Shenzhen/China Folk Cultures Center

After crossing into mainland China, we drove to the city of Shenzhen. Although this city was just a small village 30 years ago, it now is home to more than 10 million people. The primary industry is technology manufacturing and services, and the average age of the population is 28. (The past 30 years seem to have been China's Industrial Revolution, with many young people leaving the farms and moving to cities for high-tech jobs.)

A view of Shenzhen from Lychee Park

The attraction we spent time in here is called the China Folk Cultures Center. We were told that when this was built, they consulted with the people at the Polynesian Cultural Center in Hawaii, so I had great expectations for this site. Unfortunately, it did not live up to my expectations.

The grounds were absolutely beautiful, but pretty much everything beyond that seemed to be all form and no substance. There were costumed characters representing different parts of China, but there was no interaction with them at all. Everyone in costume could wave and say "hello" but that was the extent of anything remotely interactive. There was no opportunity to learn how people in the different regions live.

Most of the buildings were miniature versions of what one might see, and the ones that were full size were just facades - with nothing inside. (Except occasionally there would be a shop or a place to eat.)

In the late afternoon we saw a traditional Chinese dance performance that was excellent and had beautiful costumes, but they didn't allow anyone to take photos. That was followed by the worst meal of our entire trip. :-/

After dinner, our buses took us to the Shenzhen International Airport for our flight to Guilin. This is one of the most beautiful airports I've been in - with huge, expansive, honeycomb-like ceilings. I wish I had taken pics of it. I saw a photo of the exterior of the airport, and it looked like a sort of futuristic airplane shape. Very cool!