i.want.world

The culture that is China (Austria)

20 Jun 2011
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china copyright

Residents of the Austrian mountain town of Hallstatt, population 800, are scandalized. A Chinese firm has plans to replicate the village — including its famous lake — in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong, Austrian media reported this week.

The Chinese have been “spying” on the town for some time. Here is more:

But creating an exact duplicate of a city may not be legal, according to Hans-Jörg Kaiser from Icomos Austria, the national board for monument preservation under UNESCO. “The legal situation still needs to be examined,” he said. Building new structures based on photographs is legal, he explained, but owners must give their permission for them to be measured.

This isn’t the first time a Chinese firm has used a European place as inspiration. The Chinese city of Anting, some 30 kilometers from Shanghai, created a district designed to accommodate 20,000 residents called “German Town Anting.” Modelled after a typical mid-size German city by architecture firm Albert Speer & Partner, it includes Bauhaus style architecture and a fountain with statues of Goethe and Schiller.

In 2005 Chengdu British Town was modelled on the English town of Dorchester. One year later Thames Town was finished near Shanghai, complete with a 66-meter tall church that bears a striking resemblance to a cathedral in Bristol. Also near Shanghai are mini versions of Barcelona, Venice and the Scandinavian-inspired Nordic Town. The architectural plagiarisms are popular destinations among middle-class Chinese, even serving as backdrops for wedding photos.

There are good photos at the link (excellent slideshow), and you will see that the town is eminently copyable. It’s funny how a town gets insulted when outsiders start taking its kitsch seriously at proper kitsch.

China Tomorrow

18 Jan 2011
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china economics gdp markets

The Economist's Free Exchange blog has a handy table showing you when China's GDP will overtake America's. You can manipulate it by changing the projected growth figures, though under any reasonable assumption, China will become the world's largest economy in the next 8-12 years.

Dropping to second won't in itself hurt the US — it's not a zero-sum game and Americans, individually, will continue to be much wealthier than Chinese. But how to manage the transition from one global leader to the next?

Exactly once in the history of the industrialised world has a dominant great power lost its status to another dominant great power, and that already tiny sample size is of limited use in informing us about the future. Britain and America shared a language, a culture, and a general political philosophy of liberalism and democracy. They were explicit friends and allies. Perhaps most important, they were both rich, in per capita terms. Chinese culture is alien to Americans, and its primary political values appear to be quite different from those of the world's current hegemon. The two countries are not enemies, but their relationship is explicitly adversarial. And while America is rich, hundreds of millions of Chinese citizens will remain extremely poor at the time China assumes the top spot in the GDP league tables.

The Economist has written on the challenges likely to accompany this looming handover, but I think it's easy to underestimate just how unprecedented and historic a peaceful transition would be. The natural urge is to advise both countries to plan ahead, so as to make the process as easy as possible. But there is little in the way of past experience to suggest what the best approach ought to be. I'd generally recommend that America invest time and energy in building international institutions. But Americans are likely to view this as a preemptive relinquishing of power, and the Chinese may rightly see it as an attempt to tie their hands. Every step is fraught. One can only hope that the two nations perceive the clear mutual benefits of a cooperative relationship. But the clear gains from peace and trade did not prevent a breakdown in the international order in 1914.

China Today

16 Jan 2011
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china economics money

“The money supply is too large,” said Andy Xie, an economist based in Shanghai who formerly worked at Morgan Stanley. “They increased the money supply to stimulate the economy. Now land prices have jumped 20 times in some places, 100 times in others. Inflation is broad-based. Go into a supermarket. Milk is more expensive in China than it is in the U.S.”

In Shanghai, where the average monthly wage is about $350, a gallon of milk now costs about $5.50.

The article is a good survey of some Johnny-come-lately China skeptics.

A Skyscraper for Farmers

28 Jun 2010
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china farming

In a city that boasts more than 1,300 people moving in daily, adding almost 100 million yuan (US$15 million) to the local economy, Chongqing is one of the largest city in western China. Its suburbs are not however how you would imagine. Consider the fact that there are more Chinese people living in tiny places then there are people in America, Chongqing has definitely its fare share of migrant workers that are in pouring from the rural country side.

'Like most rural workers in big cities, Gui Laiyun sleeps in a basic 80-square-meter apartment, which he shares with about 50 other men. The beds here are made from wooden boards and rusty scaffolding. Rent is just 1.5 yuan a day."

Thats about six people sharing a 1.9 square meter area. This ought to make one wonder how bad could the rural countryside that they are escaping from be?

"These are farmers houses that stretch for about 100 miles between Hangzhou and Shanghai. If you've seen them in person the sheer scale of the development is amazing, it basically looks like one vast urban suburb rather than countryside.

It took me over 2 hrs to get through it by train. All the houses have steep roofs, turrets, towers and even onion domes, by the thousand. Its one of the most amazing 'urban' things I've seen - seriously if anyone is in Shanghai, take the train to Hangzhou and look out of your right window...

They're all built for free by the progressive local councils:"

This is what he is talking about. Keep in mind that you are looking at rural China. These are built for farmers in order for them to stay and work the land. I don't know about you but I have had to readjust my picture of the rural Chinese villager living in his dusty village with an almost like hut for housing which was passed down from his grandparents.

And they're not building just houses, take look at this design of a skyscraper meant to be built as apartments for farmers which is nearly the size of the Empire State building-proposed for a site not in the city I mind you but in rural China. Construction is already on its way.

What does this all mean? I have no idea.