I'm having the Riveria* buffet for dinner - as are quite a few others. And to make best use of it I had an entree of prawns and smoked salmon, and I would have had the crab if I could have known if it was genuine hairy crab - a local product in high demand in season - which started today! Somewhere down Nanjing Rd there's a big display - featuring a very large and colourful (although hardly hairly from the pics!) crab to remind and entice the locals!
* The southwestern Chinese city of Kunming is forcing developers to change the names of properties deemed too foreign-sounding, saying they debase traditional culture the China Daily reported yesterday. "Paris of the East" and "French Gardens" are two of the developments which have been renamed, although "Aladdin Gardens", "Champagne Resort" and "South-Carolina-Style Villas" are yet to follow suit. The paper also reported: Foreign sounding names are popular in China, lending a hint of exoticism to cookie-cutter housing developments ... Many are targeted at China's rising middle class, who are better educated and increasingly drawn to foreign travel, culture and ideas.
The Shanghai Daily report suggests there are two reasons for the wide use of exotic names: Chinese citizens take Westernization as modernity; and developers try to satisfy the public's fantasy of an exotic life without getting one step away from home. Whatever the reason - the final word could go to one Kunming official who simply described the phemonenon as a "flattering of poor taste".
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