driving through lang fang, i get the impression that i am in the midst of a real life version of sim city. the infrastructure for a huge city is all laid out and the city planners are just waiting for the hordes of constituents to move in. meanwhile, miles of perfectly paved road, set ablaze by row after row of towering street lights, remain empty except for the occassional car motoring by. half of the four lane roads are unpaved and the pedestrians, bicycles and cars do-see-do in a deadly dance that leaves me wondering why i don't see more human roadkill. street sweepers work all the time here, endlessly sweeping the dust from one end of the street to the other end, and back again. people need jobs, they gotta do something i guess.



the buildings are all built on a huge scale here. they've taken the "bigger is better" theme to heart. the police station is one of the most impressive buildings in the area and it looks like a university campus. the six port petro china's are like small city blocks and are topped by a pair of gigantic yellow arches reminiscent at once of both mcdonalds and st louis. garishly huge front entrances adorn every important building. or every building trying to be garishly important. roman columns (corinthian seems the most popular) seem to be a status symbol and every front door is preceded by a titanic set of stairs. for the three people who go to that building on any particular day.



i saw a set of roman columns set about fifteen stories up on the front of a hotel. at least i think it was a hotel. it's hard to tell for sure, my chinese being poor and all. and we drove by really fast.



the worst of all these architectural transgressions is the mayor's house: an ungodly mix of swedish villa and english castle. i swear there must be a moat and a drawbridge in there somewhere. the house is probably serviced by a staff of chinese girls, all wearing pigtails and plaid. like heidi. the top half of the building has wooden thatchings like a cottage, only giant sized, like in super mario brothers three, level five. the bottom half of the house is white stone with balconies at every window. hideous. howard roark woulda puked.



but all of this signifies the growing prosperity that is china. all of this is in anticipation of an economic boom that is sure to come china's way. china will become a dominant world power and little cities like lang fang are a testament to how loudly chinese people can scream "we have lots of money! dammit!"