It’s obviously a bit weird for a tourist attraction and it feels like a bait and switch. But for me it’s not surprising. I’m from Western Europe, we don’t have much in the way of natural water around here. All rivers and such have been fucked with for hundreds of years and there is very little natural about them, even though they look beautiful.
There’s this one small river about 50 meters from my home that looks especially pretty. It has a meandering path, with lush nature all around it and a pretty bridge you can stand on to enjoy it. The council maintains it and keeps us updated on how they maintain it, what future plans are and all the unique and often endangered species living there. It looks natural, but keeping it that way is a lot of work and it wasn’t formed by nature at all. In fact I know that same river actually runs through a pipe for over a mile. It’s a big industrial area a couple of miles away. So they put the river in a pipe to protect it and not have it interfere with the industrial area.
Another bigger river nearby runs through pipes in several places. It made big news a couple of years back. They were working on the freeway and at one point there was a bridge over the river with the freeway running over it. They wanted to put the river in another place, build a new bridge, build a new freeway etc. In order to do that, the river was kind of in the way. So they put the river in a series of pipes and actually had the river temporarily go over the freeway. I drove under it many times, as the project took a while to complete. It was so bizarre to think about. It didn’t look like much, just a big steel truss with pipes high up over the freeway. The new bridge did turn out very pretty and if you would look at the river now you won’t believe they actually put it into pipes.
I would think the highly populated parts of China would be much the same, with water management being done for a long time. Most people don’t think about how constructed our world really is, even the nature parts. I’m sure there’s plenty of parts with actual nature, but not anywhere there’ve been a lot of people for a long time.
I guess what’s weird is how abashed the government’s response was, like it was some embarrassing secret. In Austin, we had a major project that regulated the flow of a downtown creek by pumping water upstream from the lake and creating a flood bypass tunnel. This was all over the news and was a point of pride when it was completed. Here, the government seems to be acting like they did this in secret to fool people.
I know its a bit cliche, but cultural differences? I’ve heard of “the concept of face” / saving face being a greater factor in how the government goes about things in some East-Asian countries than what us Americans and/or Europeans might think necessary.
It’s obviously a bit weird for a tourist attraction and it feels like a bait and switch. But for me it’s not surprising. I’m from Western Europe, we don’t have much in the way of natural water around here. All rivers and such have been fucked with for hundreds of years and there is very little natural about them, even though they look beautiful.
There’s this one small river about 50 meters from my home that looks especially pretty. It has a meandering path, with lush nature all around it and a pretty bridge you can stand on to enjoy it. The council maintains it and keeps us updated on how they maintain it, what future plans are and all the unique and often endangered species living there. It looks natural, but keeping it that way is a lot of work and it wasn’t formed by nature at all. In fact I know that same river actually runs through a pipe for over a mile. It’s a big industrial area a couple of miles away. So they put the river in a pipe to protect it and not have it interfere with the industrial area.
Another bigger river nearby runs through pipes in several places. It made big news a couple of years back. They were working on the freeway and at one point there was a bridge over the river with the freeway running over it. They wanted to put the river in another place, build a new bridge, build a new freeway etc. In order to do that, the river was kind of in the way. So they put the river in a series of pipes and actually had the river temporarily go over the freeway. I drove under it many times, as the project took a while to complete. It was so bizarre to think about. It didn’t look like much, just a big steel truss with pipes high up over the freeway. The new bridge did turn out very pretty and if you would look at the river now you won’t believe they actually put it into pipes.
I would think the highly populated parts of China would be much the same, with water management being done for a long time. Most people don’t think about how constructed our world really is, even the nature parts. I’m sure there’s plenty of parts with actual nature, but not anywhere there’ve been a lot of people for a long time.
I guess what’s weird is how abashed the government’s response was, like it was some embarrassing secret. In Austin, we had a major project that regulated the flow of a downtown creek by pumping water upstream from the lake and creating a flood bypass tunnel. This was all over the news and was a point of pride when it was completed. Here, the government seems to be acting like they did this in secret to fool people.
I know its a bit cliche, but cultural differences? I’ve heard of “the concept of face” / saving face being a greater factor in how the government goes about things in some East-Asian countries than what us Americans and/or Europeans might think necessary.
This was really insightful thanks. Your last sentence really sums it up - I just hadn’t thought of it but it makes sense.