Counterfeit Paradises

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Given the choice between a good hell and a counterfeit paradise,what will people choose? Whatever you say, many people willbelieve that a counterfeit paradise has got to be better than a

KSSHLIPP8LSYKLEXVWXXLI]VIGSKRMWI XLEX XLITEVEHMWIMWbogus, they either dont dare or wish to expose it as such. Astime passes, they forget that its not real and actually begin todefend it, insisting that its the only paradise in existence.

- Chen GuanzhongThe Fat Years: China 2013

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Counterfeit Paradises


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Counterfeit Paradises:

Happy Magic Water Park

e Water Cube on Beijings Olympic Green is easily one of the most enthralling aquatic centers on the planet. Its bubble-like

exterior is almost as recognizable in China as the Mao portrait hanging above the Forbidden City. However, ever since Michael

Phelps walked away with eight gold medals in 2008, the Beijing municipal government has struggled to make the complex a

commercially viable venture and just recently placed all their hope in an incredibly ornate theme park. e Happy Magic Water

Cube, Beijing Water Cube Water Park, now dominates the southern end of the structure and caters to an emerging urban elite

who can aord the hey entry price. e water park epitomizes the fantastical escapism so sought aer by a burgeoning mon-

eyed class in Beijing. Here one can slip into a state of reverie and forget about the smog-covered skies and endless trac jams just

outside the aqua-blue cellular membrane encasing the Happy Magic Water Park. It is the ultimate leisure playground in a coun-

try still coming to grips with profound social inequalities. For the time being, the elaborate decorative embellishments will only

delight those auent enough to aord to bask in the warm waters of the wave pool at the Happy Magic Water Park.


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Counterfeit Paradises:Inner Mongolian Metropolis

e arid landscape around Ordos was never a forgiving place. Its remoteness and lack of ground water always kept growth in

check. Now Ordos produces almost a third of Chinas coal and the municipal government decided to use all the extra revenuesto literally build and an entire new city. Located 25 kilometers west of the old town, the Kangbashi new district sports a museum,

opera house, library, cultural center, sculpture parks, malls and endless rows of megablock housing. Designed to house a popula-

tion upwards to a million people, only 30,000 have decided to make the move into the newfangled accommodations. For the time

being, the strange new city that popped out of sands remains largely deserted. Only a handful of pedestrians walk amidst the

abstract shapes and glass-covered malls of Kangbashi.


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ames Town

Shanghai remains one of the fastest growing cities on the planet. In order to keep up with demand, the municipal government

must supply housing for up to 400,000 new residents every year. In an eort to provide a bit ofash and diversity to the mo-

notony of Chinese urban sprawl, developers broke ground on Songjiang New City which included nine satellite villages utiliz-

ing design elements from various European countries. ames Town, modeled aer quaint English hamlets, was the centerpieceand eventually the largest debacle aer failing to attract permanent residents.e English-themed restaurants and stores remain

shuttered while the streets only see the occasional passing of young couples posing for wedding photographs. Far from the hustle

and bustle of downtown Shanghai, the ames Town Church seems poised to continue without a congregation for the foresee-

able future.


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From Revolution to Recreation

Nationalistic tourists are ocking in droves to communist heritage sites across China. Shaoshan, the birthplace of Mao Zedong,

now caters to millions of tourists every year. Mao enthusiasts wait hours on end to walk through his ancestral home set amongst

idyllic paddyelds. Armed with cash and a new sense of leisure, these nouveau riche pilgrims also possess expectations and

consumer desires that seem at odd with the core ideologies of the founding fathers of the Chinese Revolution. A slew of redproducts and trinkets are available around every corner, as well as more egregious traps such as the Shao Yue Palace Maoist Fam-

ily History Show in Shaoshan, where attendants usher punters into Mao Zedong veneration halls, hand out lucky ornaments, ask

them to bow to a Mao Zedong statue three times and then try to charge them for the blessed ornaments. Some estimate the

value of the entire red industry at $1.5 billion dollars. Still, sincere reverence for founding Chinese Communist Party leaders,

border-lining on idolization, is visible everywhere - elderly tourists kowtow to statues of Mao Zedong while company groups sing

red songs and pledge oaths. A strange mixture of irony and reverences emanates from the Maos hometown set amidst the hills

of Hunan.


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Counterfeit Paradises:New South China Mall, Living City

A local billionaire built it, and they did not come. e South China Mall was the most ambitious and largest retail space every

conceived in China, if not the world when it opened in 2005. Constructed smack in the middle of the Pearl River Delta between

Shenzhen and Guangzhou, about 4 million people live within six miles of it, 9 million within twelve miles and 40 million within

60 miles. Nonetheless, six years later, the South China Mall only maintains a 1% occupancy rate at best. is unabatedly empty

temple to consumerism remains unnished on top oors and is only sporadically visited thanks to the attached amusement park,Amazing World. For the time being dust and dismembered mannequins reign over the 6.5 million square foot venture. Although

China might be the fastest growing consumer market in the world, the South China Mall reveals the vulnerability of this bur-

geoning economic giant.


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Counterfeit Paradises:Windows on the World

International vacations are a must for the burgeoning group of nouveau riche across China. A well-used passport is a sure sign

of fullling a modern and cultured lifestyle and completes the trifecta of high social status along with ownership of multiple

homes and foreign luxury cars. Even in the face of the global economic downturn, China continues to boast the fastest growing

outbound tourism market in the world. In 2009, the average expenses paid by Chinese for international travel went up 21% and

will continue to grow as more and more ex their purchasing muscle. In Shenzhen, however, a favorite travel destination remainsthe Windows on the World. A short subway ride from the city center, the park boasts over a hundred small-scale replicas of fa-

mous monuments and buildings from all over the world. Here Chinese can fantasize about visiting foreign countries and practice

taking tourist photographs. is make-believe space is one of consumer indoctrination and a selling point for a notion of civility

that will most likely prove as empty as other social movements in Chinas past.


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Holy Land of the Chinese RevolutionYanan proudly bears the designation as the Holy Land of the Chinese Revolution. Mao Zedong along with other founding fa-

thers of the Chinese Communist Party ended up here aer the Long March and established a base from which they recaptured

the country. anks to expanded government funds earmarked for improving communist heritage sites across China, the former

backwater now plays host to more elaborate attractions such as e Defense of Yanan battle reenactment. Mao enthusiasts can

don soldier fatigues and participate in an elaborate fray that includes live explosives, faux-tanks and lots of trench warfare. Lo-

cal children are also brought into the mix throughe Young Pioneers of China program that conducts Investiture Ceremonies

where red scarves representing the blood of martyrs are tied around their necks on Childrens Day. Once a symbolic rst step to-

wards membership in the Chinese Communist Party, the Yanan ceremony now largely consists of gaudy song and dance routines

that seem more akin to a variety show. ese strange mashups continue to occur across China as the Chinese Communist Party

tries to reconcile its revolutionary past with its materialistic present.


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Heavenly Paris of ChinaAs new cities continue to spring up across China almost overnight, real estate developers are taking architecture and urban de-

sign in wildly dierent directions to tap into the lucrative luxury housing market. Tianducheng was one of those hopelessly try-

ing to set a bold new precedent for modern and cultured living with its fake Eiel Tower overlooking Parisian townhouses. e

knockoof the 13th arrondissement, however, remains sparsely populated and only draws well-heeled clientele to its adjacent re-

sort and villas modeled aer Fontainebleau Palace. For now, many of the apartments are occupied by groups of migrant laborers

working on surrounding megablocks, while other locals have gone so far as to appropriate the green space surrounding the Eiel

Tower for private ad hoc farming plots. Otherwise Tianducheng along with the attached French-themed village park is mainlyused as a backdrop for wedding photography companies hoping to give young Chinese couples a taste ofe City of Light.


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Date post:	06-Apr-2018
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Counterfeit Paradises

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