Guangdong, China – Tuesday, May 24th, 2011
Before I left for Asia, I expected to spend a lot more time in Shenzhen. Being in Hong Kong, Shenzhen was advertised as the gateway to the mainland. Located right across the border from Hong Kong as China’s first “special economic zone,” lots of students made plans early in the semester for easy weekend getaways to Shenzhen to visit the spas or explore the markets. I would have gone along, but delayed for just a bit longer waiting to confirm if the very-nearly-about-to-open Wood Coaster at Shenzhen’s Knight Valley amusement park was, indeed, open. GCI had even posted a POV video of the ride back in early February so it seemed only a matter of time. Yet, no word.
So I waited. I went a little bit further to Guangzhou instead. I even went way further into the mainland with my trip to Sichuan province. By this point everyone else had already had their fill of Shenzhen and if I still wanted to do it I would be traveling alone. Still, I waited more. Nothing. I waited all the way until the week before classes were over, when I finally scheduled a last-minute solo trip to quickly hit the Shenzhen parks, whether or not the new-for-2011 rides were functional or not. (Happy Valley Shenzhen was also due to open its S&S Bullet Coaster in 2011, although I was more skeptical that one would be ready before my departure date.) The theme park network for Asian park updates
was much less robust back in 2011 than it is now (even my searches using the Chinese characters and Google Translate didn’t turn up much), so either I’d return to Hong Kong disappointed, or as the first Western enthusiast to ride these anticipated rides and report their arrival to the rest of the world.
I’d have to live with the suspense for an extra day, however. After taking the bus to Shenzhen (with a slightly awkward border crossing, as traffic drives on the left in Hong Kong then switches to the right in mainland China), I’d dedicate the rest of my first day visit to discovering more of the city outside of its theme parks. As well as a couple of coaster credits.
The bus route to Shenzhen’s Donghu Park was a bit confusing, but I soon made it to my first destination.
Donghu Park (otherwise known as East Lake Park) is similar to many other public parks in mainland Chinese cities: expansive, some areas very formal, others more wild, with various pockets of cultural buildings, statues, or, as is often the case, a small amusement center. This one listed two potential coasters on RCDb so I made an effort to explore here here.
It was easy to get lost trying to find the rides. There’s always the moment where I begin to question if I hadn’t gotten my research wrong.
While I rather enjoyed wandering the park, I finally found the rides.
Unfortunately the largest attraction, the Golden Horse Spinning Coaster, appeared to be out of action for the entire day.
The smaller Golden Dragon Pulley powered coaster, also from Golden Horse, was indeed operating. I took a solo ride on this flat out-and-back layout.
While everything appeared freshly painted, the park looked pretty temporary and disposable. The rides would be shuttered permanently a few years later in 2017.
One amusing highlight: this pirate ship ride, using posters from the Pirates of the Caribbean movies and other pirate movies as theming.
Ah yes, starring every child’s favorite pirate character played by Jesse Jane! There’s even a web address for the kids to check out…
The one actually cool thing in the park was this aluminum Wiegand Alpine Slide going up the side of the hill. The small-sized slide I tried the year prior at Oakwood Park was way more fun than it should have been, so I was really looking forward to trying this full-sized attraction.
Unfortunately, this one had a policy that the ride operator had to slide down ahead of you to ensure you maintained a moderate speed, which frankly sucked most of the fun out of it. Even if I had wanted to go slower down the slope, my attention was on keeping a safe distance from him. The policy mostly just ensured I wouldn’t be paying for a re-ride. I tried to slow down at the top to create some distance but he wasn’t having it. Evidently failure to comply could mean they’ll release the hounds! (No really, jump to 1:40 in the video.)
From here I took the bus back towards the city center.
Having spent a lot of time in Hong Kong and already having done a bit of travel within mainland China, I was expecting Shenzhen to feel a bit like a blend of both. I was thus a bit surprised to discover how different from Hong Kong the city really feels. Much of it might just be the location; Hong Kong is so dramatically defined by the mountains and water, and while I assumed Shenzhen would be similar due to its proximity, the land here is actually quite flat and open, creating an ideal environment for China’s modular approach to city planning that feels agnostic to local culture and environment. For a city that owes its entire modern existence to its physical location as connection to Hong Kong, it was perhaps the one Chinese city I’ve visited that most feels like it could have been anywhere.
While I possibly could have used the rest of my afternoon to chase down a handful of other children’s coasters, I decided to visit the Shenzhen Museum to get a better understanding of what makes this city unique.
The Shenzhen Museum isn’t just named that just because it’s a big museum located in Shenzhen. It’s also a big museum that’s about Shenzhen. This type of hyper-local content is usually the kind of thing you find in smaller boutique museums within a city, so I was interested to see how it could sustain one of Shenzhen’s largest museums.
The Shenzhen Museum opened in 1988, and the exhibit design doesn’t appear to have been updated much since then. As a general rule across Asia, most large museum exhibits are generally not very sophisticated in terms of presentation, relying on the old model of drab neutral exhibits with didactic interpretive content that many contemporary museums elsewhere around the world are moving away from.
Dioramas and manikins were also very popular throughout the museum. Some were done artfully, others were more creepy.
That said, with thousands of years of culture of draw from, usually the artifact collections at these institutions are compelling enough to still make a visit worth it.
The artifacts tell the story of Shenzhen from ancient history through the communist revolution to the modern quasi-capitalist era.
It was also fascinating to witness throughout the interpretive text panels how museums like the Shenzhen Museum are used for nation-building to help establish a national identity and common narrative. (Propaganda, in other words.) But don’t for a minute think that’s only limited to museums in developing or ccommunist countries. Government-sponsored museums in America absolutely do the same thing.
I’m curious what exactly they mean by making Shenzhen a “modern international avant-garde city”?
This large model of Shenzhen even included reference to one of its original amusement parks, Honey Lake Park. The large Over Water Roller Coaster had already been SBNO for several years prior to my visit. I’m curious if its still rusting away over the lake to this day.
After a little over two hours of exploring the Shenzhen Museum, rains had settled in over the sky and it was time to check into my hostel. Tomorrow I would go out in search of the more modern roller coasters that made Honey Lake Park obsolescent within modern Shenzhen, in the hopes that these newer rides might all be open.
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