…And Talking of Peking’s Trashing…
Posted: February 6th, 2011 | 2 Comments »…as I was just noting the Beijing Record book I’d also like to point the interested in the direction of Joel Martinsen’s recent article in the China Heritage Quarterly entitled Tear the Palace Down! The article discusses various barmy plans the Commie planners had for central Peking that would have involved destroying the Forbidden City. The article is fascinating, the only being that the author seems to assume that this is now not eve going to happen!!! Personally I wouldn’t underestimate the destructive urges and land grabbing mentality (profit centred of course) of the numerous CPC cadres!!! The debacle over the Drum and Bell Tower, the continued hutong bulldozings etc etc show they ain’t done destroying to build customer-free luxury shopping malls yet. Surely the Forbidden City would make a Louis Vuitton Global Flagship Store par excellence!
I would like to think that what you are positing is impossible, if not only because the Forbidden City brings in so many tourists (which equals money) to China. However, one of the things that has always struck me about China is that it just does not seem to give a damn about tourists and pretty much just sees them as a nuisance.
Damn tourists insist on seeing history and smelly old China when there are all those Nike flagship stores, Starbucks and marble lined shopping malls to see! And they have the cheek to ask where all the hutong are and what happened to the wall that used to go all the way round and where are all the gates you can see the old pictures. What’s wrong with these foreigners!!! Look at all the Dairy Queen branches – now that’s progress!