hutongs (small traditional alleyways). Lots of great foreign food.
Cons: Local Beijing food isn't that good. Can get pretty polluted.
#5: Shanghai
Pros: Super cool looking city. Pretty much has everything. Very easy to live in if you don't speak Chinese. A lot of action happens here. Many business opportunities.
Cons: Big megacity so it makes it more difficult to just chill and make friends with people. Not so laid back. Lots of hustle and bustle.
#6: Tianjin
Pros: Big city with all the amenities. Very cool looking at night and it looks extremely clean and modern. Lots of foreign food. A lot of European influence in the architecture.
Cons: Local Tianjin food isn't very good IMO. It's also quite boring. Whenever I go there, I feel like I have too much time to kill and am just wandering around excessively.
#7: Guangzhou
Pros: Futuristic city. Has all the amenities you can ask for. Very international and lots of foreigners live there. It is very easy to live in if you can't speak Chinese. Many people come here for business.
Cons: The most Xenophobic Chinese people I have ever come across. It seems like Chinese people in Guangdong province really don't like foreigners. I feel much more welcome in other cities in China. In Guangzhou, I feel like people don't want to associate themselves with foreigners and just want to stick to their own kind. Lots of rude and annoying people.
And there you have it folks. Lots of great cities to live in. I could happily live in any of the above cities, except for Guangzhou. That's just me though. There are plenty of foreigners that live there. Bear in mind that these are only the biggest cities I have travelled to. I have also been to many other smaller cities as well.
Thanks for reading & watching!
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Is it true there are cities that are dedicated to products, like a city devoted to making nails, for example? I have always wanted to go to Mt Wudang to practice Taoism. This vlog is amazing so far man! Time to grow the beard again dude. Tanjin, I have heard stories about that place (I studied Eastern Culture for 10 years). Thats where Jet Li's "Fearless" takes place (awesome movie). Haha, sounds like everyone is from Hollywood in the last city you are talking about. This vlog is my favorite of yours man, very well done! I want to go to China some day, this was helpful to me.
Pretty much. Some cities have a certain specialty. Some cities specialize in glass, others in china (the stuff made of glass/porcelain), etc. Sometimes that what the cities were built for in the first place.
Mt Wudang would be super cool. I haven't been down to that area but I have heard of foreigners going there to study Kung Fu or something.
Is it beard time already?? I'll have to consider that!
Thanks a lot for your comment. See you around.
i have only being in Beijing for a week and compared to what i expected to see :P i was fascinated both by the city and by the people. Hopefully, in the future i can visit it once more as well as all of the cities you mentioned!
Beijing is cool. I thought I would hate it prior to coming to China but it is pretty swell. The other cities are great too (well, except for Guangzhou IMO but other people like it).
Good food adds points. Terracotta Army is cool. How often if ever do you go back to Canada?
I went back last summer for a month. Prior to that, I hadn't been to Canada in 3 years. I will probably go back every summer for as long as I am in China.
Terracotta Army is not just cool. It is super cool.
I'm from Xi'an!\n\nI'm from Xi'an!\n\nI'm from Xi'an!\n\nPosted using Partiko Android
Yeahhhhhhhhhhhhh. Awesome city. You're double winning; from the best big city in China and created the best mobile Steem app.
Thank you! That's a huge complement! I noticed you haven't tried Partiko, maybe you should give it a shot😁
Posted using Partiko Android
Lol, i do use it but I haven't logged in with it. Will you guys be able to allow logins with the Positing Key as opposed to SteemConnect?
I see! We are going to support that soon!
Posted using Partiko Android
很厉害
哈哈谢谢！
Posted using Partiko Android
@kenanqhd, nice video! It was interesting to watch. China is a very interesting country and a place to visit. To be honest I like Guangzhou. It is the first city in China that I have ever visited. I liked how the city look like back at that time, in 2014. Also, I like the nature, the birds living in the city, etc. Because, I've been living mainly in Europe and for me it was nice to visit a place that is much more hot and the climate was strange to me. But, of course, I was there just for 4 days and I didn't have the opportunity to speak with the locals. I stayed in nice hotels, and the service was OK.
This is my experience. And I always want to go back to Guangzhou, probably, because it was the first chinese city that I've ever visited in my life.
Other cities that I have visited in China are Zhenzhen, Hong-Kong, Shanghai and Beijing.
I'm glad you liked Guangzhou. It is a beautiful and futuristic city. Guangzhou has a lot of foreigners in it so the Chinese people there are used to dealing with foreigners. The service will be good at the upper end hotels (they will not sabotage their job and reputation by being openly rude to foreigners), restaurants and if you want to do business there, they will be polite and friendly when they speak to you.
I stayed in the Garden Hotel. It was a very nice place. Highly recommended.
I know people that have lived in Guangzhou for years and like it. If you liked it a lot, I don't want to spread negativity to you about the city. I really hope you enjoy your stay again in Guangzhou if you ever end up going back there.
Shanghai and Beijing are great cities. I haven't been to Shenzhen or Hong Kong yet!
What about the WORST cities in China?
Here are my favorites, and failures.
Best:
#1 Shanghai
#2 Shenzhen
#3 Kunming
#4 Wuhan
#5 Hohhot
#6 Hangzhou
#7 Suzhou
Worst:
#1 Shijiazhuang
#2 Qingdao
#3 Beijing
#4 Zhengzhou
#5 Louyang
#6 Guangzhou
#7 Huangshan (the city, not the mountain)
You don't like Qingdao?? I can see why some people don't like Beijing, but I quite like it. I agree, Guangzhou sucks big time. Never been to Shijiazhuang but I know it is a soulless and polluted capital of Hebei. I haven't been to the other failures.
What is the difference between Shenzhen and Guangzhou? They are both in Guangdong province so I assume that they are very similar.
Qingdao is outdated, it reached its peak during the Olympics, and has been in constant degradation ever since, based on what I saw.
They have a subway, almost nobody uses it, they would rather drive their cars, and their roads are ENTIRELY off limits to bicycles.
There are more reasons, that I I could list, but like I said before, its not a city I EVER plan to return to.
Shenzhen is vastly more "user-friendly" than Guangzhou.
Shenzhen is a YOUNG city. Its also just a short commute away from Hong Kong.
I remember just getting around Guangzhou was quite a challenge, taxi drivers don't understand or care about where you want to go, even the airport. At the time, (2007) there was no subway going to the airport, and bus service was unusable.
I'm sure most cities have improved tremendously (except for Qingdao) over the past few years, and are much better than before.
Yikes. Bad news for you.
My father got scammed in Guangzhou when he went to the airport. The driver gave him a fake 20 RMB bill. That has never happened to me anywhere.
Heh, he got off lucky.
I got Shanghaied out of $5000 RMB when I first arrived here 12 years ago.
It used to be soooo much worse, I remember gangs of beggars everywhere, children, burn victims etc.
Theft was a major issue, before you came to China as well, I've lost track of all the items I have had stolen, its part of why I'm still so jaded about this country.
Most people here don't give a damn about strangers, in fact they often consider them to be enemies.
I almost forgot how bad China was, and still is in some areas.
I heard about a popular scam in Shanghai where an attractive woman asks to use your phone because of some emergency and then she just runs away with it.
Do they have that teahouse scam in Shanghai? It's very common in Beijing.
Probably not anymore.
Too many cameras.
My incident was a slight variation of the teahouse scam, overpriced drinks. My bank refused to reject the charges because I couldn't prove it, and at the time it seemed like the police were in on the scam, so it ended up being a learning experience instead.
Lot of value in this video. Resteemed
Thank you sir
这是要成西安旅游大使得节奏嘛？哈哈哈~
看来我要找时间去西安吃吃吃了，不过会胖，😂
哈哈哈。有可能啊
去吧。变胖没事！
I've been doing heaps of research about China. It's on the list of countries I NEED to go to. Definitely adding Xi'an to my itinerary, thanks!
It'll be fun. You'll probably have to take the high speed train frmo Beijing to get there and that will be a great experience too.
Interesting video! I did not know that in China there are places that seem to me like Europe. I'd like to go there one day.
But throughout the video I was tormented by the question: how do you eat soup with chopsticks?
🤣🤣🤣