Category Archives: UNDERSTANDING CHINA
Photos: Chinese village splurges on knockoff and superlative architecture | Ministry of Tofu 豆腐部
Huaxi Village, a formerly unknown and poor village in Jiangsu province on China’s east coast, skyrocketed into wealth since China’s economic reform in the late 1970s, and is constantly referred to as China’s most affluent village. It is said that each village has an average amount of $250,000 in the bank. However, much like children parade medals and trophies for more pats on the back, the nouveau riche village of a little over 2,000 residents is not resigned to obscurity and rolls out blueprints for ambitious and massive projects. The village built a number of replicas of world-famous buildings and structures, including the Great Wall, the U.S. Capitol Hill, Sydney Opera House, and Triumphal Arch, to develop local tourism and “give the villagers a glimpse and taste of the beauty of China right at their doorstep.” Then on October 8, the village unveiled a 328-meter skyscraper that belittles Paris’s Eiffel Tower (324m) and the Chrysler Building (319m) in New York. Built at the exorbitant cost of RMB 3 billion, or around US$450 million, with each household investing RMB 10 million for a stake, the 72-storied edifice will include a five-star hotel, residential apartments for villagers, and a sightseeing deck at the very top.
Source: Photos: Chinese village splurges on knockoff and superlative architecture | Ministry of Tofu 豆腐部
Discovering Modern China – Discovering Modern China
China has a distinctly unique makeup and grasping the basic parameters that define this unique makeup is fundamental to understanding anything about this country. Indeed, some of the leading China scholars argue that it is simply impossible to understand modern China at any level in the absence of at least some knowledge of these features. Their lists often overlap and tend to include the following: China’s population, at roughly 1.4 billion, accounts for 20% of the world population and it is roughly 5 times larger than the United States’ population . Yet, despite having such a significantly larger population, China’s enormous population is squeezed into a territory whose landmass is roughly the same size as that of the US (China is only 3% larger than the US and it accounts for 7% of the world’s land
A Point Of View: Making sense of China – BBC News
China’s growing importance on the world stage means that the West needs to start speaking its language, says economist Martin Jacques. My son has been learning Mandarin Chinese since he was five; he is now just 14. It has not been easy. Learning Chinese has required a deep pocket and the determination of an Olympic athlete.
CHINA AND HER HISTORY 