If you havn't seen the first 4 parts of the series
I urge you to do so before viewing this thread.
My vacation in China part 1 (http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?threadid=88282)
My vacation in China part 2 (http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?threadid=88283)
My vacation in China part 3 (http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?threadid=88284)
My vacation in China part 4 (http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?threadid=88383)

* Note* I'm not sure of the reasons why Beihai is in such a depressing state and what I'm
saying here are the reasons why I think it is. Please correct me of I'm wrong.


Me and my brother went by train from Kunming to Nanning and took a bus from Nanning to
the southern most tip of mainland China, Beihai. Once we got to Beihai we hired a motorcycle
taxi to bring us to the ferry terminal where we bought our tickets for a boat ride to Haikou,
Hainan Dao. After purchasing our tickets we had 2 hours of free time to check out the
beaches of Beihai. Beihai is a resort town that isn't having much success competing with the
popular beach city of Sanya. Sanya is located on Hainan Dao (on the southern tip of that
small island just below mainland China) the island is considered to be the Hawaii of China.
The Chinese government or business have tried to enhance the beaches with Las Vegas style
theme hotels - almost all of these glamerous plans have failed. My brother aptly named the
beaches of Behai "The beaches of broken dreams"

1.
http://skyscraperpage.com/gallery/data/568/4473brent_spring_festival_187.jpg
Here I am looking at the barren landscape. All the buildings in this picture were abandoned
half way though construction. The building on the left looks like a Venice themed hotel, the
building in the center looks like a european themed castle, and the building on the right looks
like a cruise ship.

2.
http://skyscraperpage.com/gallery/data/568/4473brent_spring_festival_189.jpg
Me and my brother contunued walking towards the cruise ship looking building and went
inside its empty shell, this picture was taken looking further in the same direction as the first
photo. Over here you can see an abandoned Roman statue and wading pool, there is also an
abandoned stand where a concert must have taken place. The building with the red roof is an
abandoned "colleseum". Further away you see a huge ball which is a statue of the globe. To
the right you see condos that were recently built which means Beihai is coming back to life.

3.
http://skyscraperpage.com/gallery/data/568/4473brent_spring_festival_191.jpg
The statue.

4.
http://skyscraperpage.com/gallery/data/568/4473brent_spring_festival_192.jpg
Inside the "colleseum".

5.
http://skyscraperpage.com/gallery/data/568/4473brent_spring_festival_194.jpg
We walked past the "colleseum" and found what appears to be an abandoned zoo. We found
these monkeys playing in a tree on an island in the middle of a man made pond which was
empty. (you can see the circular shape of the pond in the picture) after taking this picture
the monkeys charged after us so we kept our distance from them. We also found another
pond that had some water in it, on further inspection we were suprised to see crocodiles in it!
We were going to take a photo of them but a guy came up to us and told us to buy zoo
tickets. We refused to pay and left the zoo.

We went to a local restaurant to eat some noodles before heading back to the ferry for
our ride to Hainan Dao.

6.
http://skyscraperpage.com/gallery/data/568/4473brent_spring_festival_193.jpg
Not all of Beihai's beaches are abandoned, this part was doing very well.


Stay tuned for part 6, Sanya! China's Hawaii.

Awesome...thats a real fun trip...

Beihai is one of the nicest resort towns in China, it's got the "silver beach" which is
argubably the best beach in China, and it's environment is among the top Chinese cities,
the seafood in Beihai is also fantastic for its taste, variety and price, the hotels are good
too.

The extremly small population of Beihai is its biggest obstacle to development. When
sourthern china experienced its first building boom about 10 years ago, Beihai was
regarded as one of the hottest places in southern China, thousands of real estate
companies had (over)paid billions of dollars on lands in Beihai, Sichuan province was even
planning on moving amount 2 million people into Beihai and boost both the population
and economy permanently.

Then all of a sudden, the previous Premier of China visted southern China and "warned"
the provicincial heads about "overheating bubble" economy. So overnight, the policies
and the political climate regarding the real estate development turned from red hot to
ice cold, and all external investments stopped and every single company that invested 10s
even 100s of millions in the lands of Beihai were forced to abandom their projects, as a
result they were all stuck with a bunch of useless land that no one would bother looking
twice and most of these companeis went broke.

To add insult to injury, the new city government which was put in power 3 years ago issued
a new "policy" which said that the government was going to take back every single piece of
land which was not being developed from the companies that bought the land without any
compensation. As far as the suffering real estate companies were concerned, they were
first screwed by an arshole from the central government, now they are being fucked again
by the local government. Here is communism in its truest ugliest form.

Great pics, hopefully Beihai will one day become a great resort place. :)

^ Wow Didu, thanks for telling us that. :shocked: Beach of broken dreams it is.

In order for something like this to happen in Canada, officials would have to discover that the land was contaminated with poison halfway through construction, which would cause people to flee from the area.

^^ China is full of broken dreams. What happened in Beihai 10 years ago was only the tip
of the iceberg of what happened in Southern China at the time. So many people and
companies went broke because of the bloody former PM. The Chinese local governments
were nothing but a bunch of mobs and scumbags.

Great stuff!!
Loved your Chongquing thread. A brutally ugly city, but highly impressive.

^^ China is full of broken dreams. What happened in Beihai 10 years ago was only the tip
of the iceberg of what happened in Southern China at the time. So many people and
companies went broke because of the bloody former PM. The Chinese local governments
were nothing but a bunch of mobs and scumbags.
That's because at that time,the economy of China became more and more unable to control,went to chaos,no order and bank didn't work by law,loan too much money,the GDP grew at the rate of about 14.5% in 1992.that's too high and somewhat dangerous,means no order.At that time,law didn't have much efficacity,too many people want to make a pile.At last,government used power to control, bubble broken.Behai is only an example,such as Guangdong,Hanan province lost more.

Great stuff!!
Loved your Chongquing thread. A brutally ugly city, but highly impressive.
Chongqing is a city built on the surface of mountain,so it doesn't like many cities,which has a center then spread. Chongqing has many points then connected,because it is a city built on mountain,so traffic is not easy,this is a city mixed with old and new buildings,and in fact,Chongqing only started to build many highrise and changed fast sicne 1997,not like Shenzhen in the 1980s and Shanghai in 1992.It is a city in western China,an old industry city.
And it is easily taking photos above roof,roof is not so beautiful as windows or walls.

once i had a talk with taxi driver in Xi'an, he said he was zillionaire in Haina Dao, he order other man driver his Rolls-Royce to the place he want go, now he drive for me. He said he went to Hainan in 80's with no money but he borrow money and buy the land then the land price rise double or more even ten times, after that sell it, he become very very rich 10 million USD just a case, there are enough money come here to exchange clearing. but one day the land be controlled by goverment again, his money just use for pay off debt. then he back to Xi'an, it just like a dream, he don't know why it happened also don't understand why it over. IMO, Chinese reform not all right we must advance it day after day, many people become rich not because his work but just good luck, also rich man become taix driver just because bad luck.

Great stuff!!
Loved your Chongquing thread. A brutally ugly city, but highly impressive.
the Chongqing mayor may has same idear with you, they want persuade companies and bankes to give them money, so they can father pollution and breed trees.

once i had a talk with taxi driver in Xi'an, he said he was zillionaire in Haina Dao, he order other man driver his Rolls-Royce to the place he want go, now he drive for me. He said he went to Hainan in 80's with no money but he borrow money and buy the land then the land price rise double or more even ten times, after that sell it, he become very very rich 10 million USD just a case, there are enough money come here to exchange clearing. but one day the land be controlled by goverment again, his money just use for pay off debt. then he back to Xi'an, it just like a dream, he don't know why it happened also don't understand why it over. IMO, Chinese reform not all right we must advance it day after day, many people become rich not because his work but just good luck, also rich man become taix driver just because bad luck.
1980s in China is a time of myth,many people became rich or poor just because of luck.some people sold spurious things and made a pile.Some people bribed to official,bought planned things with planned price,then sold it with market price,and made a pile.Some people also bribed to official and got much money from bank.Some people did speculation in Stock market(opened in 1992),bribed to official to control the stock and made a pile .Those things went to peak in 1994,when stock index went to peak and center government had used power to do many things.At that time,almost everything can happen,sounds like capitalist evil written in book? Very interesting.
Now,Chinese market economy has become more ripe,law has more power,and has many chances.Because as the developmant of China,balance appeared,just like spurious things in the 1980s,it is everywhere because at that time ,China is lack of things,And in 1990s,things grew many and balance appeared,spurious things couldn't be sold.

wow... this is really just one of many examples of mishaps in China...

yet I don't really agree with didu... I don't know who's the premier that he's referring to, but if ur talking about Jiang Zemin that I'll have to disagree... he did a pretty nice job in building the economy and calming it to a healthier growth... so did Zhu Rongji... for every Beihai there's another Dongguang or ZhangMuTou, towns that succeed.

Who knows? maybe it could've been much worse without the warning :-?