We often talk about mixing cultures and traditions in the modern world but seldom do we come across places that have completely embraced a particular culture. The idea of peaceful co-existence gets strengthened when we found out about Thames Town in China.
Thames Town is in Songjiang, 20 miles outside China’s commercial capital – Shanghai. Built as a British-style centre of education, technology and consumption, Thames Town has become an elite town now.
The idea behind the look of the town was to come up with a grotesque, and extremely funny parody of an olde English town seen through Chinese eyes.
Built by the municipal government to re-house 500,000 people, Thames Town now boasts of nine universities, 100,000 students and staff, several hi-tech plants, one of the world’s biggest shopping malls and buildings based on British architecture.
Thames Town offers homes to 8,000 people for the wealthy guys in Shanghai.
The cobbled streets, Victorian terraces and corner shops make it difficult to distinguish between a typical English town and Thames town.
This should be on everyone’s list of places to visit in China. What do you think?