China Pirates Village
- Categories: International, News
- Date: Jun 18, 2011 16:34 JST
- Tags: Austria, Bizarre, Buildings, China, Guandong, Made in China, Plagiarism, Tourism
A Chinese property developer which secretly copied a famously picturesque Austrian village and then began rebuilding it in China is under criticism.
So famed is Austria’s Alpine village of Halstatt (population: 900) for its scenic beauty and rustic architecture that it has been made a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and has also become a major tourist trap.
Such is the village’s popularity amongst easily impressed East Asian tourists, and Chinese ones in particular, that one enterprising Chinese property developer decided to copy the entire village and rebuild it as an upscale housing development and tourist attraction alongside one of China’s famously pristine lakes.
Construction on the Chinese version of the village began in April, in Guandong near Hong Kong’s internal border with China.
The developer describes it as “surrounded by mountains with mountain and lake views,” and built “in a European architectural style, with a commercial street built with the characteristics of an Austrian-style town.”
Visiting press describe the construction site’s surroundings in less optimistic terms: “there was not an alpine peak in sight and the waters of a nearby lake, apparently the faux Lake Hallstatt to be, were green and murky. Instead of mirroring majestic alpine mountaintops, several dead fish floated on the surface.”
In addition to being a physical replica, developers say the site will copy the touristic core of the village down to shops selling “Austrian-style” glass crystal souvenirs.
Interestingly, as well as appealing to rich Chinese, the developers hope the site will be appealing to “Caucasian people living in Hong Kong who are homesick” – most Caucasians of course hailing from Austrian villages.
The actual business of copying the village was secretly accomplished without the knowledge or consent of village residents, and only came to the attention of village residents when a Chinese person working on the project accidentally revealed the scope of the plan.
The developers claim there will be no problems with “so-called intellectual property,” but seem to have taken precautions anyway – the plans to the copy village have all been subjected to mirror-image reversal.
Halstatt’s mayor claims to been “stunned” to learn of the wholesale piracy of an entire village, but as the project was already well underway by the time he learnt of it, he says there was nothing he could do – not that it can be imagined the Chinese would care in any case.
Not all Halstatt’s residents are so diplomatically supine – a local hotel owner whose 400-year-old establishment was copied and is now under construction in faraway China is none too pleased:
“I don’t like the idea of knowing that a team was present here for years measuring, and photographing and studying us. I would have expected them to approach us directly, the whole thing reminds of a bit of Big Brother is watching.
This house is my personal work of art. And then someone comes here and copies it, for me, it’s as if a painter copies someone else’s artwork.”
She says most other residents are “outraged, not about the fact but the approach.” However, as there is apparently nothing anyone can do about China, they instead cling to the hope that some visitors to the fake version will be more minded to visit the Austrian original.
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so how long till it explodes ?
'How big will the explosion be?'
Fixed it for you. No thanks needed.
I say maybe about half a kiloton or similar to a M388 Davey Crockett.
no thanks indeed, since it will be big...
if foxconn is one of this project sponsors don't worry this village will be vanished from the map
When someone buys a watermelon.
Nah. Why wait for watermelon? Just sit in any chair and it'll explode in a chain reaction.
i imagine a lot of people in China die while eating watermelons sitting on chairs.
when they make a watermelon farm there is better...
maybe outside cloned town, but in the inside they make soy with human hair and redisual waters, or killing kittens by sitting on them, or making rustic african style Japanese gundams.
China you got lol'ed.
Probably Fun
-sigh- China....
speechless or rather totally expected.
so a state owned news group criticizes a state owned construction firm for doing a piss poor job?
oh China~
Just burn it down.
With lemons.
+internets for an awesomely timed portal reference.
Ctrl + C
Ctrl + V
Presto!
Village
You're supposed to "Ctrl + A" first.
I don't want to copy the universe...
you forgot the "Print Screen" then open paint "Ctrl+V"
Crl + Alt then Delete that's more better than seeing that place... Start over again.
That didn't stop China with the "Blue Screen" non-stop.
earth MKII
You forgot to invert it in the middle there.
jajajajjajaja agree
thats definitely what they do,
and u know what? since they do it that way, it easy for 'alt + f4' to happen too
I'll try to be objective here instead of going the typical China bashing spamming here at Sancom.
But serioulsy? "appealing to rich Chinese"?
ProTip: Rich Chinese usually moves OUT of China, cause they got the money. Why bother going to some place fake if they're wealthy enough to visit/move to the real location instead? Country generally welcomes rich people to move there and spend their money anyway.
Also, there are plenty of picturistic old timy Chinese towns around. Many of them too were declared as world heritage sites. Instead of trying to copy something foreign, why not just focus on what they know the best and build up the infrastructure of these already existing town instead? They would surely be better off than 2nd grade knockoffs at least.
Finally, with many undismissible signs of the Chinese housing market going bubblfied. Extra risky (not to mention stupid) ventures like these should be best be avoided.
My guess is they want to give a taste of "foreign culture" to Chinese people who are wealthy enough to travel within China but not wealthy enough to go outside the country.
Not to mention they ensure all money stays inside the country.
Yeah I guess their replica of the building won'nt last long because... China Quality!
You touch on a subject regarding China's ingrained copycat mentality that I don't see mentioned quite often enough: I fear all of this may come at the cost of China's own cultural inheritance.
Soon maybe all that will be left of its culture may be old buildings and museum pieces, with a modern day Chinese identity being practically nonexistent (aside from its loathsome, inhumane commercial industry and government).
you don't exactly love one pic for over 20 years so this is expected. they're Chinese after all...
I really don't think it matters. Why the outrage over copying a village? Even if they did visit that village just to copy it, who cares? Good ideas and designs spread and this is just proof that someone out there liked the village enough to copy it. I'd be flattered if someone liked my house enough to build a copy.
You haven't been here long I take it? SanCom users outrage at anything. Some users love to target certain things to outrage about. This time it's China so expect to see some users to outrage and bash whenever possible. You'll quickly find the haters and racists.
You two must be Chinese. Because only the Chinese themselves would defend something as ridiculously retarded as this, or China's cheapass piracy culture in its entirety.
Fuck off and go jump off a bridge.
@Anon 03:10
Clearly you missed the obvious sarcasm. Try again.
/You must be an ignorant American, because only Americans come out with stupid logic like this right?/
The irony. It is delicious.
A bridge made out of trash, while you're at it.
@Anon 22:04
You must be an ignorant American, because only Americans come out with stupid logic like this right?....Yeah carry on making the rest of us Westerners look like retarded racists.
maybe they don't wanna hear people talking in this annoying australian accent... Also, most old people in China don't know a word in english
Yes, because Austria and Australia are the same thing... Dumb fuck.
@1:53
Well I don't know? Just mean me like Japan,like everything Japan(Except Ishihara)and would like to live in Japan(I also know how hard it is there too!) Why in the world would being a Weaboo equal to being racist? Man maybe you just hate the World too much. But as for me and I'm not that smart but I know for a fact I'm not Racist. If that's being contradictory to YOUR dictionary than please feel free to rewrite it THANKS TO ME,MYSELF, and SO HEAVENLY I!
PS. I don't hate CHINESE people but can you blame me if they keep doing S**t like this Pffft hahaha
PSS Koreans never cared really! Why?
@18:59
Anon used spelling
+1
Epic Fail "Maid" my day
On another note let's not go to discriminating people just because they don't know English that's about as low as one can get along with racism.
I mean Weaboo that I am, I don't mind desperately leaning Jap
@21:00
Hmm yes I'll admit I was wrong, and I was exaggerating a bit with my reply, when I said "everything" I didn't mean "everything" I wouldn't go so far as to call myself Japanophile. Just a lot of hate floating around is all it was.
I surrender! X3
@Diemeow23
You call yourself a Weaaboo yet have no idea what it means...Look it up. If you like everything in Japan or anything related you're not a Weeaboo. You're a Japanophile. Weeaboo's only obsess over Anime/Manga and through this medium they believe they know and understand everything Japanese. Being a Weeboo makes you a racist if you bothered to look up what it means. They pride themselves in emulating the Japanese all the way down to hating the same things they do. They think anyone not Japanese is inferior in every sense of the word.
You need to get your terms right.
@Diemeow23
Wait...are you contradicting yourself?
If you're a weeaboo, then you pretty much enjoy being racist to anyone not Japanese. More specifically the Chinese and Koreans. Yet you talk about not descriminating aginast other people? You lost me...
dude do u even know where austria is?
Since when do Austrian people talk in Australian accents? I'm sure your accent is much more annoying than any Australian one.
Don't they speak German there?
No its chinese, lol
Yes, we do. Although the Germans tend to disagree =)
Kind of, it got some words different but it is basicly like the difference between uk english and us english.