Popular Culture Review Vol. 14, No. 1, February 2003 | Page 32

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Popular Culture Review

a 15-story apartment building without an elevator. There are numerous loopholes
created not only in the process of design and construction, but also in management
and property transactions. Finally, poor construction is endemic in Shenzhen. Many
buildings are poorly managed, illegal structures, developed through a “\shady’
collective fund”. Fire codes, safety regulations, and minimum living conditions
are
net *-^et.
Conclusion
Okay, so new buildings are “bad”, again, at least to our eyes. However, as a
recent newspaper headline explains, “contemporary architecture in China is like a
person who has been starving for a long time. He doesn’t need a gourmet meal; he
needs something that will nourish him”. This attitude is reflected in min qi, or
“people’s energy”, or public enthusiasm, which remains extremely high, with the
attitude that not only difficulties, but impossibilities, can be overcome and irreme
diable conditions at least temporarily overlooked. In this way, Shenzhen perhaps
exemplifies the confidence and optimism that filled much of Europe and America
in the early years of Modernism. However, that optimism in the future in the West
supposedly had as its basis a belief in rational thought and the benefits of advanced
construction technology and logical planning.
Although conditions in Shenzhen appear to us to be at least “dramatic”, if not
“cockeyed” in many respects, they operate with both an unimaginable optimism
and an indifference to logic. Min qi also helps change a present difficulty into a
bright prospect for the future. People can see empty buildings as a sign that China
thoroughly anticipates a great and prosperous future, when every building will be
filled. According to Zheng Lei, a private developer and architect in Shenzhen, “we
are building for the future. If there is no demand presently, it is okay. There are so
many people in China; there will be demand one day. We like seeing building
activities because they represent prosperity.” As a sobering thought, the unbridled
optimism created by today’s min qi is analogous to the mentality created by the
original Great Leap Forward campaigns. Even within economic disaster, a bright
future lay ahead. Encouraging the nation to look beyond the present difficulty,
Mao said, “Generally speaking, the overall situation is very good; even though
problems are not few, the future is bright”. In this land of hyperbole and dizzying
“progress”, Wal-Mart opened its first Sam’s Club and Wal-Mart Superstore in
Shenzhen in 1996.1 can tell you, it was a big day, a significant day! Shenzhen was
Wal-Mart’s first choice for its inaugural location in China because of its geographical
advantages and great consumptive power. Wal-Mart plans to eventually open 200
stores in China, with initial investment being mostly within the P.R.D. “They, the
world’s largest retail business, obviously recognize something important here;
should we all now, in architecture, take a good hard look, if only for its warning