Simon Butcher

Disneyland China

Posted
Comments 3

Is this Donald and Minnie?I never knew there was a Disneyland in China until recently. Oh, wait, no, that's not Disneyland, it's Beijing Shijingshan Amusement Park (北京石景山游乐园).

It turns out the aptly abbreviated BS Amusement Park have nicely epitomised Chinese attitudes to western copyright law, and once again made their own cheap knock-off version of something successful.

Don't take my word for it, read James' article on Japan Probe, or articles in The Standard (Hong Kong), Associated Content (USA) or Wikipedia.

Amazingly, not only have most of the Disney characters been cloned, along with buildings from Disneyland such as Epcot's Spaceship Earth, but also other cute Japanese characters like Hello Kitty and Doraemon.

Common theme-park rides have also been adapted to a Disney-esque style, but even these are not originals. As shown on RCDB, these coasters look like pure clones of classic designs from Intamin/Schwarzkopf/Büro Stengel/Pinfari, but are mostly made by local Beijing Shibaolai Amusement Equipment.

The Shenzhou Coaster, for example, is almost a complete (but mirrored) rip-off of a Vekoma SLC, of which my fellow Walibi fans would recognise as the Vampire.

In general, China has an unfortunate ability to take ideas from the Western world, and through escaping international copyright law it is able to produce cheap, low quality, and ultimately disposable versions of successful products, in high quantities. China: with your new-found lack of originality, you're contributing to today's Disposable Society by destroying profitability of high-quality products.

I'll be interested to see if the park survives Disney's lawyers until next year's Summer Olympics, also in Beijing. Visiting the place must be like visiting an alternate reality where everything has been copied, but not quite right — some sort of Bizarro world.


Categories Rambling, Rollercoasters

Comments

  1. Well, I went to take a look but the website is so badly conceived and slow to load I really can't be bothered! :)

  2. A friend of mine who is from China tells me that china is more capitalistic than America ! But it is not just Disney world, they have complete clones of 'rich and famous' suburbs ( eg. Orange County, Beverly Hills, etc.. ).. it is completely surreal!

  3. (Author)

    Your friend is right. China is suffering from an increasing rise in mammonism. Remember the recent Harry Potter clones coming out of China? The difference here is that BSAP is state-owned. A colleague of mine, tongue in cheek, and ironically near the new Chinese Embassy being built near the office, said that China's government could threaten Disney with nuclear weapons, questioning what Disney has in _their_ arsenal that compares!

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