PICTURE CHINA

The Dashanzi Art District (aka Factory 798) is a huge complex of factories in the northeast outskirts of Beijing. The buildings where built in the 1950’s in the Bauhaus style in cooperation with East Germany and used to produce electronic components for the Chinese military. After the factories fell into disuse in the early 1990’s, several artists and teachers from the nearby Central Academy of Fine Arts set up studios in the complex.

Today the area is home to galleries, artist studios, bookstores, cafes and restaurants. In a country that has a history of censoring controversial art and artists, it is encouraging to see that Beijing’s art scene has found a home and is thriving.

For more detailed information about Factory 798 see the excellent Wikipedia article or visit www.798space.com.

The Pudong New District is located across the Huangpu River from Shanghai proper and is widely considered to be the financial and commercial center of China. The area is home to thousands of multi-national companies and has come to represent Shanghai’s ascent to the premier business city in China, if not all of Asia.

Until 1990 when it was granted status as a “Special Economic Zone”, the Pudong area was covered by rice patties and farmland and was inhabited mostly by poor immigrant workers. Today it is a maze of skyscrapers and apartment blocks stretching out in all directions. It is home to the world’s third tallest building (the Jin Mao Building), the new Pudong airport and the world’s only commercial maglev train.

This rapid growth has made Shanghai the most modern and wealthy city in China but has created many problems as well. A blanket of smog covers the city on most mornings, the roads are congested with traffic and a housing shortage forces many of Shanghai’s 10 million residents of share very cramped living quarters.

A new generation of young Chinese are growing up in a radically different environment than their parents and grandparents. While only a few generations before most people dressed in simple Communist approved attire, young Shanghaiese have taken to the styles of Japan, Korea and the West. In few places are the changes that have transformed Shanghai more apparent than inside one of the city’s huge malls where masses of young people gather to shop for the latest fashions.

Nanjing Road runs through the center of downtown Shanghai and is one of the world’s busiest shopping streets. At all hours of the day this alter to consumerism is packed shoulder to shoulder with Chinese shoppers at its hundreds of up-market shop and malls.

As Shanghai, and China as a whole, has become wealthier over the past decade, its citizen’s appetite for everything from electronics to clothing to cars has exploded. For the first time in China’s history an emerging upper and middle class has been faced with excess cash and their reaction as been to spend. This phenomenon has not been lost on the business world and more and more international companies are looking to China’s huge consumer market to drive their businesses forward.

The former British colony of Hong Kong was returned to China in 1997 as a “Special Administrative Region” but still remains a world apart from the mainland. The Chinese government has allowed the area to remain a capitalist and quasi-democratic entity under the policy of “one country, two systems”, partly because Hong Kong’s robust economy is the single largest source of outside investment in the PRC and partly because the government would like to use Hong Kong as an example to show Taiwan than it can play nice and entice it to rejoin the mainland.

For such a small place, Hong Kong is extremely diverse- both in its people and its landscape. While the population is over 90% Chinese, Hong Kong has an international flavor as a result of its long occupation and large groups of immigrants from Europe, the Philippines, Africa and the Indian subcontinent. While many areas do live up to Hong Kong’s image as a densely populated city of towering skyscrapers, you don’t have to go far to find a secluded beach or a mountain hike through a sub-tropical rainforest.

All in all, Hong Kong is very different in many ways from the rest of China but has, and will continue to play a role in shaping the country in the future. Its strong economy has been a model for the liberalization of China’s economy, which has resulted in the explosive growth of the past decade. It is the hope of many mainlanders that the government will also follow the model of Hong Kong and introduce new freedoms to go along with their economic might.

The Mongkok district of Hong Kong is among the most densely populated places in the world with over 50,000 inhabitants per square kilometer. As a result of limited available land, Hong Kong’s city planners have decided to look skyward to accommodate the burgeoning population and the Mongkok area is no exception. The area is a dense garden of modern skyscrapers and aging residential blocks where whole families often share tiny apartments. On the street level the area is a lively shopping district with whole streets dedicated to markets specializing in pet fish, electronics and knock-off designer clothing.

The Pearl River Delta is one of China’s most developed areas and the provincial capital of Guangzhou is one of the countries main business centers. The area started to boom due to the economic reforms of the 1980’s and has not looked back in becoming a sprawling city dedicated to China’s new economy. After the Asian financial crisis in the 1990’s many businesses from Hong Kong sought to relocate to nearby Guangzhou in search of lower costs on the mainland and the area has since become a major center of manufacturing. Almost one-fifth of the cities population is comprised of migrant workers from the surrounding provinces who supply the workforce for the Guangzhou economy.

Less than twenty years ago the town of Huadu (formerly Huxian County) was just another rural Chinese village on the outskirts of the city of Guangzhou. Today it is a self-contained city of over 720,000 residents and an example of the “New Towns” that are being created throughout China to accommodate the surging urban populations. While some of the new housing is in the form of the bland Communist-style apartment blocks, which can be seen throughout China, many complexes cater to China’s neuvo riche and are styled after Mediterranean villas complete with red-tiled roofs and baroque fountains.

Chongqing has long been the economic focus of southwest China due to its strategic location at the halfway point of the Yangzi river. It is a major center for shipping and commerce moving from the rural western part of China to the cities of the east. The population of Chongqing proper is just over 12 million people, the third largest city in China, but is expected to grow by another 10 million in the next decade. When the surrounding Chongqing municipality is added, the population reaches a staggering 32 million, making it, by some people’s estimates, the largest city in the world.

Chongqing has boomed in recent years as a result of the Chinese government’s “Go West” policy to develop and utilize the western half of the country. Chongqing is seen as a strategic link between the east and west of China and much of the over $100 billion spent in the past five years on infrastructure has directly benefited the growing metropolis.

As in many Chinese cities, Chongqing’s rapid growth has lead to a host of problems for the city and its residents. The city is one of China’s post polluted and the gap between the businessmen who have benefited from the city’s boom and the poor immigrants who have provided the labor is glaringly evident. The city continues to build and grow in anticipation of the 2009 completion of the Three Gorges Dam which will create a giant reservoir leading to Chongqing and allow international ocean freighters to reach the city from the Yangzi’s mouth in Shanghai.