When I first visited Guangzhou in May 1989, it was like an “gigantic village” – dirty, ugly & teeming only with people & bicycles. It wasn’t a pretty sight except for White Swan Hotel, a five-star splendour, where we stayed. To attract foreign tourists five-star hotels were being first built.
Then what greeted me in the late 1990s and 2000s is staggering & beyond my widest imagination. Simply unbelievable!
There weren’t many places of interest in the old days except the Five Rams’ Statue, Dr Sun Yat Sen‘s Memorial, the zoo which housed some Panda bears & shopping mainly at Friendship Store. However, we had the taste of the famous Guangzhou cuisine & it was good. In a word, we were totally unimpressed as first time visitors.
Today, Guangzhou is different!
In line with the Stratosphere Casino Hotel Tower in Las Vegas, the world’s ‘highest’ Ferris wheel‘ is set to open for business on top of a 1,480ft tower in Guangzhou China – with passengers riding in see-through pods. As compared, this development may not be as daring & adrenaline-pumping as with the Stratosphere’s. (Refer: Stratosphere Casino Hotel Tower, Las Vegas on Wed. 19 Sept. 2012).
Built on the 450-meter-high Canton Tower, known as the Guangzhou TV Tower, the amazing wheel consists of 16 pods holding a total of 96 fearless thrill-seekers.
Each capsule is just over three meters wide, and built using a special macromolecule material which allows a 360-degree crystal clear view.
Just think about this – 15 years ago some of the leading business journals scoffed when Coca-cola announced they were going into China and one remarked “How can the Chinese afford to drink Coke when a can of Coke would cost the equivalent of a week’s salary?”
Chinese companies are now competing with the likes of GE, Westinghouse, ABB etc to build power plants and massively sophisticated infrastructure – and beating ALL of them hands down!!
NOBODY CAN COMPETE WITH CHINA!!
Countries and companies that align with Chinese companies will become super powerful as China and Chinese companies have a long tradition of “Guan-Xi”. In Australia, BHP-Billiton is one such company that is laughing all the way to the bank, for China is building one Sydney-sized city every five days. Did you know that by the year 2025, China will have 219 cities with more than one million inhabitants, compared with 35 in Europe today and 24 cities with more than five million people. Also, 40 billion square meters of floor space will be built – in five million buildings. 50,000 of these buildings could be skyscrapers – the equivalent of ten New York Cities.
Slideshow of more images:
Paul Chong's Blog 