The Ugly Cities of Asia - Any hope of beauty for cities built after 1950?

[Nereis]



for me as a child Japan -  Tokyo aside  -  was always the gold standard of the world's beautiful places.  The countryside, the architecture, the shrines, the art, the crafts like woodblock and pottery-  still is to me.  I haven't been to China, but again, what about outside the cities?  

edit: s... 3 yrs

China outside the major cities is a hodgepodge of dirt roads, concreted town squares, ugly tiled apartment buildings and red signs proclaiming the supremacy of the communist party.

 

[kaffyx]

China outside the major cities is a hodgepodge of dirt roads, concreted town squares, ugly teenfashion tiled apartment buildings and red signs proclaiming the supremacy of the communist party.

yes, and the way things are going I would say it is only gonna get worse.

 

[impolyt_one]



 


If your a Gamer - Japan is the place to be apprently! - Dull but Epic Gaming Swag! 

Yeah, I don't game. lol. Korea is pretty big on computer gaming, but Japan does it 'cooler' (if it's possible to be a cooler version of a video game nerd)

 

[Fang66]



Japan is grey, but orderly. The streets are bedsheet flat and smooth, the Japanese appreciate repetition and pattern, are sympathetic to their surroundings sometimes - it makes for a much calmer, quieter existence. There's tons of people, but the way the Japanese have kind of locked into 1960's-80's industrial design for public-use spaces is cute and palatable. It's cute-ugly, the Japanese do kitsch really well. There's the rare truly old things, but the majority is either mid-century kitschy or pretty much brand new and glass, and that's alright, I think it's calming and somehow feels inevitable considering how many people are in the same space. There is some sort of balance and arrangement, even in the chaos.

I'm coming to believe that you've never even been to Japan let alone live here.

for me as a child Japan -  Tokyo aside  -  was always the gold standard of the world's beautiful places.  The countryside, the architecture, the shrines, the art, the crafts like woodblock and pottery-  still is to me.  I haven't been to China, but again, what about outside the cities?  

edit: s... 3 yrs

You've definitely never been here.

 

[Kiwi Man]



Bangkok is the most beautiful city I've ever seen.

.

That's very nice of you to say, THANK YOU!

Singapore is a very clean city but I don't consider it beautiful. There is a charm to their old Chinatown and a nice view from a bridge where you can see the boats, specially at night. Someone mentioned Paris and it is one of the most beautiful cities I've been lucky enough to visit on a regular basis. Paris though is a planned city and that in itself is an advantage.

I like the word, a planned city.

China outside the major cities is a hodgepodge of dirt roads, concreted town squares, ugly tiled apartment buildings and red signs proclaiming the supremacy of the communist party.

Even though I have never been to the mainland of China, that was how I imagined what China would look like. I didn't expect to be true though.

 

[Nereis]



That's very nice of you to say, THANK YOU!
I like the word, a planned city.
Even though I have never been to the mainland of China, that was how I imagined what China would look like. I didn't expect to be true though.

You have not experienced true fear until you've waited in line to see Mao Zedong's bloated corpse and get hushed warnings by the people around you that plainclothes detectives are in the lines too and will arrest anyone who says anything 'seditious' about the communist party/Mao/Deng/Current Leadership without question. Also, make sure that those little red flags they give you never touch the ground or hang anything but ramrod straight. These are the same people who exhort the failings of the communist party at delivering on their promises of reform. First time I've felt that my thoughts were being policed.

 

[MikeDT]



That's very nice of you to say, THANK YOU!
I like the word, a planned city.
Even though I have never been to the mainland of China, that was how I imagined what China would look like. I didn't expect to be true though.

China outside the major cities is a hodgepodge of dirt roads, concreted town squares, ugly tiled apartment buildings and red signs proclaiming the supremacy of the communist party.

It's true. Saw it for myself a couple of months ago, in western Hubei province. 1,000 KMs of dirt roads and the frequent red billboards with glorious portraits of Hu Jintao. Wen Jiabao, etc. Most foreigners only go to Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou(showcase cities), so they just don't see it.

 

[Fang66]

I went to see The first Emperor's Terracotta Army about 7 or 8 years ago, it is a def must see, awsome place. But considering it's one of the primo archeological sites in the world and not that far from a biggish city, the facilities were very poor. No dirt roads but they may as well have been. There was a paved car park across the road from the site that had a small tent city of food stalls and the like which was pretty primitive, everything was covered in grime and dust. A guy tried to sell me fox skins that he had hunted himself and I ate a fox meat burger! It was good but I should not have asked what was in it.