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How China built a replica of our city without asking
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Jul 23, 2025
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0:00
China copied and built a replica of Prague in China without asking or letting us know
0:06
Let's see if they at least did a good job. We're the honest guides of Prague and today we are going to guide you through Prague
0:14
but not the one in our country, in the Czech Republic, but a one that is in China
0:20
Yup, in China they do copy a lot of stuff, you may have heard of it
0:24
And they do have amusement parks, theme parks that are themed as different cities from around the globe
0:31
You may have seen the fake Eiffel Tower, the fake Venice, the Peeing Boy from Brussels, the Pyramids and so on and so on
0:39
And just recently they have opened the city of Prague or to be more specific, Prague Square
0:47
Now we know all of this thanks to our Czech viewer who lives in Shenzhen, the 17 million city in China
0:54
and he visited this amusement park and took some pictures and some great videos
0:58
So let us guide you through Prague in China. Our first stop in Prague, I'm sorry, on the Prague Square in China, is the Havels Market
1:08
This is the Havels Market in Prague, and this is the Havels Market in China
1:14
Since this place opened just recently, you can see that most of the stores are closed
1:19
I like how they use the word bazaar for the word market
1:23
and I absolutely love one of the stores that is about to be opened, I hope soon
1:28
which looks like a really cool bakery with some breads and some pastries
1:33
But when you zoom out, you do realize you're in the copy of Prague
1:37
because it is a Trdelnik stand. And just like in Prague, if you move just one stand next to it
1:43
there's some restaurant and the next one is yet another Trdelnik. Just like in Prague, they copied that perfectly
1:49
You may notice that the Havel's market sign, the font, is different than from the one that we have here
1:56
Well, the reason is, this is definitely not the original one. The one that was here previously, only a couple of years ago, is the one that they copied in China
2:05
That's when they probably took the pictures to have as a sample for their new market bazaar
2:12
One thing the Chinese got wrong is that we do have something that they don't have there
2:17
And that is that the Havels market, despite the fact that there is no entry and it's a pedestrian zone, is actually most of the time a parking lot
2:24
No cars in China for some reason. Well since we at the market bizarre let go buy something So let enter the Prague gift shop As you walk in you see some typical Prague I guess beavers maybe from the Beaver Island
2:39
As you walk through the aisle, there's some lovely Toy Story figures. Maybe this one magnet is the astronomical clock
2:46
Not sure about that. And at the very end of the Prague gift shop, you can buy the lovely Eiffel Tower or the
2:54
Statue of Liberty or the Leaning Tower in Pisa. And if at this point you think, well, the Chinese are crazy selling stuff that is not related to Prague
3:02
you should walk through the actual Prague sometimes to see things related to Prague
3:10
Part of the Prague Square is also this bus that serves as a coffee place
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But despite the fact that it isn't the Prague Square, it is actually signed with, believe it or not, a paper that's from Netherlands, like a newspaper
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I didn't really understand that. But when you move forward, you also notice that it's not a bus, but it's a metro train, the underground train
3:34
How do I know? Well, I recognize the logo that is actually from Bulgaria, Sofia
3:39
Another thing that the Chinese copied from Prague and brought it over to China is, believe it or not, the statue of Jan Hus, which was kind of a shocker to us
3:49
We thought that they would copy the beautiful teen church, but no, they picked the statue
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Unlike the statue here in Prague of Jan Hus, who was a Czech church reformer, the one in China, much smaller, but also more accessible
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You can get to it much closer. Here you cannot. For some reason it's blocked for people
4:07
The other benefit of the one in China is that it actually has a description of who it is and what he did, what he has done
4:15
I just saw a tourist here taking a picture and trying to translate the texts that are on the side without any luck because the font is just so weird
4:24
So in China, they do have a little board that explains who it is. But speaking of the text, that is something that the Chinese got wrong, most likely because of the weird font
4:33
So instead of K, they made it an R and so on, completely changing the meanings of the words
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Another thing they got wrong is the year when he was born. Most likely because they copied it from the English Wikipedia where it states that he was born in 1372
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But it was more like 1369 Nobody's really sure but we at least know where they got the information from
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Now when I said they went to Wikipedia from China Honza said wait but how did they do that And I said well easy you just gotta get a VPN Ideally Surfshark which is a partner of our video Otherwise there no way you can get to Wikipedia from China
5:10
Surfshark is a plugin either for your computer, your cell phone, or your tablet
5:14
where you can bypass geo-blocks. China is famous for that blocking YouTube, Google, Wikipedia, and so on
5:20
But there's other content restricted to some countries. We live in the Czech Republic
5:24
Sometimes we can't see a show that is available in the US unless we place our computer virtually to US or anywhere around the world
5:32
Go to our link, surfshark.com slash honestguy to get four months completely for free
5:37
The link is below the video. Now at a special price. Thank you, Surfshark, and let's check out the other side of the statue
5:44
Walking around looking at more signs that are on the statue, the fonts are really difficult not only to copy but also to translate
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and they did make some mistakes. So from gdosh, they made pdosh, which is even hard to pronounce
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But on the other hand, don't blame the Chinese. I mean, if I was about to copy a Chinese symbol, I'd probably make a few mistakes along the way
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And now the best at last. Chinese have actually copied our astronomical clock
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And they did a really good job, to be honest. The clock is very complicated
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We do have a video on how to read it. I recommend you watching it if you ever happen to be in Prague, because once you discover how the
6:25
clock works, it actually becomes very interesting. And when I say works, the one in China actually
6:31
does work. It shows the date, which is the bottom round. It shows the exact day when the picture was
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taken. It also shows the time. So it is very accurate. And I was very surprised to see that
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There's a lot of numbers on the astronomical clock, so I'm not going to blame the Chinese
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for getting one thing wrong, and that is the outer numerals, they should not be the way they are on
6:55
the Chinese copy. The way they work is that at 24, it shows when the sunset is going to happen
7:01
so it's kind of shifted or tilted to the right. They simply put the 12 at the top, so they screwed
7:07
that one up. But on the positive side, their replica is much smaller, much more accessible
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you can actually get to the bottom dial very close up. So you can really take a look at it and see what's on it
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I mean, many Czechs, many of my friends, my family, they don't know that the bottom dial actually shows names
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on their different name days, that they can find their name, they can see what day it is and so on You be surprised how few Czechs actually know how to read the clock So in China you can really get up close and look at the tiny pictures and see the details and also see one
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important detail, and that is, believe it or not, I'm not kidding, that the replica they have in
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China is actually older than the one we have here because the dial at the bottom with all the
7:55
pictures is actually a replica, a new painting from 2018. And a lot of people were saying that
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it does not look like the original, which was also a replica. Long complicated story in a nutshell
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the one in China is older. It's just weird to say that. And of course, the Chinese one
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just like the Czech one, does have on the full hour the Apostles. That's why people gather around
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the clock to see the little figures look out the windows. The most boring part of the entire clock
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And now the most interesting and I would say maybe the most Chinese thing there is on the clock is
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that there is a monorail going right through the building. I absolutely love it. Unfortunately
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according to our viewer who got these shots for us the monorail has not been running for years
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but I'm really looking forward and I hope that they will fix it so you will be looking at the
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astronomical clock from Prague and there's a monorail going through it. Love it. Shenzhen is
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the only city in China that has replicas of other European and worldwide cities. The other one is
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Beijing, where you can also find a similar park. I even found a movie that was entirely filmed in
9:03
the park. But again, different city, different park. What struck me, though, or surprised me
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is that when they built the replica of Prague and the Prague Square, they didn't replicate the two
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most famous things we have in Prague, being the Prague Castle and the Charles Bridge. They are not
9:19
there to be found. So if you want to see a replica of the Charles Bridge, you have to go still to
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Prague. We have one at the Prague airport. It's a bizarre little piece of Charles Bridge between
9:31
the terminals that nobody goes to see, but it's there. The more famous replica of the astronomical
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clock that there is around the world is actually in Korea. Honza has been to visit. I believe it's
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a pub. But to this day, I did not find a single mention in all of the media, not only global
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but check that there is a Prague in China that was built
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So this is an exclusive Honest Guide episode. Thank you for watching
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This was Honza and Janek, and I'll see you next week. Bye. In the end, let me teach you how to say amusement park in Czech
10:04
That would be Zabavni Park. Zabavni Park is amusement park
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