Today I got an e-mail from John Nicoletti, a Disney public relations big-wig, confirming speculation about tentative plans to build a Disneyland Theme Park in China.
Here’s the text of the e-mail:
The following statement can be attributed to Leslie Goodman, Executive Vice President, Worldwide Public Affairs for Walt Disney Parks and Resorts, regarding the discussions of a new theme park project in China.
“Discussions have been ongoing about the feasibility of a theme park project in China. As part of this lengthy process, we worked on a joint application report with the Shanghai government which will be submitted to the Central Government for review. No deal has been signed, no project has been approved.”
This is an interesting tidbit in and of itself — and you can guarantee I’ll look further into it.
But here’s my quandary: In the course of researching the background for this announcement on the Web, I came across a blog called JapanProbe.com. It’s a site that purports to be a portal for different original content and content from news organizations in Japan.
However, none of the authors list their last names and the “contact us” link brings up a blank page. Maybe in the rest of the blogosphere this is OK, but we’re a newspaper site. Nothing we put up here isn’t factual, all the authors and sources are identified and vetted by editors.
Japan Probe has posted a big story on a theme park in Shijingshan, a burrough of Bejing, that is pretty much a knockoff of Disneyland. Read the post and look at photos here.
Trouble is, I can’t find any other mention of this park on the Internet. The few sites that do mention its existence are not news sites, many of the links have been removed and they all cite Japan Probe as the source of their information.
Even the AP article from Forbes.com that Japan Probe cites is no longer posted, if it ever was. Even when you type “Shijingshan” into Forbes search engine, it turns up no articles.
I’m asking you, faithful readers, to do a little cyber sleuthing over the weekend for us here at Around Disney. Help us figure out what the deal with the purported Disneyland knockoff is. In the meantime, I’ll call the PR guys over at Disneyland on Monday and see what they have to say.
Can you help?
The above photo comes from Japan Probe.
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borough
I notice the original article was from May, 2007. I also saw this short followup
http://www.japanprobe.com/?p=1716
that states most of the “ripoff” characters had to be removed or replaced due to copyright or trademark violations, but doesn’t have much other info. it’s clear from many of the photos / screengrabs that place is indeed real and flies in the face of Disney and other coporations like them. other than changing characters, I doubt they did anything else to “disguise” it’s not an “official” Disneyland China!
I don’t know much about Japanese blogs, but I think maybe they put only their first name either because it’s deemed unimportant or so the people highlighted (ahem Chinese) won’t retaliate! I suppose they do “some” investigative type writing but it may or may not be considered hard journalism from their perspective. it seems they are not affiliated with any newspaper, so perhaps it is an online-only that covers Japan and asia. whatever it is, I’m sure they put a lot of stuff out on the web to try to get as many hits as possible for ad revenue.
more background info on the website named:
http://www.japanprobe.com/?page_id=1601
apparently, as you can see it was just a guy writing a blog with a website address. then they sought more contributors and more folks (readers) started pitching in. also has a contact email address (via image).
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/090109/disney_shanghai_park.html?.v=4
Disneyland Beijing (the real one)
bpsqwerty — thanks for your help!
i blogged about this place a while ago, on my MFA thesis website:
http://themerica.org/blog/archives/34
the park opened in 1986 and here’s the wiki page on it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beijing_Shijingshan_Amusement_Park
it’s old news…and word is the park will be closed/modified before disney will agree to enter china proper for real. you know how the company can be about its intellectual property.
If you have a flickr account you can log in and search for “Shijingshan Amusement Park”. It comes up with 100+ photos of the park. One I noticed has a structure that looks very much like Spaceship Earth from EPCOT!