A blog instead of group emails
The city's windy and clean, like a certain soulless Australian boomtown i know well, but with Vegas overtones...lots of new money, long, straight, ridiculously wide double and triple carriageways and a disappointing lack of people out in the streets.
Fifteen years ago it arose from the (winter) desert landscape after lots of oil was discovered in this part of Jilin Province. The first was of these discoveries was made in the Songhua River wetlands that lay between two villages. The remnants of the villages are slum areas, being demolished as i write.
The 2km-wide wetlands that now divide the city have been left 'untouched' - except for dozens of oil platforms. It used to flood when the mountain snow melted and both halves of the city have 10-metre dykes. But some kind of ingenious thirst calculus has told the authorities they can now 'develop' the wetlands because the development will take enough water from the river to ensure it never floods again. Green light.
At street level a conservative estimate would conclude every third shop is a restaurant. At night these eateries, ranging from ramshackle to guilded without much variation in price, compete for attention with garish neon lights, flashing, blinking, oscillating etc. etc.. It gives the impression every third shop is a Vegas gambling hall. Yet this city of 300,000 has one bar.
But it's a cop-out from the China i was looking forward to.
Welcome to Songyuan.
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