Landscape of Pleasure
A Set Tour of the Pearl River Delta’s ‘Light Urban Comedy’

The Beginning of a Perfect Journey

As the expansion of Guangzhou’s city centre turned the city into a gigantic desire-producing machine, relentlessly undermining the quality of urban life, more and more of Guangzhou’s new residents, especially the young middle class, moved to Panyu District in the southeast of Guangzhou.Going deeper into Panyu, a district with a total area of 1313.8 square kilometres, I am amazed both by the speed at which the landscape is changing and by the richness of the scenery. All forms of industry, from the agricultural to the information-based, exist here in a symbiotic relationship that would be hard to imagine, like a concentrated exhibition of the practical, survival-oriented wisdom of South China.

Looking at the overall state of the city, the view it presents is still one of a ‘City of Exacerbated Difference’, as described by Rem Koolhaas in the book ‘Great Leap Forward’. However, a more alluring, more entertaining view is stealthily taking shape, giving the area an unreal sunny atmosphere. Perhaps I could say that this is a prelude to the ‘Experience Economy’, and although it may be rudimentary, spontaneous and unplanned, it is these very qualities that give the area its special vitality. Behind the changing scenery lies a strong existential desire – a desire so strong that it has long surpassed the limits of Eastern and Western theory. The buildings, that appear so majestic but also so fragile, are calling out to the inhabitants of this area: Come, forget about life’s troubles, let us begin our perfect journey.

Location 1, the ‘White Palace’: a prelude to pleasure.

The opulent splendour of the decoration and furnishings, the professionally designed theatre and the glamorous hi-tech equipment have combined to create a modern, multifunctional opera house, the first of its kind in China.

— from the promotional flyer of the White Palace Theater

A group of white buildings of surprising dimensions rises up in front of me, towering above the crowded mass of peasant’s houses that surround it. It is as though a castle has flown over from Europe and landed here – a haughty and isolated presence.

What particularly attracts my attention is a second building that stands shoulder to shoulder with the hotel: the White Palace Theater. Because the investors have kept a low profile, the place has gained an aura of opulence and mystery in the eyes of local people – there is even a rumour going around that it is really a luxury ‘night club’, which is exactly the kind of misunderstanding that the investors have done their best to avoid.

I attend a performance there one evening; a program entitled ‘Dancing In the Golden Autumn’ is being staged. The theatre seats up to 1300, but there are only a handful of people watching. Coloured lights swirl and flash over the stage, using up a little more of the investors’ money every second. When a female soloist performs the song ‘China Forever Harvests Hope’, her voice reverberating around the almost empty hall, it seems to be an exhortation to the investors not to give up. The scene is as absurdly comical as something from a Fellini film.

With the Guangzhou Opera House designed by Zaha Hadid now being built, the state still seems to have a monopoly on the kind of highbrow culture that includes symphonies and ballet. By comparison, the White Palace Theater, the first privately funded opera house in China, which aspires to be a major seat of elegant culture in the Pearl River Delta area, seems like nothing more than the personal plaything of a nouveau riche.

Location 2, the Night Zoo: the pleasure continues.

Just a short distance away, you can fully enjoy the wondrous creations of Nature, and experience for yourself the natural air of the African grasslands.

— from the promotional flyer of the Chime Long Hotel

Imagine it: you get up early in the morning, and go to stand on the white, Southeast Asian style balcony. As you breathe the fresh air, you catch sight of a giraffe in the distance, slowly striding through the jungle trees.

Or, while feasting on Western style delicacies, you gaze out of the window, getting a close-up view of a white tiger as it prowls around the atrium garden.

These are two of the tempting experiences offered by the Chime Long Hotel, a convention centre located in a ‘safari resort’. This zoologically themed hotel is the only one of its kind in China, and seems to have indulged in a spot of ‘Learning From Las Vegas’ (what a pity Robert Venturi has never visited China). The parent company, a huge corporation called the Chime Long Group, has been building a ‘world-class tourism empire since 1996, their enterprising efforts have already increased the future value of this area of land.

One night, as darkness fell, a large group of tourists including myself boarded a mini-train bound for the ‘South African Grasslands’. “In that mysterious night, we left the bustle of the big city behind and entered another world, a truer, more natural world…” Following the Night Zoo tour guide’s soft-voiced directions, I saw quietly moving antelopes, sika deer and snow leopards, illuminated by the meticulously arranged lighting. Now and then, the animals would raise their heads and look at me, and for a moment I was suddenly unable to tell whether I was dreaming them, or they were dreaming me.

Locations 3 and 4, One Million Sunflower Garden and Baomo Garden: idealised pleasure.

One million sunflowers are blooming within.

— The advertisement outside One Million Sunflower Garden

At the entrance to ‘One Million Sunflower Garden’ stands an impressive sculpture: an enormous sunflower that has been cut in half, just like a piece of conceptual art. It seems to be reminding visitors that the paradise within fully reflects the individual ideas of its creator.

The creator of One Million Sunflower Garden, Mr. Tan Jianxing, previously worked as a teacher for ten years. As the story goes, one day he happened to read a news story titled ‘Sunny Farm’, and that was the seed from which the idea for this project began to grow.

Sunflowers flower but once a year, so in order to ensure there would always be sunflowers blooming in his garden, Tan Jianxing invented a method of subdividing the fields and planting them by turns, thus creating a miraculous garden where sunflowers are in bloom every day, all year round.
Tan Jianxing has a dream for the future, which he intends to realise after accumulating a certain amount of capital. He wants to have attractive and lovable little animals from around the world running free in his garden – an Eden emerged from the subconscious, that also coincides exactly with many people’s idea of paradise.

Another place that is becoming quite famous is Baomo Garden, in which we can enjoy the artistic spirit of a classical Chinese garden improved by modern tourism ideas. The gardens, designed by the former secretary of Panyu town council and financed by the local village committee, bring together the cultural tastes of an ‘upright official’.It looks Baomo Garden has not broken away from its historical and regional context, and at the same time is also rich in a contemporary pragmatic spirit. Surpassing all expectations, it has evolved into a paradise informed by traditional scholarly ideals, a cut above the usual commercial themed gardens, and through its ‘cultural connotations’ has successfully occupied the market.

Without exception, these investors possess an astonishing capacity to seize hold of both the market and their own ideals. Their experiences seem to confirm what the renowned Chinese economist Wang Dingding has said regarding the ‘experience economy’: “in the experience economy, enterprises are no longer producers of ‘commodities’, enterprises have become ‘providers of stages’, and on their carefully constructed stages, consumers begin their own unique, and thus worth remembering, performances…”

Indeed, an entire city can become such a stage; for example, Nansha New City.

Location 5, Nansha New City: the pleasure complex.

Nansha is located in the southeastern suburbs of Guangzhou, at the centre of the Pearl River Delta. The Fok Ying Tung Foundation and the local government have developed the eastern district of Nansha (an area of 22 square kilometres) into a modern Seaside Garden City.

— from the promotional flyer of Nansha Grand Hotel

On entering Nansha New City, we are greeted by neat and orderly urban vistas, vastly different to the disorderly village scenes seen along the way: wide, straight roads, neatly pruned foliage, architecture that is an eclectic blend of Californian and Mediterranean styles, luxury glass-walled hotels overlooking the river and so on. All the elements of an ideal city are present here, but the whole of the New City is almost soundless, like an empty city.

The day we went there, we just happened to run into a small television film crew working on a light urban comedy, which added a bit of life to the empty city. The art director of the television series, Liang Juhui, considers Nansha New City to be a perfect set for filming outdoor scenes, partly because recording sound simultaneously is not a problem.

After graduating from UC Berkeley in 1994, architect Doreen Liu Heng was swept up into the Nansha New City development project. In an essay written by Doreen entitled Nansha: Appearance in Progress, she descriptively explores the conceptual route of the Nansha New City style, from Los Angeles and Las Vegas to Singapore and Hong Kong. In fact, essences gathered from the development modes of various cities appear here in a sort of mini-edition, shaping Nansha New City into a man-made recreational paradise. Add to this the fact that Guangzhou municipal government has decided to site a Toyota car factory and Guangzhou’s main steel production plant in Nansha, and it can be predicted that Nansha New City will swing violently between the short-term profit seeking of pre-industry and the more leisurely progress of the ‘experience economy’. Perhaps all of this will become a special experience shared by the people of this region: the experience of the complexities formed by the Pearl River Delta’s urban, economic and cultural development.

Not the End

In the southeastern region of Guangzhou, where the Pearl River empties into the sea, the land is still used for production. But in addition to the fields and factories, it is now also being used for manufacturing pleasure, and an economy based on pleasure. It reminds me over and over again of what Liang Juhui said to me, disclosing the secret of successful set design for a light urban comedy: “It should be somewhat more idealised than reality”.

Domus No.879, Milano, March 2005, pp. 84 - 93