Ann & Paul in China: Instant walls and gated communities

Basketball courts and small buildings a couple of weeks ago. No wall along the street.

Same street with different view. And of course, the buildings

are gone and the courts are to the right, behind the wall.

One fascinating part of construction are the walls, especially the new "instant" walls.

It feels like almost everything in China is a "gated community."

We have wondered if this is a relic of a more severe police state. It is easy to control the comings and goings of people when thousands of them only have a couple of checkpoints they can pass through.

Take our campus. Very typical. It is surrounded by a 7-8’ cement wall. There are only three openings – gates. They are manned 24/7. Even for walkers, these 3 gates are the only way in or out of campus.

They just mortared over the brick all around
the basketball court

The basketball courts have been scrapped
away. who knows what is next

Last night, leaving the old campus to go to the new campus, we walked by the basketball courts where a construction crew was putting up a new brick wall.

Ann had seen them tearing down a couple of old small buildings on the edge of the site the week before. Most of the area was filled with basketball courts, badminton courts, and a big area where dance exercise goes on.

And now it is walled in.

Today the basketball courts have been removed. We wonder what is going on.

Seeing these walls suddenly pop up anywhere and everywhere is always interesting and always raises lots of questions we never get answered. China. And amazing construction.

Today they are assembling the crane to
start constructing the High School addition
on the front of our campus

Sunday night we were walking around the campus and discovered a fresh plaster wall essentially slicing off the back several blocks of the campus.

The old apartments have been razed over the last several weeks. Now that the rubble is gone, there is a fresh wall to keep everyone out during the construction of the new apartments.

As we ride the bus to the new campus we notice almost everything except commercial areas is either behind neighborhood walls or else there is a new wall protecting a new construction site.

Some of these walls are mortar or brick; others are gigantic billboards. The billboards are really funny. Many are artist renderings of the new apartment community.

Ann saw advertising the building of the Mall of America with a picture of the rotunda. They are full of creative attempts to use English to create a marketing cachet for "Vivid Living" "Colorful Living" and other phrases that make no sense to us.