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Subscribe to RSSA once-sleepy village in the countryside of eastern China celebrated its 50th anniversary Saturday by unveiling an incongruous addition to its skyline: a skyscraper taller than the Chrysler Building.
The 74-story Longxi International Hotel towers 328 meters (1,076 feet) above the village of Huaxi and cost 3 billion yuan ($472 million) to build, according to the state-owned China Daily newspaper.
AFP - Getty Images
An aerial photo of the Longxi International Hotel, which stands at 328 meters high and cost $472 million to build, in Huaxi, which is still classified as a village, in east China's Jiangsu province on September 24.
"The building exudes wealth and excess," wrote The Guardian's Jonathan Watts, who was given a tour before the official opening. One of the most impressive features is a one-tonne gold statue of an ox, said to be worth $47.2 million.
Carlos Barria / Reuters
A woman stands next to a gold statue of an ox during the official inauguration of the Longxi hotel on Oct. 8. The one-tonne statue greets visitors at a viewing area on the 60th-floor of the tower.
It may model itself on Dubai, but Huaxi is still officially classified as a village. Its original residents, just 2,000 families, have shared in the bonanza of its transformation. Reuters reports that they each have at least $250,000 in the bank, as well as enjoying universal health care and free education.
Carlos Barria / Reuters
Officials attend the inauguration ceremony of the new skyscraper on October 8. Officials from elsewhere in China tour Huaxi to find out how this once sleepy village, with just 576 residents in the 1950s, could have become so rich.
The rise of Huaxi, which now operates as a conglomerate with interests in steel, shipping, tobacco and textiles, has drawn tens of thousands of migrant workers, Watts reports, but their comparitively meager earnings have left them on the outside looking in.
What remains unclear is where the hotel, with its 826 bedrooms and dining facilities for 5,000 guests, will find its patrons. Local officials confidently predict a tourist rush, but if it does not materialize then their golden ox may come to resemble nothing no much as a great white elephant in the sky.
Carlos Barria / Reuters
Guests attend a dinner at the new hotel before its official inauguration on October 8.
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Wonder why we don't have universal healthcare and free education. Oh thats right, its all about the greedy rotten Republican rich tyrants.
A golden ox—how Biblical…
1920's-style excess. guess what comes next ...
If anything done with socialism is an absolute failure and waste of money, how did it happen that the US owes China $900 billion, also China has a trade surplus of $272 billion compared the the US trade deficit of $561 billion, and their solid gold bull is worth more than the Wall Street bull?
Wow...that's enough to make BOTH Richard Nixon and Mao Zedong roll over in their graves.
This is a demonstration of the simple minded village people in China who look for nothing esthetic and logics but the display of their wealth, just look at that hideous gold ox!! What a waste.
WOW, I guess some of you just can't deal with the fact that as teh US sinks, China is rising. Like a lot of countries they get things done quick, they spend years talking about stuff, or waiting for the next waste of time in 2 years.
sounds like America of old...THANK YOU GOP/BIG CORPORATIONS for making the Chinese realize the American dream
Exactly what does the GOP have to do with it? You are obviously obsessed and need to see a shrink.
This would of never happened if we won't of given them our gold.
I wonder how it will hold up against an earthquake.....
There are upscale folks in the U.S. who want upscale lodgings in different places in this country for weekend getaways - Vegas, fall in New England, Colorado skiing come to mind. So why not in China? The Chinese have our dollars - and this is an untapped market in a country with 4 times the population of the U.S.
Looks very Donald Trump, it's a real trick to make gold look cheap but evidently both the Donald and the Chinese know the trick.
This is where all the money from our consumerist culture has gone, to purchase the meager remaining Oil to build monuments to stupidity. When the Oil does run out as it surely shall, we'll get to visit these shrines if we can even get there in the first place.
It's the DAILY PLANET from Superman.
That building is an Architecture atrocity. It is gaudy and elementary in its spatial and structural expression. It almost as if it is a large faux column in an asian restaurant in america scaled up to ungodly proportions. It has no clarity of purpose. What an expensive eyesore.
Haha, that looks like the Knoxville Sunsphere on steroids. Obviously they're just fans of the 1982 World's Fair.
I was about to say...I am surprised you're the only one to make the comparison!
Ok, I think it just fine and a nice tourism statement for the community, but perhaps the Golden Calf in the viewing area is a little too much of an obvious Slap-God-In-The-Face metaphor even for me.
Now, if they would do something about the smog it might have a view.
They call that "fog" in China.
Sounds less critical.
Within 10 years, the building will be dirty, dated and needing scores of millions of dollars in deferred maintenance.
That's the Chinese way, build it tall and glorious with lots of none-too subtle stick-on goodies, be glorified by it, then build another newer one with better intentions for cleanliness and maintenance, which eventually never happen no matter what.
They should have made a solid gold statue of the Wal-Mart logo.
yeh..china..they need not remake any money back..it's all from the u.s.a. lmao
Definetely not an IM Pei or Skidmore design. This building has no asthetic value.
That's $400 million for materials, $1 million for labor, and the rest for corrupt officials.
Not much different than here, except labor costs a lot more and our buildings don't look like they belong in "The Jetsons".....................uh usually.
Kudos to China!
This looks like a Potemkin Village to me. That's what the Soviets would set up for visitors to show off how prosperous the Communist system was while in the background there was mass poverty and starvation. I know China is growing and prosperous today, but this "village" is by no means the norm.
There is the gold from Fort Knox.