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Construction Update June 16, 2011
There is visible progress on the Shanghai Disneyland site: the huge moat that will encircle the Disney resort is being excavated, the three or four entry gates to the construction site are now equipped with barriers and security, and the site office has employees coming and going. And in the background, it's all digging and digging.
It's the third time I've been on site, and I must say it still feels out of place that a brand-new Magic Kingdom park will see the light of day here. Here, where life appears as if from different times, and from a different world. It's not the orange farms of Anaheim close to L.A.'s film studios. Nor is it the swamplands of the Disney-embracing Florida of the 70s, the harbor of high-tech and wealthy Tokyo, the middle-class suburbs of Paris, or the landfill on Hong Kong's airport island. It's the flat, remote, poor villages of Chuansha, Qigan, and Zhaohang, with all their dirty channels, crooked houses, toothless dogs, and smiling cyclists that made way for the invasion of the mouse; a mouse that became so huge and powerful that it can swallow men.
The coaster hat clown is back
'Please, no!'
Approaching my favorite corner
Huangzhao Road (see previous updates below)
Disneyland site gate (one of them)
Now equipped with barriers
That's all you can see behind
Let's get an elevated view!
Wall at the front, moat in the middle, office at the back
Disney and/or Shendi site office
This wall lacks authority
Massive excavations
Closer view
Workers on site
Photographer's angle
Shanghai Disneyland site in June 2011
Shanghai Shendi Group poster
Disney's local (state-owned) partner
The major construction site entrance gate is here
They call Disneyland the 'garden area'. Clever!
The circular moat
Different angle
The landscape is changing
Shanghai Disneyland security wall
A hole in the wall
Looks like a cartoon character went straight through!
Local residents
Local dogs
Local socks
She lives next to the wall and owns Mickey Mouse shoes...
...but she had no idea that the mouse is moving in next door!
Thanks for your help, Rada (on the right, speaks Mandarin)!
Infrastructure works
Future access roads
Lone worker
'I will be back.' - 'Please, no!'
Construction Update October 14, 2010
Holy swamplands! The villages I pictured on my last update below were indeed the right ones.
They have completely vanished.
A huge swathe of Shanghai suburbia has been flattened to make way for the future Shanghai Disneyland site and a wall just over half the height of the Berlin Wall protects the new depopulated hole that gapes in the area and separates the remaining Chinese villages from the Disney site. The on-site construction office is currently taking shape, supplied by armies of trucks that race through small village roads, blowing the winds of change through the thinning hair of old Chinese men on bicycles. It really looks like it sounds!
How do the locals take the change? I ask a local resident how he would react if his house would be next on the demolition list. He thinks for a few seconds, takes a drag on his cigarette, gets these reflecting Marlboro man eyes and responds: 'Well, let's see. It's ok. All up to the relocation package!'
Wow. Well. I really can't say now if this conversation was representative for the whole neighborhood, but it left an impression. Mao's disciples turned into business men. Good for me, since I am duly looking forward to seeing Disneyland's latest incarnation rising from the ground!
In the taxi again
What's that? Trucks on village roads?
Locals point the way
The good old Huangzhao Road sign from my last update
Something's changed
Security cameras in Qigan Village?
A gaping hole in the landscape
The future Shanghai Disneyland site!
The upcoming Shanghai Disneyland construction/site office!
Starring local workers
Finishing touches for the groundbreaking ceremony
The Disney office from above
Demolished houses on site
Close up
Disney site with separation wall in the back
Work is progressing around the site office
Cranes on-site
The Great Wall of Disney runs through the neighborhood
Close-up
Magic wall
Not-yet-demolished houses in Qigan village
Locals sitting in a shop facing the Disneyland site
My great local assistant and our motivated driver
Photos of today already feel like pictures from the past
Construction Update February 22, 2009
You really need a vivid imagination to picture a Disneyland park near Chuansha town. At present the area is a stretch of countryside halfway between Shanghai's Pudong International Airport and Shanghai city consisting of wetlands, woods, meadows and streams.
My assistant and I talked to locals in the quaint bicycle-filled streets of Qigan village and Zhaohang village and they are all very familiar with the Disneyland brand. Some say they have been eagerly anticipating the construction of a Disney park for nearly 10 years and were beginning to doubt it would ever come. However, in January 2009 it was announced that the Shanghai government and The Walt Disney Company had agreed to build a Disney park in this area, a plan which is being 'reviewed by the Central government' now.
The opening is scheduled for 2014. There is a small chance that I was picturing the wrong spot, but the future site is definitely somewhere very very close to it. I am extremely curious as to what is going to happen here. The moment Disney puts a fence in the wood, I'll be back!
Chuansha exit - the future Disneyland site!
Florida feelings
Future Shanghai Disneyland site?
Local vendor
Local cyclist
Local mess
Local canal
Huangzhao Road
Local shop
My happy driver
This village might be gone
Water from the canal
Local nature
Magic wood
Shanghai Pudong airport is close
A rainy day
Chuansha exit
The high-speed Maglev train passes through Chuansha
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