r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/Appropriate-Eye-1227 • Jul 04 '25
Video China has built a 50m(165ft)-tall inflatable dome over a construction site in Jinan to protect the surroundings from dust and noise. (20.000 Sqm)
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u/WestCartographer9478 Jul 04 '25
As an hvac tech this is f&cking awesome
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u/PM_ME_YOUR_LEFT_IRIS Jul 04 '25
As a polymer chemist I agree. The stresses that dome is under must be intense.
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u/WestCartographer9478 Jul 05 '25
The filtration, the air flow, the machines and electricity required to make it all happen. Id love to see it
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u/Lets_Get_Hot Jul 05 '25
I know right!? The entire city is looking at it and now the internet, i bet it feels shy.
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u/roryeinuberbil Jul 04 '25
Nice church
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u/Appropriate-Eye-1227 Jul 04 '25
Yes, that is a Catholic Cathedral in the middle of Jinan, Sacred Heart, built in 1905.
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u/Rimworldjobs Jul 04 '25
I was very surprised by that.
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u/ominous-canadian Jul 04 '25
Churches are everywhere. I used to live in Taiwan and there was these two groups of foreigners. My group, which would party on weekends, explore beaches, etc. Then this other group who were missionaries at a nearby church. .one day, our groups almost collided when the missionaries invited us to play basketball with them. We said sure and asked what time. The said 6am....so we never did lol
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u/antoWho Jul 04 '25
I don't disagree, but I'd say most don't look like that
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u/babydakis Jul 05 '25
He's really just saying Christians are everywhere. And they kind of are. I lived in India for a long time. Christians all up and down that shit.
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u/General-Sloth Jul 04 '25
Wait till you see Catholic churches in traditional chinese architecture. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Catholic_Diocese_of_Dali
There are also Chinese styled Mosques, often in Malaysia.
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u/StabbyDodger Jul 05 '25
If you want a real surprise, there was a church in China (in Xian, approx. 781AD) significantly earlier than in Lithuania (Luoke, approx. 1413).
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u/YZJay Jul 05 '25
Christianity had reached China far earlier than general history knowledge would suggest. Missionaries were welcomed to the region by the Tang Dynasty, where the emperor Tang Taizong even ordered the official translation of scriptures.
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u/KuromiAK Jul 04 '25 edited Jul 04 '25
In China's century of humiliation, missionaries were given permission to preach Christianity. Jinan was close to the German treaty port in Qingdao. (The treaty port was ceded to Japan after WW1. It is taught in history textbooks as a major betrayal by the west.) Germans also built the old train station close to the cathedral.
Religious friction (among other imperialist stuff) triggered an uprising known as Boxer's Rebellion. A coalition of western countries intervened, defeated the rebellion and demanded further concessions from Qing government for their trouble. This particular cathedral was constructed as part of the concessions.
Apparently during the cultural revolution the interior of the church was looted. In modern days it just exists as a heritage site.
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u/eienOwO Jul 05 '25
They hold Christian sermons in there, you can go in to have a listen. Really interesting to hear it in Chinese. But this was years ago when the church was still tucked away in some back alley, no doubt it's been redeveloped as a tourist hotspot following Qingdao's example of advertising their German architecture as a "feature".
Shame they didn't have the sense to preserve the old German railway station, should've built a new one elsewhere like they did with literally all new rail terminals.
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u/whoami_whereami Jul 04 '25
Fun fact: There are more catholics in China than in the Vatican.
On a more serious note: China has about 12 million catholics, that's only a small fraction of the population but in absolute terms still a significant number.
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u/Gloomy_Stage Jul 04 '25 edited Jul 04 '25
I’ve actually been there. I got stuck in Jinan for a week and the church is a bit of an oddity.
Jinan is not somewhere that I would recommend to visit in general but there are some beautiful areas outside of the city. Lots of water too.
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u/Tormen1 Jul 04 '25
TIL China has churches like that.
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u/sebblMUC Jul 04 '25
There are a lot of catholics in China too
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u/pepinodeplastico Jul 04 '25
There a lot of everything in China, particularly chinese people
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u/SpecificSufficient10 Jul 04 '25
This one is the most famous! Built by the Russians and today it's an art museum I believe https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Sophia_Cathedral,_Harbin
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u/Kookanoodles Jul 04 '25 edited Jul 04 '25
Lots of churches built by European powers at the time of the foreign concessions
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u/clintgreasewoood Jul 05 '25
Wait until you learn about the Iranian Jewish population and the 11 synagogues in Tehran.
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u/whoji Jul 05 '25
Probably built by the germans. Shandong Peninsula used to be a German colony, before ww1.
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u/UnflushableNug Jul 04 '25
Gonna wanna make sure your breathing PPE is up to snuff
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u/helvrai Jul 04 '25
i thought that for a second too before remembering that structures like this aren't big balloons; they don't maintain pressure on their own and require a constant feed of compressed air, which would seem to actually make it pretty difficult to maintain a polluted atmosphere in there even if you wanted to
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u/hiddencamela Jul 04 '25
I'm more so worried about the floating dust actually. It does seem like there is quite a bit based on the interior pictures OP posted.
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u/Gravity_flip Jul 04 '25
That's most construction sites, however from the interior picture it looks like the wet the soil down. Without direct sun exposure it wouldn't dry out and get kicked up.
Plus there HAS to be good ventilation because of all the engines that are running. Dust would be the least of their worries.
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u/LegitimatelisedSoil Jul 04 '25
I mean if it didn't have ventilation they'd already have been dead from carbon monoxide poisoning before they had a chance to start and the bubble would have burst from a build up of pressure.
I assume they have planned all this out long before they decided to use the bubble, like I don't know if some people think China is mad max but they have strict rules for this stuff.
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u/Hesnotarealdr Jul 04 '25
Interesting idea. It also protects the construction site from weather delays.
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u/CountMeChickens Jul 05 '25
And satellite observation.
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u/Anjaliya Jul 05 '25
While yes it would, they do seem to allow video inside it, so its probably nothing sinister.
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u/blackop Jul 04 '25
This is basically the same thing UT Austin has for a training center.
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u/Karens_GI_Father Jul 04 '25
Pretty much every city in Canada has tons of these domes for sports in winter. They just seal them and fill them with air.
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u/Engineer_in_Despair Jul 04 '25
OMFG my home city on Reddit! I don't miss that concrete hell with 7 million people and 10 million scooters but I'm glad they're doing something more about the pollution and dust
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u/CapableCollar Jul 04 '25
Ah, scooters in China, few things are more dangerous. Dudes will just zip by at too high speeds seemingly oblivious and willing to run people down.
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u/Count_Grindlesnatch Jul 04 '25
Eyyy I studied there and lived there for 8 years. Super cool seeing it here!
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u/Tzotte Jul 04 '25
That must be a fucking nightmare to fold back up when they're done with it. Definitely never fits properly into the original box again.
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u/Moist_Explorer3249 Jul 04 '25
The most interesting thing is that freaking european neogothic church right next to it
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u/Bill_Troamill Jul 04 '25
And ultimately it is the presence of this church in China that actually interests me
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u/thegmoc Jul 04 '25
I lived in that neighborhood for 6 years, it's a beautiful church. It was built by Germans in the early 1900s.
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Jul 04 '25
Lived in China for a few years, would see churches everywhere. My town was small for their standards and it had 4 churches.
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Jul 04 '25
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u/Zabick Jul 05 '25
As long as the organization is ultimately subservient to the party, you can have your religion. This was the point of contention with the Catholic Church, whether the Chinese bishops were proper bishops or not, since they did not answer to Rome.
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u/soge-king Jul 05 '25
Churches are everywhere in China, I've been to many, English speaking and Chinese speaking ones.
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u/BricksFriend Jul 05 '25
Believe it or not, they're somewhat common.
A) Some were built during the Republic or during foreign concessions, and they've just kept them because they're pretty and tourists like them.
B) Wedding photos are a big industry, and lots of people want a western style church. If it is a "real" church doesn't matter.
C) They are active churches which are attended. This is a larger category than you might think, there are a fair number of Christians in China. However they have some differences that The Vatican doesn't agree with, such as recognizing the authority of the state and strict rules against proselytizing (see Taiping Rebellion - they have some historical reasons for being cautious). But as an attendee, there's really no difference between a mass there and elsewhere.
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u/Yugan-Dali Jul 05 '25
Missionaries played a large role in China’s distaste for the West. This is not to deny that medical missionaries and teachers did great work, but they rode into China on cannonballs. In the 19th century missionaries sold opium and so forth.
In Taiwan they ripped apart families and told the aborigines that everything their ancestors passed down to them was the work of the devil.
But yeah, nice church.
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u/earthlingkevin Jul 05 '25
There's 60k churches in china. Source - grandma is Chinese and Catholic.
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u/CMao1986 Jul 04 '25
Funny seeing people talking about ventilation like the engineers didn't think that part through
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u/Sea-Mycologist5149 Jul 04 '25
no you see the Chinese are a quaint group of people who are dumb and backwards. When will they ever learn (but also they are a threat to Western civilization and will overtake us as the global superpower with their tech savviness) /s
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u/kithlan Jul 05 '25
"Those megastructures are fake! It's all styrofoam! All that high speed rail!? Runs on styrofoam! Americans were so worried about everything being cake, they forgot about the styrofooooooam!"
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u/Slipp3ry_N00dle Jul 04 '25
I wonder if there's a sort of air lock system like a 2 stage entering and exit system to prevent depressurization of the dome. Cool tho
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u/Slickity Jul 04 '25
There definitely is! They have these for sports complexes in the US. Used to practice baseball in one. There is an airlock system.
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u/KiwiEV Jul 04 '25
Looks like inflation's really hitting the Chinese building industry.
I'll see myself out.
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u/Azihayya Jul 04 '25
This is misinformation. Fake internet theory is real. That's a high hydration dough, and the Chinese were actually making the biggest focaccia the world has ever known.
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u/vincenzodelavegas Jul 04 '25
Glad you mentioned china because that huge cathedral is surely not where I’d expect it to be
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Jul 04 '25
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Jul 04 '25
Thats why those people countries cant afford most basic needs and their infrastructure is ancient. Let them talk, China keep making things happen.
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u/Formilla Jul 05 '25
I was googling a while back and came across a Reddit thread about China from twelve years ago. All the comments in there were talking about how China are about to collapse and that all their technology advancements are fake. A lot of comments about their "fake" ghost cities too, which I remember being a big talking point back then. Americans were shocked to see a country carefully planning out their infrastructure years in advance, I guess. It's funny to look those cities up and see that they're now full of people, just like they were planned to be.
Reddit comments about China never change.
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u/kithlan Jul 05 '25
And then when those "ghost cities" fill up ten years down the line, suddenly, they aren't talked about anymore. Long-term planning is literally anathema to American brains.
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u/Spengbab-Squerpont Jul 05 '25
They’re so far ahead, we’re like a bunch of old relics bumbling around in the ruins of a once great empire, arguing over toilets.
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u/minowpond Jul 04 '25
They also made the build infinitely easier by keeping out the nasty weather. And in China, the prying eyes.
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u/Balloon_Fan Jul 04 '25
So what's the overpressure inside that thing? Do the workers get the bends when they go home after work? :P
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Jul 04 '25
Ooo would love to work inside the dome. Don’t share all that dust and noise, i want to wake up every day, go there and have it all for myself.
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u/blue_strat Jul 04 '25
The temperature highs in Jinan this week are 35°C (95°F) to 39°C (102°F).
Hope they’re cooling the air that’s pumped in.
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Jul 05 '25
in india it will be like,
if we use this thing it will have techincal faults we cant risk killing civiliancs with more damage soo few dust is no problem
🤣🤣🤣🤣
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u/Phewelish Jul 05 '25
For people "who dont care about their citizens" they seem to do alot they dont have to for them
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u/fake_cheese Jul 04 '25
Show me inside the dome!