Fake Paris – The Weird Side of the Internet
Written by Staff on July 12, 2024
Fake Paris – The Weird Side of the Internet – by Liam Sweeny.
What would the world be like without Paris? Ask the barbarians who founded the city in the 3rd Century BCE. Yeah, it’s that old. Of course, an almost perfect replica of the famed city was built in China called Tianducheng, in the Zhejiang province of China, in 2007. Aside from Tianducheng’s Eiffel Tower being 70 percent smaller, the main difference is that it’s basically a ghost town.
Only one- to two thousand people call Tianducheng home, compared with 11 million in Paris. That’s one person baking croissants in Tianducheng for every 11,000 people baking croissants in Paris. Yeah, I’ve been to neither “Paris,” so I assume all people do is smoke cigarettes, bake croissants and criticize art. Correct me if I’m wrong with plane tickets and hotel vouchers and one of those power convertors for my guitar amp.
One reason Tianducheng is deserted is because it’s surrounded by factory cities and smog. Which, in loose association, makes me thing of Parisians’ recent threat to poo en masse into the Seine when President Macron announced that he would swim in it to prove it was clean enough for Olympic swimmers. Which is weird, because I thought they used pools. I mean they’re called “Olympic swimming pools.”\
Do we need a second Paris? Maybe the Chinese do. Not everyone in China can travel the distance to go to the real one. And Las Vegas has the Paris Hotel with a little tiny Eiffel Tower in the front, which must infuriate actual Parisians, the franchising over their city. Plus there are a billioin versions of Paris trapped in snowglobes.
Nothing can take “the city of love” away from the real Paris, so you wonder what moniker applies to Tianducheng. Maybe the city of “let’s just be friends and suck tailpipe exhaust”? China is actually trying to populate it, building a Metro between it and the capital of Zhejiang province, Hangzhou. That should land them a few opportunities for coffee shops. Or will it be tea shops? Hopefully it’s tea shops.
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