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