Ridiculous Things
Nice building eh? You probably think it's some kind of super sleek, 21st century art gallery, or exhibition hall, perhaps a museum or a culutral centre fashoined by Zhaoqing's architect de jour. This is precisely what I assumed when I first laid eyes on it. I couldn't wait to discover what treasures lay within. Today, I did find out and, well, I could barely believe it.
After crossing a little wooden bridge over a running stream, passing the rosewood reception desk caarved in the shape of a Hong Kong-style junk, and resisting the inviting look of a series of soft, Ikea sofas, I gazed upon the focal point of this grandoise structure - a plastic model of...yet more buildings.
Yes, the whole place was an overblown showroom for apartments. Not just any old apartments, but apartments that have yet to be built. Not only that, but apartments that have yet to be given planning permission to be built or sold.
This is what things have come to? In 30 years, China has gone from grim, grey Communist bastion where everyone, and everything, looks the same as everything else, to being the most marketing-obsessed society imaginable where value derives not from what something is worth but how expensive it looks.
It also says much about the property boom that China is in the midst of. Despite low occupancy rates on new apartments across the city, this development company is obviously so confident that it will shift these apartments that it is prepared to invest so heavily in a mere showroom - even though they haven't even secured the right to sell. Zhaoqing has seen a massive construction boom and most of the people buying are rich folk from Guangzhou, Hong Kong, Shenzhen, or foreign lands (like me). That this place will do brisk business isn't really in doubt. Faraway landlords will assume that if these guys can build a bloody showroom as nice as this, they'll probably do OK on the apartments. They'll buy and wait for property prices to soar yet higher.
Someone get my bank manager on the phone.
