Plenty Of Signs Of Life In China's "Ghost Cities"

One of the many remarkable public parks under construction in China's "Ghost Cities"

By Darryl Mason
 
Western media loves to do stories on what they call China's "Ghost Cities." What they are referring to is the brand new cities springing up across China to deal with the planned shift of more than 400 million Chinese from rural living to city living over the next two decades.

Obviously you need to build cities for all these people to move into, and they're not going to fill up overnight (what city ever has?).

But just how empty are these so-called "Ghost Cities"? Well, when you take a close look at satellite images that often accompany western smirking at China's pre-planning, they're not so empty after all, and they're often teeming with signs of life, and massive construction projects. Even traffic jams.



SBS Dateline has now done two interesting stories on China's "Chost Cities" in two years, collectively clocking up millions of online views. But do they tell the full story of what's going on in these cities, still under construction?

Here's a selection of screengrabs from Googe Earth views of the cities of Tianducheng, Dongguan and Ordos, so famous now as a "Ghost City" it is pulling in tourists.

 

 

Chinese Displays Of Extreme Wealth Now Totally In-Your-Face

A jewellery store in China claims this is the world's "biggest pure gold mascot," containing 24,928 grams of gold.
 

Story Here

Series Of Bizarre Natural Events Preceded Massive Earthquakes In China

This story from the Times Online pings the word 'conspiracy' to these stories of weirdness before the 7.9 magnitude earthquake hit China a few days ago, but such stories are not rare. In fact, animals acting strangely before earthquakes hit is fairly common.

From the London Times :

One blogger from Shandong province, in eastern China, wrote that more than a month ago, he went to his local earthquake resesarch centre several times to report that his animals had been disturbed and restless.

But, he wrote: "They not only ridiculed me, they accused me of making up stories."

The Chutian Metropolis Daily reported that on April 26, 80,000 tonnes of water suddenly drained from a large pond in Enshi, Hubei province. The province shares a border with Chongqing Municipality, which was devastated by the earthquake on Monday.

On May 10, a Sichuan-based newspaper, the West China Metropolis Daily, reported that hundreds of migrating toads descended upon the streets of Mianyang, the second largest city in the province which neighbours Wenchuan County, the epicentre of the earthquake.

In the city of Mianzhu, 60 miles from the epicentre, bloggers pointed to reports just weeks before the earthquake of a mass migration of more than one million butterflies.

The quakes are expected to have killed more than 15,000 people, more than 20,000 remain trapped under collapsed buildings, schools and apartment blocks as this is written, and more than 40,000 people are missing.

China Bans 'Living Buddhas' From Reincarnating Without Official Permission

Fantastic. Probably the most absurd, bizarre and hilarious story we've come across in the past few weeks. Of course it's all about China screwing Tibet and trying to destroy Tibetan religious beliefs.

As Chairman Mao is once supposed to have said, "Religion is poison."

Most of the story is in the above headlines. London Times story intro follows, then go here to read the full thing :

Tibet’s living Buddhas have been banned from reincarnation without permission from China’s atheist leaders. The ban is included in new rules intended to assert Beijing’s authority over Tibet’s restive and deeply Buddhist people.

“The so-called reincarnated living Buddha without government approval is illegal and invalid,” according to the order, which comes into effect on September 1.

The 14-part regulation issued by the State Administration for Religious Affairs is aimed at limiting the influence of Tibet’s exiled god-king, the Dalai Lama, and at preventing the re-incarnation of the 72-year-old monk without approval from Beijing.

Of course, it would be impossible to stop someone from reincarnating, if that was even a reality to begin with. But the Chinese laws are aimed at stopping a new 'living Buddha' from being identified, named and branded.

This is how you kill off a mystical system dating back more than 800 years. With intense bureaucracy.

BIZARRE "'CITY" MIRAGE APPEARS OFF CHINA SHORE



Residents of China's Penglai City, along with thousands of tourists, are said to have witnessed a four hour long mirage off shore, last Sunday.

What is genuinely weird about this mirage is what some of them claim to have seen :

"....a city, with modern high-rise buildings, broad city streets....bustling cars....crowds of people all clearly visible."

Two days of rain had fallen on the city before the mirage appeared. Penglai is said to have been witness to many mirages during the centuries, giving it its nickname as a "dwelling place of the gods".

As strange as the mirage may have been, the truth may be found in the explanation of how mirages occur, according to the China Daily, which reported this story : "...a mirage is formed when moisture in the air becomes warmer than the temperature of sea water, which refracts rays of sunlight to create reflections of the landscape in the sky."

You can, sort of, see some of described details in the photo above, from China Daily. But maybe you just had to be there.