Monday, July 31, 2006
Bi hai jin sha 碧海金沙
"Blue sea golden sand" beach.
Shanghai has a beach, you ask? I had the same question when some Chinese friends we recently met from the mountain biking club suggested we make a trip to the Bi hai jin sha this weekend. But just like the rolexes hawked on Huai Hai, it turns out this beach is a fake. In a city where millions of people live every day without modern plumbing, somehow they've managed to construct a gigantic barrier around a section of the sea, installed some kind of water filtration system inside the sheltered bay, imported fine white sand from the beaches of Hainan island in south China and viola ... a tropical paradise only 1 hour from downtown Shanghai.
Despite the 50元 (about $6) admission fee, the place was packed on a beautiful, hot summer day. By my rough calculation, there is approximately 1 square inch of beach area for each resident of Shanghai, so I guess the crowds are to be expected. The water seemed surprisingly sanitary, which is to say we haven't contracted any skin diseases within the first 24 hours of exposure. In this picture, you can see the difference in water color between the "purified" beach water, which is actually quite blue, and the grey "natural" sea water in the background.
Like much of the manufactured experiences in China, the fake beach is an interesting novelty, but ultimately falls way short.
Shanghai has a beach, you ask? I had the same question when some Chinese friends we recently met from the mountain biking club suggested we make a trip to the Bi hai jin sha this weekend. But just like the rolexes hawked on Huai Hai, it turns out this beach is a fake. In a city where millions of people live every day without modern plumbing, somehow they've managed to construct a gigantic barrier around a section of the sea, installed some kind of water filtration system inside the sheltered bay, imported fine white sand from the beaches of Hainan island in south China and viola ... a tropical paradise only 1 hour from downtown Shanghai.
Despite the 50元 (about $6) admission fee, the place was packed on a beautiful, hot summer day. By my rough calculation, there is approximately 1 square inch of beach area for each resident of Shanghai, so I guess the crowds are to be expected. The water seemed surprisingly sanitary, which is to say we haven't contracted any skin diseases within the first 24 hours of exposure. In this picture, you can see the difference in water color between the "purified" beach water, which is actually quite blue, and the grey "natural" sea water in the background.
Like much of the manufactured experiences in China, the fake beach is an interesting novelty, but ultimately falls way short.
# posted by tim @ 9:29 AM 
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