China’s ‘English’ town outside Shanghai dubbed real-life Truman Show

Thames Town is 19 miles outside of Shanghai, and has an English pub, red telephone boxes and cobbled streets but is desolate and empty.

Imagine waking up from a coma and walking into a desolate English town complete with red telephone boxes and a Gothic church – only to find lots of Chinese written signs.

That could happen in Thames Town – 19 miles outside of Shanghai, one of the more Western cities in China – and cost £500million to make.

But the town remains unlived in, and the only people to come are those middle-class couples who have their English-themed weddings in the town.

It was completed in 2006 with mock-Tudor buildings, cobbled streets and English pub and on entering the town you could be mistaken for thinking you had strolled into a quaint southern county’s settlement.

But on closer inspection many of the shops on the high street – with name’s like ‘Mike’s Records’ and ‘the Fish Bar’ – are empty, leading many foreign visitors to liken it to the hit film ‘The Truman Show’.

A bronze James Bond statue is one of the few tourist attractions, while hundreds of homes designed to imitate Victorian, Georgian and Tudor architecture sit idle with no sign of incoming tenants.

Thames Town was built as part of Shanghai’s ‘One City, Nine Towns’ scheme, which saw a cluster of satellite towns built around the city.

Other replica’s such as the Eiffel Tower and a fake Tower Bridge have sprung up.

cobbled streets– macskaköves utcák
desolate – elhagyatott
complete with – valamivel kiegészülve
Chinese written signs – kínaiul írt táblák
to remain – magmarad
unlived – lakatlan, nem lakott
middle class – középosztály
English-themed wedding – angol témájú esküvő
mock – gúny
to be mistaken for – valamivel összetévesztve lenni
to stroll – vándorol, sétálgat
quaint – különös, fura
county – grófság, megye
settlement – település
on closer inspection – közelebbről szemügyre véve
to liken … to … – valamit hasonlítani valamihez
tourist attraction – turista látványosság
architecture – építészet
idle – haszontalan
incoming – bejövő
tenant – bérlő, lakó
scheme – séma, elrendezés
cluster – fürt, csoport, csomó
to spring up – megjelenik, felugrik

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2021 februári szám

Címke: english town

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