Book Report: Original Copies

It's a book about new housing developments in China, specifically those which have been made "Western-style". Why put up a copy of the Eiffel Tower in a newly developed Shanghai suburb? Why not? There's some interesting things to talk about here; alas, many of them are explained rigorously in academic language. I found my attention drifting as I tried to read. I was reading this book on the bus one day. The lady sitting next to me said she was impressed that I was reading something so serious. So then I felt doubly bad about skipping through the book—that I was seeming more serious than I was. (She asked me why I was reading it. I said it was a recommendation from someone I knew (Hi, Mahlen!), so maybe she eventually figured out that relative to my peer group, I'm not really the serious one. Anyhow…)

What are the interesting bits?

The market for these houses is rich Chinese folks; they've grown up thinking of Chinese goods as low-quality. So copy Western "luxurious" neighborhoods—Folks want Western because they want high quality. Don't copy, e.g., Rio's favelas.
A European architect on their own might not make an appealing house—many Chinese folks care about feng shui, even in a house with Western trimmings.
Many of these housing developments are almost unoccupied. They sold well—to speculators. That's not just true of these "replica" neighborhoods; that's also true of real estate developments around China in general.
Some of these luxurious developments are gated communities. (I haven't heard so much about gated communities in China before. I dunno if that means it's a feature only associated with these Western-style places or if I just haven't been hearing about the right things.)