Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how
Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm editor Candice Gibson, joined today by Josh Clark is
Speaker 1: looking rather toned and selly of chlorine from his trip
Speaker 1: to the Beijing Olympics, where he competed and came away
Speaker 1: with a what what color medal did they give to
Speaker 1: someone who comes in last? Green? Yeah, something like that.
Speaker 1: Although I did, I couldn't catch up to Michael Phelps
Speaker 1: if I tried. Um, that kid is just built to swim,
Speaker 1: long arms, long legs, short shrunk, winning smile. Although I
Speaker 1: will say my my claim to fame, aside from my
Speaker 1: green metal um, is that I took one of his
Speaker 1: toes in my mouth accidentally. I was in the lane
Speaker 1: next to him, so there you go. I'm planning on
Speaker 1: cloning him. You know. I did a swab immediately afterwards,
Speaker 1: so we're cool. But um, you know, while I was there,
Speaker 1: I had found out I hadn't seen it. I just heard,
Speaker 1: you know, rumor that um that there were some sights
Speaker 1: to see that that the rest of the people who
Speaker 1: were above ground and Beijing we're going to miss, and
Speaker 1: that that was there is an underground city somewhere below Beijing.
Speaker 1: So I'm looking all over the place trying to find this,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm I'm looking under garbage cans for you know, manholes,
Speaker 1: that kind of thing, and I couldn't find it. Um.
Speaker 1: So you, in your all knowing wisdom, you're you're quite omniscient.
Speaker 1: I was wondering if you might be able to tell
Speaker 1: me if that's fact or fiction, since I couldn't find
Speaker 1: any you know, definitive evidence myself. It's fact. So I
Speaker 1: missed the underground city. It is that? Really? Sorry you did.
Speaker 1: I was actually kind of hoping that they might route
Speaker 1: the marathon ors through there. It's about eighteen miles UM total,
Speaker 1: and I thought, maybe, you know, just just passed through
Speaker 1: just so we can see. It's sort of a nice
Speaker 1: break from the heat of the street. You knew that
Speaker 1: the underground city was there, and you knew what I
Speaker 1: was going to Beijing. He didn't tell me to go
Speaker 1: to the underground city. Just one more way I manipulate
Speaker 1: your life. Well, yeah, it's not enough being your editor.
Speaker 1: I have to control your vacation too, So tell me
Speaker 1: why why is there a city beneath Beijing? If you
Speaker 1: really want to know. This story begins in the seventeenth
Speaker 1: century with the Romanovs and the Ming dynasty, and this
Speaker 1: was essentially the start of a centuries a long border
Speaker 1: skirmish between China and Russia. Yeah, they have a lot
Speaker 1: of border, Yeah they do. I was amazed when I
Speaker 1: was there. It's really long. Yeah. And there are plenty
Speaker 1: of other countries in the world to share borders that
Speaker 1: managed to get along pretty well, like the USA in
Speaker 1: Canada or the USA in Mexico. Yep. Anyway, China and
Speaker 1: Russia not so much. It was always, you know, a
Speaker 1: power struggle for for borders and different out partils of land,
Speaker 1: and everyone wanted part of the others back and forth. Well. Fine,
Speaker 1: only when communism began to sweep across Eastern Europe everything
Speaker 1: came to peace. Right, Well you would think so, But
Speaker 1: again still that was not the case with China and
Speaker 1: the Soviet Union. It's pretty surprising. I would think they'd
Speaker 1: be like, hey, I'm communist, your communist. Let's have a
Speaker 1: picnic along the border or something like that, you would hope.
Speaker 1: But now, and as we know, the Cold War lost
Speaker 1: in and as far as the US and the Soviet
Speaker 1: Union went, there were no really physically violent skirmishes. It
Speaker 1: was a war of threats. We've talked about the Cold
Speaker 1: War before, one of our proxy wars. Both sides fought
Speaker 1: each other using other nation's armies, which is kind of
Speaker 1: screwed up. But yeah, well, China and the uss are
Speaker 1: actually came to physical blows and it was pretty serious.
Speaker 1: And one of the first times it happened, the Chinese
Speaker 1: attacked a boatload of Soviet soldiers and I feel like
Speaker 1: a literal boatload or just oh no, no, I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: a literal boatload, literal boatload, and about twenty four of
Speaker 1: them died. But then the Soviets retaliated and they were
Speaker 1: a little bit more how shall I say this delicately
Speaker 1: um ardent with their mission, and about eight hundred Chinese died.
Speaker 1: That's like the Chicago way. Somebody brings a knife, you
Speaker 1: bring a gun. They put one of yours in the hospital,
Speaker 1: You put one of theirs in the morgue. See the
Speaker 1: Soviets got that, apparently they did. They did, okay, so
Speaker 1: people and only about sixty Soviets died. And it was
Speaker 1: at this point that Chairman Mel said, now you know
Speaker 1: what enough is enough? We need to be prepared because
Speaker 1: by then the Soviets were using aircraft strikes and the
Speaker 1: Chinese were afraid that missiles might come next or an
Speaker 1: all out invasion over the Chinese borders. So he devised
Speaker 1: a plan for his country just in case of an attack,
Speaker 1: and about I think four to sixty, we're supposed to
Speaker 1: just run towards really remote mountainous regions, run to the
Speaker 1: hi run to the hills quite literally. Yeah, you guys,
Speaker 1: run to the hills. But then China's population just kept
Speaker 1: growing and growing and growing that he had to accommodate
Speaker 1: the rest. So he decided to build the aforementioned underground city.
Speaker 1: So it was like an air raid shelter, yeah, pretty much,
Speaker 1: only it was a really glorified air raide shelter. It
Speaker 1: was complete with a movie theater and a roller skating
Speaker 1: rink and a barber shop, and it was enforced with
Speaker 1: things like places to dig wells, places to grow crops
Speaker 1: that didn't need sunlight. I heard that you could grow
Speaker 1: mushrooms down there. Yeah, And they were little schoolrooms and
Speaker 1: beds and separate little living quarters for everyone. It was
Speaker 1: really like China, just below ground, and the point being
Speaker 1: that people could live down here for up to four
Speaker 1: months if stuff on land got too tough. How many
Speaker 1: people could hold I think it could hold around. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a lot of people. There's a lot of people.
Speaker 1: And the best part is that, you know, China has
Speaker 1: always been a nation who prizes working together accomplishing a goal,
Speaker 1: you know, with everyone's hand in the pot. And that's
Speaker 1: how the underground city was built, men, women and children.
Speaker 1: They dug it by hand. Well, yeah, this was during
Speaker 1: the Cultural Revolution, I would imagine, right, you said it
Speaker 1: was nineteen sixty nine that they started. Yeah, that was
Speaker 1: the height of Chairman Mouth's like, let's all work together
Speaker 1: to establish communism in China. Huh. Indeed. And you know
Speaker 1: it's funny because underneath today, supposedly there's still pictures of
Speaker 1: Chairman Mauth, you know, propaganda posters hanging up, and not
Speaker 1: a whole lot has changed. And so you could have
Speaker 1: gone underneath to see the city, and you would have
Speaker 1: entered through a very secretive portal. One of the reasons
Speaker 1: I understand that I couldn't find it was that I
Speaker 1: didn't know it did actually exist. But supposedly there were
Speaker 1: secret entrances throughout the city, and I couldn't find one.
Speaker 1: And although I did hear that there was this wall
Speaker 1: in the shop and inflorescent like marker something like that,
Speaker 1: there was a map of this underground city and you
Speaker 1: had to maybe like hold the black light up to
Speaker 1: it or something to see it, which I think is
Speaker 1: super cool. Is that right? That's true? And so it
Speaker 1: was a secret map so that only the Chinese would
Speaker 1: know how to find the underground sitting. If the Soviets
Speaker 1: came in, they would be completely unawares not there. It
Speaker 1: just looked like the city was deserted. Wow, that's really cool.
Speaker 1: But even with the eighteen miles of all these underground
Speaker 1: tunnels and all the area and all the facilities and
Speaker 1: all the resource resources not being used, um, most of
Speaker 1: it's closed off today. And with the Olympics coming through
Speaker 1: in Beijing, when they were trying to spruce up the
Speaker 1: city and get things looking shining and new for all
Speaker 1: the visitors, they inadvertently or maybe purposefully, I don't know,
Speaker 1: they tore down some of the old sites where these
Speaker 1: secret interests were. So now there's even fewer spaces where
Speaker 1: you can get underneath. That's well, that definitely explains why
Speaker 1: I couldn't find my way down to this underground city.
Speaker 1: That and if you're looking for a Chinese tour guide,
Speaker 1: because no Chinese are allowed down there, I don't know.
Speaker 1: That's really weird mystery. Yeah. Well, I hope that they
Speaker 1: hold the Olympics in Beijing again for years from now
Speaker 1: because I plan on going back. I'm gonna go for
Speaker 1: the yellow this time, not the gold, the yellow um
Speaker 1: which is better than green. But if it is there,
Speaker 1: I'm going to go to the underground city, which does exist.
Speaker 1: It's fact, right, it's fact. It's fact. And I'll tell
Speaker 1: you one more fact. During the Olympics and all the
Speaker 1: clamoring and excitement as people got ready, thousands of children
Speaker 1: were named after the Olympics, some actually after the Olympics. Well,
Speaker 1: some of them were actually named Olympics than others were
Speaker 1: named after the Olympic mascots. Yeah, that's that's Olympic fever.
Speaker 1: I read and I read an article on the Onion
Speaker 1: that said, um deadly virus outbreak in China actually just
Speaker 1: the Olympic fever. Oh no. I read when an NPI
Speaker 1: word sort of guy who'd gotten his whole face tattooed
Speaker 1: with Olympic memorabile. Yeah, you know, that's just something you
Speaker 1: regret by what September, Well, he said that he didn't
Speaker 1: regret it. He wanted to remember it forever, and I
Speaker 1: think he will agree. Yeah. Well, if you want to
Speaker 1: learn even more about Underground Beijing, you could read why
Speaker 1: is there an Underground city Beneath Beijing on how staff
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