That's a quote from an article that's advertised at the first page of the New York Times's website today. The article is called "How China Won the Keys to Disney's Magic Kingdom."
The sentence that is the title of this page is from this paragraph:
"The partnership has significant perks for Disney. State-run construction companies cleared a 1,700-acre tract to build the resort, which will ultimately include two additional Disney theme parks and thousands of Disney hotel rooms, analysts say. Authorities have relocated residents, moved graves, and closed more than 150 polluting factories. The government built new infrastructure, including a subway line that goes directly to the park's front gate."
There's also a picture that has the caption "A housing complex near Shanghai Disneyland that houses residents whose homes were demolished during the resort's construction."
The article doesn't dwell on the significance of tearing down people's houses, demolishing entire neighborhoods if not an entire village, for an amusement park. There are no quotes from residents of the housing complex, either because the New York Times didn't try to interview them or was told by the Chinese government that it couldn't interview them. If the New York Times asked to interview the residents and was told that it couldn't, I think that the article should have talked about that.
Do you think it's true that "graves were moved"? To where were they moved? Is there a graveyard near the housing complex, where all the graves got respectfully moved? Every ancestor in the right place, everyone who has died in the past year, all at rest again the way that they were? Nobody got the wrong gravestone, nobody's body parts got thrown into someone else's grave? People who were buried side by side, family grave areas; all of that was moved to a replicate graveyard?
"Moved" can mean a lot of things. If you bulldoze a graveyard and pour cement or tar over the dirt, pulverized gravestones and shards of skeleton so that there's a parking lot or the foundation for a building, you have moved graves; they are not where they were before you started. If you throw all the bodies in a mass grave, put some dirt on it and a fence around it and a sign at the gate that says "This is where your relatives are," you have also moved graves.
Is Disney's promise to China that its amusement park will be respectful of Chinese culture by having Chinese themes supposed to negate the thousands of pounds of trash that will be produced by visitors to the park, thrown into or next to dumpsters that are sitting on what used to be people's homes, places of work, and everything else that forms the boundaries and dynamics of people's lives?
"150 polluting factories"; that's a tidy statistic for a conglomerate media source to publish as fact, isn't it? 1,700 acres is only 2.65625 square miles. There were 150 factories all within 2.65625 square miles?
This is another quote from the article:
"'When global brands ask me what they need to do to improve their chances in China, I often paraphrase John F. Kennedy: Ask not what China can do for your business, but what your business can do for China," said John A. Quelch, who teaches at Harvard Business School and has extensive experience in China. 'They need to demonstrate that they are willing to promote things the government is interested in.'"
Is there going to be an "Imprisoning Human Rights Lawyers" ride? What about an "Imprisoning Journalists" ride; in 2015, Newsweek published an article called "China Is The World's Leading Jailer Of Journalists For Second Year: Report." What about a "The Government Threatens Your Friends And Family" funhouse? Is the food court going to have an "Organ Harvesting Of Political Prisoners" theme?
It doesn't seem like it; these are the next two paragraphs of the article:
"Mr. Iger is trying especially to give Shanghai Disney some Chinese flair. He instructed park designers to infuse as many Chinese elements as possible.
Builders collected indigenous trees from all around China, including a 59-foot chestnut oak from Zhejiang province, to adorn the grounds. A "Tarzan" show was directed by Li Xining, an acrobatics expert who once worked for the Chengdu Military Area Command under the People's Liberation Army. The Broadway version of 'The Lion King' will be performed entirely in Mandarin--a first."
The picture for the article at the first page of the newspaper's website features Snow White moving her hand toward her crotch.
That's the address for the first page of the New York Times's website.
That's the address for the article.
Copyright, with noted exceptions, L. Kochman, June 14, 2016 @ 2:23 p.m.
