Original Copies: Architectural Mimicry in Contemporary China

3. Manifestations of Westernization: The Anatomy of China’s Simulacrascapes

37 3 MANIFESTATIONS OF WESTERNIZATION The Anatomy of China’s Simulacrascapes Come into Thames Town. Taste Original British Style of Small Town. Enjoy Sunlight, Enjoy Nature, Enjoy Your Holiday & Your Life. Dream of England, Live in Thames Town.1 The above inscription was written on a banner hung outside the sales office of Dreams Come True Realty in Thames Town. Inside, a real estate agent, Song Yucai, used a laser pointer and a small model of the British-themed housing development to take prospective buyers on a virtual tour of the town. She recited a rehearsed sales pitch. “Your house is your castle,” Song said, quoting a line from the Thames Town brochure. “Have you ever been to England?” she asked. “Here, we have a church, good air, and the Thames River. It’s just like in England.”2 Song, a native of Anhui Province, had never been farther from home than Shanghai, but she was not mistaken. With its red telephone booths, security guards dressed like the Queen’s Foot Guards, and statues of Winston Churchill, Thames Town might almost have passed for the English original. Within an afternoon in Shanghai, visitors can tour the Weimar Villas of Germanstyle Anting Town, stroll the granite piazza of Italian-themed Pujiang Town (or rather the “Citta di Pujiang”), and go boating on Malaren Lake in the Scandinavia of Shanghai, Luodian Town. This feeling of traveling Europe in the suburbs of Shanghai is captured well by Pujiang Town’s slogan: the entire experience is “Out of expectation within common sense.”3 These European themed communities are not unique to Shanghai but range far beyond the outskirts of the metropolis. They can be found peppering suburban landscapes throughout the nation’s first-, second-, and third-tier cities; its inland and its coastal provinces; its poorer and its wealthier districts. Developers have constructed housing estates of varying prices and levels of luxury in order to put the theme homes within the reach of more than an elite few. Buyers with a range of incomes, from the 38 MANIFESTATIONS OF WESTERNIZATION ultra-wealthy to those of more modest means (earning around 70,000 RMB per year) have all been targeted.4 Although statistics recording the exact prevalence of these themed developments are hard to come by, research and anecdotal evidence confirm that the seeds of China’s simulacrascape-building movement have spread throughout the country, giving rise to Romanesque villas, Swedish towns, British villages, mini-Versailles, and Californian communities in the environs of cities from Beijing to Wuhan. Chongqing boasts landmarks from two of America’s signature cities: a replica of the Chrysler Building, called “New York, New York,” stands not far from the Beverly Hills luxury villa development, home to “facsimiles of the gold stars of Hollywood Boulevard set into the paving stones.”5 Fuyang officials built themselves their own “White House” in the form of the U.S. Capitol building, as did wealthy individuals in Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Nanjing, and Hangzhou.6 Nanjing boasts Roman Vision and Hyde Park, Suzhou has Germany Villas, Guangzhou is home to Le Bonheur, and Foshan has The Paradiso. The title given to each development hints at the foreign fantasy that has been created within.7 In name, architectural design, branding, landscaping, management, and amenities, these simulacrascapes attempt to replicate for their residents and visitors the experience of living abroad in the interest of exploiting the cachet of Western lifestyles. This chapter will examine the components of China’s branded communities to define which Western elements are selected for replication and outline the strategies that are used for convincingly realizing the foreign theme. Security guards, dressed in uniforms inspired by those of the Queen’s Foot Guard, patrol Thames Town’s main square. In the background, a couple poses for a wedding portrait. Shanghai. Photograph by author. 39 MANIFESTATIONS OF WESTERNIZATION Constructing a Story through Space One of the most puzzling and fascinating aspects of China’s contemporary counterfeit cityscapes is the thoroughness and extent of the duplication of foreign landscapes. “It’s both stunning and extremely perplexing,” observes Harvard University professor Peter Rowe.8 How does the “foreignness” manifest itself? Through what mechanisms does the copy become convincing and recognizable? Where does the Chinese version diverge from the original? Finally, what does this divergence suggest about the way China views the West? A representative sample of developments that range in price, geography, form, and theme will serve...