Chinese world in miniature

Press, 3 February 1987, Page 12

Chinese world in miniature

| By

CHARLES WALMSLEY,

A funny thing happened to Chu Chung Hung on the way to a career in his family’s highly profitable day-old chicken business in Taiwan.

One day he idly read a magazine article about a Lilliputian world, the idea of which fired his imagination and gave birth to an ambition to create such a world of his own.

It wasn’t the allegorical land of Jonathan Swift the young man had read about, but the miniature masterpiece of Madurodam, the Dutch tourist magnet, which draws a constant stream of visitors from around the world.

Chu lost all interest in chicken farming and in the early ’7os he headed for the Netherlands to see the little city for himself.

He returned home bursting with plans for an oriental Madurodam. But he found that money for such an enterprise is not bred as easily as chickens. However, he was eventually able to infect his grandmother, Madame Chuang Liao Hua, with his enthusiasm and she agreed to underwrite the venture.

Work began in 1974 at a site near the town of Lungtan on family land which would no doubt have become a chicken farm in the normal course of events.

There followed ten years of research and labour which proved that the process of miniaturisation absorbed an inverse amount of money and effort.

By the time the park opened in July 1984 as Window on China, the tiny world had already cost SUS2I million. It had used the talents and expertise of 3000 scholars, architects and craftsmen during its construction.

In one horticultural project alone, a team of researchers headed by Taipei University’s Professor Lai took two years to develop a new strain of bonzai trees to complement the scaled-down buildings, mountains, lakes and rivers. These trees grow only to a specified height after which they do not become any taller but still continue to flourish for as long as any of their giant brothers. These are, understandably, one of the most popular souvenir items on sale at the plant nursery within the park. The realisation of Chu Chung Hung’s dream has condensed four million square miles of China and 5000 years of its cultural history and reduced them to the confines of a leisurely stroll. The 69 spectacular scenes which make up the Window on China display are the kernel of a huge recreation garden with a restaurant, gift shop, pavilions and an adjoining car park accommodating more than 1000 vehicles.

The models, built to 1:25 scale, are divided into three large areas, each repre-

senting a different aspect of China’s history and culture. In> the first is modern China with a not surprising emphasis on the astounding technological and industrial revolution which has made Taiwan’s economy an object of international envy. Here in this first region, meticulously modelled planes of the world’s airlines board their passengers and taxi for takeoff at an immensely small Chiang Kai Shek Airport; container ships unload their cargoes in bustling Taichung Harbour; cars and trucks speed along the Sun Yat-Sen Freeway beside a busy network of tracks which duplicate sections of the country’s electrified railway system. Window on China’s second major area includes the essential components of Chinese society — its civic architecture, schools and historical buildings with their related religious and folk activities.

Here one can see that monolithic centrepiece of Taipei, the Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Hall, its white marble terraces thronged with tiny tourists. By way of contrast is the ornate Edwardian pile of the post office at Tamsui, one of the country’s oldest cities which was a Dutch fort as far back as the seventeenth century. However, it is the third pane in Window on China which raises it to the plateau of true art. Displayed around this area in miniature splendour are some of the greatest treasures inherited from ancient Chinese dynasties.