Shenzhen, Guangdong, China – Wednesday, May 25th, 2011
Theme parks are a way to experience the unobtainable. We can’t actually visit the past or the future, walk amidst a realm of pure fantasy, or live within our favorite work of popular culture… but we can pay good money to see dimensional simulations of these places, which we call theme parks. From that premise, we could probably draw a hypothesis that theme parks as designed will reflect a society’s collective unfulfilled desires—and often those desires reflect a political reality.
That’s one way to look at Window of the World, which opened in 1994, at a time when holding a Chinese passport offered dramatically fewer opportunities to travel outside of China’s borders. To that unfulfilled desire to see the world, Window of the World offers a straightforward proposition with its miniature versions (although some of them still quite large) of famed world landmarks. That also possibly tells the story of its slow decline into obsolescence: as international travel became less of a fantasy and more of a reality, the appeal of a replica theme park diminished.
While it’s undoubtedly true that Window of the World has become outmoded and eclipsed by more popular, fantasy and/or IP-based theme parks around China, I’m less inclined to buy into that hypothesis as the leading cause for both the park’s rise and decline. For one thing, the experience isn’t really a substitute for international travel to begin with, and indeed the concept can be found copied all over the world, in plenty of countries that have always offered their citizens a strong passport. The interest isn’t so much in just “seeing the world,” but in comparing the world in a single place, as well as appreciating the novelty and craftsmanship that goes into building these re-creations. After all, by this point I considered myself reasonably well-traveled, and I’d estimate I still had only seen maybe 5-10% of the landmarks on display in real life;
not a huge difference compared to someone who has never explored outside their country. If anything, being able to compare the model to the real thing, as well as having an inclination towards world travel in general, would increase. not decrease, one’s overall appreciation of such a park.
The real reason I think the park is on the downswing: Window of the World is simply not a terribly well-designed theme park. It shows its age and doesn’t have a tremendously exciting product to offer now that more elaborate theme parks are open. The depreciation rate of assets in a country as rapidly developing as China is very fast. It’s a wonder the park that opened in 1994 continued to survive into 2011 when I visited, let alone 2020 as I write these words.
After finishing my time at Happy Valley Shenzhen I walked across the street to spend a few hours in the afternoon and evening at Window of the World. This park is unique among local Chinese parks in that it regularly operates after sunset, providing a lot more flexibility to integrate into travel plans. The entry is rather awkwardly up the side of this big hill.
The Eiffel Tower stands as the park’s icon. A good place to start.
Unlike the version in Paris or even the replicas in the U.S., this smaller-scale version has no elevator. The observation deck is only reachable by staircase.
Being exclusively staircase accessible limits how high the view can be somewhat. At least it still gives an overview of where to explore next.
Back down on ground level.
This park struggles with designing in context. The structures themselves might be decent replicas of international architecture, but there’s no understanding of how it fits within a mise-en-scène. Tacky signage and advertisements abound.
Inside was, uh, just as interesting…
An indoor snow sledding park was at least something I’d never seen before inside a theme park.
The core of Window of the World is a number of model dioramas of globally famous cities and landmarks… some rather outdated, even by 2011 standards.
The park primarily focuses on locations from outside of China, as the nearby Splendid China theme park, often credited with being China’s first true theme park to open in 1989, is based around miniatures of Chinese culture. Here, for example, are a couple of landmarks from Brazil.
However, the park isn’t completely about miniatures. They also have a couple of full-sized rides, like this log flume with its impressive quantities of show water. I didn’t ride, presumably either because it looked too wet or the line looked too long.
I did, however, take the time to ride their newest attraction, Flying Over America.
If the title was any indication, this was a travelogue-style flying theater attraction in a similar vein as Disney’s successful Soarin’ rides. However, the ride hardware was completely different, with the seats all cantilevered off a large central arm that retracts down into a channel within the floor. When the show begins, the entire arm raises into the air like a giant fly swatter as the seats rotate to stay upright. The motion is considerably limited as a result, with the seats only capable of tilting back and forth.
Overall though, the ride is still probably a bit better than a random flying theater at an older park in Shenzhen ought to be, not that it’s saying too much. Lots of CGI shots or inserts abound, along with random people waving at the audience. (Maybe somebody on the ride owes them money?) I honestly wouldn’t remember too much of it from my single ride nearly a decade later, although thankfully the original source of the ride media was available on YouTube for reference (produced by Super 78 Studios of Los Angeles):
The other significant attraction at Window of the World (unfortunately removed in 2017) was its sole roller coaster, Underground Exploration.
This enclosed roller coaster by Beijing Shibaolai Amusement Equipment, with its uniquely designed train, has a hard-to-decipher theme. The best I could figure is “vikings explore an underground Indiana Jones-style temple.”
The lift gave strong vibes of Disaster Transport crossed with Skull Mountain. While it was hard to tell exactly what was going on in the dark, as I recall it was a fairly basic out-and-back/figure-8 style layout, but the caves and pitch black setting made it far more interesting than it would have been if built out in the the open. I want to recall there being a strong pop of airtime going up a hill after the big drop that caught me off-guard.
The video I took from the front row doesn’t show much of the fast portion of the ride but there’s still a few things to glimpse near the beginning and end. Overall I want to say this may have been the best coaster I’d ride today in Shenzhen? Certainly the most unusual.
Outside, I’m guessing these were intended to be replicas of Niagara Falls’ Horseshoe and American Falls?
And here: a replica of Hawaiian volcanoes, or a pile of dirt from a construction project?
A sculpture park contains replicas of many famed sculptures around the world, from ancient to modern.
Interestingly, the text panels credits both the original sculptor of the piece as well as its “imitator” here.
A few other random encounters. This park certainly shows a willingness to try lots of different stuff outside the strict confines of the original thesis.
Fun fact: both the words “kaiser” and “czar” are translations of the name “Caesar.” (Which should tell you a lot about how the people who adopt those names view the nature of leadership.)
The core of Window of the World has been, and continues to be, its collection of miniature landmarks, especially of European landmarks. There were plenty to take in.
There’s a lot of similarities to Window on China Theme Park in Taiwan, which opened ten years prior to this park. If Window of the World increases the size and spectacle of its many models, it also loses much of the sense of wonderment in discovering lesser known landmarks. With each model I spend more time measuring it up against my expectations, and less time pausing to muse “huh, that’s interesting.” With models it’s less about the subject matter, per se, and more about appreciating the craftsmanship behind their re-creation.
The afternoon haze gave way to the dark of evening as I continued to explore the collection of Asian miniatures.
Increasingly I was all alone in the dark. Had I somehow mistaken the actual park closing time?
Building a replica of the Eiffel Tower but putting neon red Chinese lettering on it that glows in the smoggy night sky makes it feel like I’ve somehow entered the extended canon for Blade Runner.
It seems as if the entire crowd in the park that day had gathered for a huge end-of-the-day live performance, for which I caught the last ten or fifteen minutes from a distance. I doubt I would have understood the intent of the full show, but from what I did get in that time, it felt very “workers of the world, unite!” Radical.
And by 8:30pm I finished my day at Window of the World and Happy Valley Shenzhen. Before heading back to Hong Kong the next day, I had one more stop to make, also provided by OCT, in the hopes of riding a coaster of actual quality on this trip.
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