say do you remember niihaomaa in china 04: Thames Town, an interpretation of britain in shanghai

in big cities in china, it seems it has been getting remarkably popular to plan cities that are imitating images of cities of the West. during my stay in shanghai, a chinese friend of mine took me to one of them, the Thames Town. it is one of newly developed areas of 1city9towns initiatives by shanghai's planning commission from 2001 to accommodate about 10000 people. it is named after the Thames river and is inspired by british architectures and city design.

when i got to the thames town, i was surprised to see its unique function as a town. usually cities or towns function as places to live and work, and that generate some sort of vibe and energy. this is even more applicable in the case of cities in china, that people play games, cook, meet, eat and do whatever they want. however, in the case of the thames town, there were really nobody. although all the built environment were nicely furnished, nothing lively was going on. due to its emptiness, some articles i found even described it as "ghost town."

instead, it was used as a massive studio for brides and grooms. there were tens of couples making photo shoots everywhere around the town.

when i saw them photo shooting, i came to recall that chinese couple-friends of mine told me that it was really popular to take photo shoots at this sort of studios to make pre-wedding photo albums. when i heard the story and saw their albums, i really couldnt grasp the concept at all, because i couldnt imagine there would be this massive studio-like-towns in many big cities in china, and because nothing like this is happening in japan. obviously china offered me much more than i expected. seeing this town somehow made me re-realize that cities and towns have much more potentials than just offering accommodation and jobs.

the other finding about this area that interested me was its interpretation. it looked much like a british city or at least european city. this is what many of japanese developers should learn, since many of european-inspired towns in japan cannot really offer a bit of their originals.

what has tsunami left in northern part of japan

its been about 9months since the quakes and tsunamis hit in northern part of japan, and i still remember clearly the grotesque way of tsunami's eroding cities. it looked like mercury flowing or amoebas propagating. cars and even houses were swept away as if they were duck toys sweeping in the rivers. cities are the biggest creature made by humankind, but they didnt have any other choices but to be invaded, and people had no chance but to runaway or to surrender. thousands of precious lives were deprived and millions of people got grief stricken.

regardless of the amount of loss, it seems people there have been struggling to overcome the trial. since the catastrophe, disaster affected people have been working for the recovery of their cities and lifestyles together with various stakes. a tremendous number of people have been thinking what they can do and many actually have been participating in volunteer work. the numbers of companies and organizations have supported for the recovery by what they are good at. and millions of millions of financial supports were donated from all over the world even from our favorite neighbor of the great nation of kim jong-il. due to the supports, cities with no tsunami erosion has regained their ordinary lifestyle.

(in the city of ishinomaki)

(in front of the iwaki station at night)

however, as the government has been busy dealing with political games, the recovery of seriously wounded areas has been progressed at a snails pace. although it is obvious that it cannot allow to rebuild the same cities on the same ground and it hasnt reached to any conclusion what to do for the area, it is really irritating to see nothing has done yet.

it appears that most of rubble have been cleaned up already, but nothing else is happening yet. most of the affected areas had been shrinking even before the catastrophe hit, and this fact has made the restoration more difficult. it is meaningless to make cities recover by bouncing back to where they were before the tsunami, as many of them have lost their charms and attractions already. it is also pointless to make them bring back to the state that they were still growing, as the industrial structure has changed dramatically in a past few decades. i have still no clue what these areas should become like other than making them become super resilient and creative and making the former residents become happy. i hope something will bring hope to those who are in the deepest despair there as soon as possible. in order to do that, i should become more creative and productive so that i might be able to contribute at least a bit.