Inside a Typical Chinese Village: Daily Life and Homes
Video transcript
What does a typical Chinese village actually look like? Uh how do we spend our everyday life here? Hey guys, it's me, uh today I'm so excited to show you around the village where I grew up. Welcome to what rural Chinese village looks like in 2026. >> >> This is my village. It's actually pretty small. Almost every house here is one-story flat with its own little courtyard and rooftop terrace. The whole village was carefully planned by the government. So, if you look here from above, all the houses are lined up perfectly. Honestly, it looks just like copy
and paste. The village is surrounded by fields, and a lot of people are still farm for a living. Life here pretty much follows the rhythm of the sun. As soon as it's light out, the older people head out to the fields with their hoes. But these days, it's mostly the elderly who are still farming. The young crowd has basically all moved to the city for school or work. Hardly any young people want to farm these days. This road right here is our main street. From time to time, people will set up little stalls on the street to sell daily essentials. Most of
our villagers have literally converted their own living room into tiny convenience stores. They only sell really basic stuff, like spicy strips, potato chips, soy sauce, and vinegar. Just your everyday essentials. So, if someone suddenly runs out of salt or one Coca-Cola at night, they don't have to go far at all. It's just 2 minutes' walk. But if we need to do some serious grocery shopping, we have to ride about 4 km to the nearest town. Speaking of going out, I have to show you the ultimate luxury vehicles of the countryside. The electric scooter and
the three-wheel truck. For most people here, scooters are the number one choice for getting around. I just hop on and go. It's perfect for weaving through the village's narrow alleys. Super convenient for popping over to a neighbor's house or grabbing some quick veggies out in the street. But, if we need to haul heavy stuff like bags of Chinese cabbage from the field or big items from the town market, then we have to bring out the electric truck. It might not look like much, but I think it holds a lot. Both are these wrong batteries. And they are
installed out there in the yard. So, whenever they are low on power, we just plug them in and recharge them at home. Now, here is my folks' place. Right when you walk in, there's this little garden. My dad loves gardening. And almost every plant you see here was planted by him. These are some chili peppers my dad grew in the sun. Over here is the kitchen. In China, we still love cooking with our perfect flame from natural gas, which really makes the food taste way better. And this is the God of Wealth. In rural China, pretty much every family worships
here. We want to ask him to bless us with wealth and best life. Now, let me show you our winter bedroom. This isn't a regular bed. It's called kang. In rural northern China, we don't sleep on beds, we sleep on kang. It's incredibly firm because it's built from clay and bricks underneath. Let me show you this stove right here. In the winter, we burn coal in this stove for heat, and the hot air flows through pipes right under the kang, warming the entire platform. When you sit or sleep on it, it's super toasty and warms you right up. And yes, Chinese
people generally prefer firm beds. >> >> Our village is actually just 1 km away from the ocean. So, besides farming, a lot of people here make a living by fishing. The fishermen will set up little stalls at the village entrance to sell some of their catch. Everything here was caught just a few hours ago, so it's incredibly fresh. That's also a kang. Honestly, that's the biggest perk of living in the countryside. The veggies will come straight from the field, the seafood comes straight from the ocean. You really can't get much fresher than that. Just on
the corner is what we call our village's super commercial district. These shops are actually just people's homes. They turn the front room facing the street into a store, and the family lives right behind that door. About 100 m farther is our subway station. This station was built back in 2018. Getting around there is actually super convenient now. Before that, if we wanted to go to the city, we just had to stand by the road and wait forever for a bus. Now, taking the subway is a breeze. It's much faster and a lot more convenient. The older folks in the
village basically spend all day sitting out on the street chatting. They are basically the village's news network because they know almost everything. If anything happened to any family, they are the first to know. Every now and then, screw vendors drive through the village on three-wheeler with loudspeakers. They slowly cruise around while the speaker keeps on nothing what they are selling. If someone hears something they need, they'll simply walk outside and buy it. As you can hear now, the whole village starts to come alive. People bring out their
little folding stools to sit by the roadside and try while enjoying the cooling air. As for blocking traffic, nobody cares. I mean, whoever is passing by is going to be a familiar face anyway. The village area isn't big, so almost everyone knows everyone else. You can walk three steps without bumping into someone you know. People will just pull over or stop in their tracks to chat on the roadside, catching up on whatever has been going on lately. And just like that, they all just pass out of nowhere without even saying a formal goodbye. >> >> There's
also small plazas behind the village where a lot of people gather after dinner. Kids run around and play together. Whether they're those catching up and talking about everyday life. >> >> Sometimes, if you just walk past the neighbor's door, they'll call you inside to sit down and have a cup of tea. Life here feels like there's almost no distance between people. Some people love that sense of community. Everyone looks at each other. If anyone needs help, the neighbors are always there. But of course, not everyone sees it that way. The downside is there's
not much privacy. If something happens in the village, chances are everyone will know about before the end of the day. Anyway, that's it for today's video. Thank you so much for watching. If there's anything else you're curious about, definitely leave a comment down below. I'll see you guys in the next one. Bye.
