ORANGE COUNTY
(China) - American-style mansions are popping up all over the Beijing
countryside, reflecting the latest fashion in real-estate marketing and
sales.
Names borrowed from United States
places - like Central Park, Palm Springs and Manhattan Gardens - have
supplanted offerings such as Jade Dragon Apartments and East Lake Villa,
indicating the increasingly Western aspirations of Chinese consumers.
For example, Orange County, or Ju Jun
in Chinese, is an hour's drive north of Beijing.
'I liked it immediately - it is just
like a house in California,' said Ms Nasha Wei, a former army doctor
turned businesswoman, as she sat on a white suede banquette in her
four-bedroom house in Orange County. She moved into the unit earlier this
year.
Horizon Market Research advises
developers on how to set their buildings apart, noted: 'Especially in
Beijing, it's a kind of fashion - and if you don't choose a Western
concept right now, you're really out of it.'
Surveys by his firm showed that 70 per
cent of developers were emphasising the Western style as a marketing tool.
In many cases, the name is just a US
location tacked on to typical upmarket Chinese apartments. But at Orange
County, developers have promised clients the real deal - so long as they
can afford the minimum price tag of US$500,000 (S$872,000).
Houses are replicas of Southern
California homes, designed by Southern California architects, with model
homes decorated by Los Angeles interior designers.
Of course, not every aspect of
upper-middle-class Los Angeles translates exactly to the replicas, and
adjustments have to be made.
Houses in Orange County are all built
with sprawling, American-style kitchens, with ovens and countertop stoves.
But residents have discovered these
facilities are poorly suited to typical Chinese cooking, which is centred
on woks and sends grease and smoke spewing everywhere.
Ms. Liang Haijing, a lawyer in her 30s,
said: 'I love the kitchen - it is very pretty - but the smoke is dispersed
all over the house by the central air.' So, like many Orange County
residents, she has built a shack just outside the kitchen's sliding glass
doors to do all the cooking.
In 1999, Mr. Weighdoon Yang,
vice-president of SinoCEA, the real-estate development company which owns
Orange County, travelled to California to research homes.
He returned with a concept and a deal
with a Newport Beach architect.
'Chinese people like the image of the
American lifestyle, and we are the only company building homes like this
here,' he said.
Mr. Yang's idea had tapped into a well
of desire. Though an hour out of Beijing, all the homes in Orange County
were sold within a month.
Like in the case of its namesake,
Orange County, China, is mostly a haven for conservative lawyers,
businessmen and celebrities looking for somewhere peaceful to raise
children.
All the residents are Chinese, a mix of
those who have spent time in the West and those who simply like the
atmosphere. Ms Wei goes to the US several times a year, selling her
company's wooden furniture to the stores there.
Ms. Liang, in contrast, has never been
abroad.
She said she liked the huge master
bathroom and 'scientific' layout, which divided the first floor into the
living, dining and family areas. Typical upmarket Chinese homes have only
one large space.
'This is much more cosy,' she said,
snuggling in a fleece vest on a couch by the fireplace. 'Chinese sitting
rooms are like hotels.'
So far, Orange County is a suburb
without suburbia, surrounded by villages and fields.
But that is sure to change: It is less
than 16 km from the site of the 2008 Olympic Games, and the area is slated
for rapid development.
Already, two new six-lane
highways that run nearby are giving it more of that Los Angeles feel, with
just one difference: There is no traffic - yet.
--New
York Times 4 Feb 2003
