Eeuw van de Stad: Interview Liu Jiakun

In May this year, we did an interview with the architect Liu Jiakun from Chengdu. Mr. Liu has a clear and critical opinion on the urban developments in China. In the interview he gives an analysis of what is happening in his country: more cities starting to look alike, with a strive for the same identity. You can read the interview at: Eeuw van de Stad. (only in Dutch)

The sound of a city

Zhengzhou is a noisy city. It is one of the first things one notices when entering the central shopping street. It’s much noisier than, let’s say, Shanghai or Beijing (let alone cities in the rest of the world). In fact the volume of background sounds is so high, that it might be better to speak of foreground sounds. Not only do you hear the humming of the traffic, and the chattering of people, but also hundreds of commercials.

Every shop, from the smallest barber to the biggest mall, has a speaker outside in the street playing a tape to attract customers. “Everything for 2 yuan!!! Everything for 2 yuan!!! Everything for 2 yuan!!!” Continuously the same message. “The best leather bags for the lowest prices. Buy now! The best leather bags for the lowest prices. Buy now! The best leather bags for the lowest prices. Buy now!” Well, you get the idea.

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“Zhengzhou is a business city”

There’s a woman asleep on the red sofa in the lobby of the Home Inn, one of the middle end hotels in the center of Zhengzhou. It always strikes me how people in China can sit down and doze away just about anywhere (see sleepingchinese.com for some really uncomfortable positions).

We walk up to the counter and talk to Patty, an English language student from Zhengzhou who does her internship in this hotel. “Can you show us a map of the city?”, we ask. She takes a tourist map, unfolds it on the counter and starts pointing: Home Inn, trainstation, city center… ”Does Zhengzhou have any old buildings?”, we ask her. Patty doesn’t seem to understand: “All what?” She grabs pen and paper and hands it to us. “Old buildings?”, we write down. She takes another pen and writes down the answer in big caps:

NO

“If you want to see old buildings”, she says, ”go to Luoyang. This is a business city.” We ask her to show us where the most important sights in Zhengzhou are. She points three things on the map: the pagoda, the main shopping street and the Central Business District. “A lot of new buildings”, Patty says. “Very modern.”

Our first impression of Zhengzhou: a city with more than 7 million inhabitants without old buildings. And one of its main sights is the newly built business district.

Evergreens

A development in the Northeast of the city of Zhengzhou was started in the nineties, to lift up the area. The buildings were hotels and spas. The area has known more active times in its existence than nowadays.