Copy Nation

The world knows how China is good at copying. From electronic to fashion products. Now we have architecture at large scale. Well, copy is not evil, but this is PIRATE:

Zaha Hadid's Wangjing Soho Complex

and its pirated version: Meiquan 22nd Century, developed by Chongqing

Thanx my friend architect Thuy Nguyen for sharing the original article: http://www.dezeen.com/2013/01/02/zaha-hadid-building-pirated-in-china/

Related readings:

China can produce. Can China create?

Zaha Hadid seeing double in China
"Hadid is not the first to be mimicked in China. Last year, a small UNESCO-protected village in Austria, Hallstatt, was recreated, brick for brick, in the subtropical district of Guangdong, China. You can find the complete story here."

China replicates Austrian village

Why do the Chinese copy so much?
"Perhaps the language is a reason why: you cannot learn Chinese unless you spend years memorizing thousands of characters needed to achieve literacy, unless you copy, single-mindedly, unquestioningly. Some linguists and cultural historians believe so much mental energy and brain space is taken up by rote learning of the language, that little is left over for innovative thinking."

" “China is adopting the achievements of Western civilization, at least as far as information and technology go. They are learning like crazy and you learn through imitation, too.”

Copies of Zaha Hadid's Bulbous Blobs set to overtake China

Chinese copy Victoria's Secret show

iPhone 5 copied and design-patented in China

10 most audacious Chinese-made knock-offs

Chinese can copy anything

China builds its own London Bridge

the empty city

(photos: Times, Vnexpress)

China-SuZhou

At SuZhou, the first place we visited was a famous silk factory for SuZhou is world-famous for not its landscape but also its unique silk. They showed us a sample manufacturing chain of silk to understand how Suzhou silk are made, then they lead us to a showroom. Their silk really made a great enough impression for travellers to spend big money here. Yes, big money. The price of a world-class product!

Here is a performance. 4 women was stretching the silk out to create thin and large layers. Finally, they'd combine these layers to create a product, for example a drag or anything.



SuZhou is called " The Venice of Asia". I was extremely excited to be on a boat around the channels in an ancient area of SuZhou.


The ancient area is compared to Hoi An in Vietnam. But we all must say that their "ancient streets" are more beautiful, better invested and developed, and of course more attractive. Beside souvenir shops, they have bars and cafes, restaurant and small tea shop with traditional Chinese live music performance.




When we got back to our hotel. We decided to walk out more the find a place to sit, eat, drink and talk - like we often do in our beloved country. At this point of culture, Chinese people are no different from Vietnamese. They have a lot of small food-vendor and small food-shops late at night. I remember the temperature that night was lower than 10 celsius. We all grouped tightly in a very small red tent and enjoyed the night very well til after midnight.

And this is HangZhou

This is HangZhou, the second destination of our trip. I was impressed not by this city buildings but its greenery system. The best place of this city is probably the West Lake.

(unfinished, to be continued)


By redgoat3003


By redgoat3003
as an urban designer, I took some notice of the details in the streets. They reminded me somehow of our new urban area Phu My Hung, developed by Taiwanese. I guess there is a relationship here. lol.



By redgoat3003

We took a short trip on West Lake to enjoy sightseeing the beauty of HangZhou main landscape.


By redgoat3003
An arcade that reminded me of Saigon Center building in Ho Chi Minh city.


By redgoat3003


By redgoat3003
Night street. We realized that in both HangZhou and ShangHai, nightstreets are always crowded. Stores use vibrant colors, mostly red. Vendors keep saying and saying, showing what they get trying luring people to buy some. We even got stuck with some disturbiing "marketers" who kept chasing and persuading us to try their "service" ( they sell " lady, massage, beautiful girls....")


By redgoat3003

Chinese people are better at law-obeying in the stretets than Vietnamese, as most people in higher-developed countries. However, we could still find some people risked their life in large streets breaking the rule, and that was quite interesting to us. I know if the streets in my city( and my country also, are wide enough with as many cars enough, our citizens will also behavior better in traffic.

China (Shanghai)

too busy to write something interesting here

Shanghai is the first city of China that I visited. Love that fabulous megacity!

Til now, I've visited 3 of the commercial streets/areas as the inspiration for my graduation thesis. They are Orchard road of Singapore, Siam Square of Bangkok and Nanjing road of Shanghai. Morever, I also visited a huge market place in Shanghai with huge department stores and hundreds of shops that sell a heaven and hell of copied/fake brand fashion( I can't remember the Chinese name!)

The other 2 cities are Hangzhou and Suzhou.
Here are some photos from Shanghai:

First are some views from ShangHai Television Tower


I like this photo: from the East Side of the river ( PuDong - newer urban area) looking to the West Side - with old classic building.






It's a pride to see one of the tallest high-rise buildings of the world in real life. I always love those skycrappers since my first day of university. Though I do not study to design them, I want to design a whole area for them, and how they interact with each other.


a huge street with 4 mega-store at its corners. They sell fake brand fashion clothes and electric product. We call this huge "copy street"


A food street near the "copy street".


delicious grilled octopus !


This scene would gratify people those who love skyscrappers and urban vistas.


People love shopping. I love shopping streets.And this is the fabulous NanJing road of Shanghai.