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Travelling through China’s ‘thousand cities with the same face’
For all of the country’s immense physical, cultural and historical diversity, when it comes to its cities, there is a startling monotony and sameness.
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China’s cookie-cutter urbanism is a product of its top-down approach to development, where central planning dictates the shape of progress.
ST PHOTOS: TAN DAWN WEI, AW CHENG WEI
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From the brown, dusty Gobi Desert plains of Gansu and the green endless grasslands of Inner Mongolia to the white majestic Himalayan peaks of Tibet a whisker from the heavens, China’s landscape is a breathtaking tapestry of natural splendour.
I have marvelled at them all up close, setting foot in every province, municipality, autonomous region and special administrative region in China. Those unfamiliar with the country often underestimate the incredible diversity of this land; not just in geography but in history, culture and linguistics. How’s this for a slice of cultural trivia: China is home to 56 official ethnic minority groups such as the Zhuang, Hui, Uighurs, Miao and Manchus, and more than 300 living languages.
