The Great Zoo of China Read online

  Hu Tang spread his hands wide. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, welcome. Welcome to the most incredible place on Earth.’

  A short walk to a beautiful—and also brand-new—glass-enclosed train station followed. It was a gigantic space with a curved glass-and-steel roof.

  Four state-of-the-art maglev trains were parked at parallel platforms underneath the high soaring roof. The bullet-shaped trains looked very fast and very, very powerful.

  A huge red sign above the space blazed in English and Mandarin:

  WELCOME TO THE GREAT ZOO OF CHINA!

  Within a minute, CJ and her VIP party were aboard one of the trains and zooming through a tunnel at four hundred kilometres per hour, heading for the mysterious zoo.

  As the train shot through the tunnel, Hu Tang and Deputy Director Zhang spoke with the US Ambassador and his aide.

  Even in a group such as this, CJ saw, a subtle hierarchy still existed, and a good host always spoke to his most important guests first.

  CJ and Hamish sat with the two New York Times journalists further down the carriage. The lights of the tunnel outside whizzed by like laser bolts in a science-fiction movie.

  Wolfe said: ‘This region of China is the perfect place for a new tourist attraction. The weather is better than in the north and the region is already buzzing with business and tourist activity.

  ‘Hong Kong is the party town, all glitz and glamour. Macau is Vegas, keeping the casino crowd entertained. Mission Hills golf resort isn’t far from here—eighteen golf courses designed by the likes of Jack Nicklaus, Greg Norman, Nick Faldo and Annika Sorenstam. Biggest golf complex in the world. But then, that’s what China does better than anyone else.’

  ‘What’s that?’ Hamish asked.

  ‘Big,’ Wolfe said. ‘China does big better than any other country, including America. Mission Hills is the perfect example. How do you build eighteen golf courses—courses—in the rainforests of Guangdong? Easy. You pay the best golf-course designers in the world whatever price they ask and then you bring in an army of labourers and a whole lot of dynamite and you shape the landscape to your needs. Then you build hotels adjoining those golf courses and provide a superfast ferry to convey golfers there from Hong Kong and—voilà!—your mega-resort is ready to go.’

  ‘Do you think that’s what they’ve done here with this zoo?’ CJ asked.

  Wolfe shrugged. ‘There have been whispers of a major project in these parts for a long time. There are rumours that a special no-fly zone has been imposed on this region for some time and since all the local airlines are government-owned, it’s easy to enforce.’

  ‘Sounds expensive,’ Hamish said.

  ‘In a world of debt, young man, China is a net creditor,’ Wolfe said. ‘They have the largest cash reserves in the world: $3.7 trillion at last count. And that’s not including the $1.4 trillion that America owes them!

  ‘When they built the Three Gorges Dam—the biggest dam in history—they didn’t have to issue a single bond. They paid for it out of national savings. In the last ten years, China has built over two thousand kilometres of maglev bullet-train tracks like the ones we are travelling on now, without borrowing a cent.

  ‘Cost is no issue. China has a limitless supply of cheap human labour to build this kind of infrastructure. The world has not seen such a concerted effort in national infrastructure-building like this since Britain built its railways in the nineteenth century.’

  The Twitter guy, Aaron Perry, looked over at that, emerging from his splendid isolation. He had been writing notes on his otherwise useless phone till then. ‘And as far as the Chinese people are concerned, led by the ever-fabulous Communist Party, China leaps from one great achievement to the next. The state news agency, Xinhua, is a mouthpiece for the Party and would never question any announcement from it. Take the great media fraud that is China’s GDP figures.’

  ‘Aren’t they supposed to be amazing?’ CJ said.

  ‘They are amazing,’ Perry said. ‘A little too amazing. It takes Western nations about three months to ascertain their Gross Domestic Product figures. In China, it takes one week. One week. It’s as if the central government is telling each region what numbers to present.

  ‘And no-one in the Chinese media questions it. But, then, who would dare? Never forget, the Communist Party of China is perhaps the most successful authoritarian regime in history. It is ruthlessly repressive. China smiles and plays nice for the world, but it is still a very dangerous place to be a dissenter.

  ‘Take Tiananmen Square. The massacre that took place there in 1989 has been effectively erased from Chinese history. During the recent 25th anniversary of the massacre, prominent activists, artists, journalists and students were rounded up and placed in “detention centres” for fifteen days, so they couldn’t talk about it. Hell, if you Google “Tiananmen Square” on a computer inside China, you only get tourist information about the square. Tourist information! You get nothing about the massacre. The Chinese government will not tolerate any kind of dissent and it will move quickly and decisively to crush anyone suggesting change.’

  Hamish nodded. ‘Yeah. Like with Bob Dylan.’

  Perry paused at that, not understanding.

  Wolfe did, too. ‘Huh?’

  Hamish said, ‘Bob Dylan. The singer. You know: “Blowin’ in the Wind”, “All Along the Watchtower”.’

  ‘We are aware of who Bob Dylan is,’ Wolfe said flatly.

  ‘Dylan did a concert in China a few years back,’ Hamish said. ‘But the Chinese Culture Ministry insisted on approving the set-list that he would sing. And Dylan didn’t sing “The Times They Are a-Changin’”. I mean, it’s his most famous song. A song all about change. The Chinese government was afraid of a song. Don’t you guys follow the music scene?’

  Wolfe coughed. ‘Well, no, not really.’

  Hamish indicated the Bob Dylan T-shirt underneath his vest. ‘You didn’t think I wore this shirt by accident, did you?’

  CJ smiled at her brother.

  ‘Still, China faces a problem,’ Wolfe said, resuming his role as information giver.

  ‘What’s that?’ CJ asked.

  ‘The construction of the Three Gorges Dam was supervised by an American company, Harza Engineering. The new Hong Kong International Airport was designed by Norman Foster, the British architect. This maglev train could only have been built by one of two German companies, Siemens or ThyssenKrupp.

  ‘China’s problem is that it builds nothing of its own. Whatever we are about to see, take note of the nationality of the designers and experts who built it. Few will be Chinese. That said,’ Wolfe shrugged, ‘I must confess that I really am rather intrigued. Bringing a cohort of international journalists to see some new zoo is not exactly Earth-shattering. It’s a standard marketing tool. Nor is bringing the US Ambassador, for that matter—he might have helped a US company get an important contract on the project or something like that. But the presence of Hu Tang lifts this mysterious trip to a whole new lofty height. Politburo princelings do not act as tour guides. Something is going on here. Something big. And it looks like we are about to get a front row seat to see exactly what that is.’

  He nodded over CJ’s shoulder. She turned.

  Hu Tang and Deputy Director Zhang—followed and filmed by the CCTV crew—were coming down the aisle toward them.

  Hu stopped in front of the group.

  He threw a quick glance at the deputy director, who checked his watch and then nodded.

  CJ saw it. It was as if they were timing this speech to coincide with something.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ Hu began, ‘thank you for joining us on this most auspicious day. Today you will see a project that will be like nothing you have ever witnessed before, a $244 billion project that has been forty years in the making. It is a zoo that was built in absolute secrecy because when it is revealed to the world it will cause a sensation.

  ‘Now, I know what you are thinking,’ Hu Tang paused. ‘You are thinking that there
are hundreds of zoos, why does the world need another one? Indeed, what can China do with a zoo that has not already been done before? Ladies and gentlemen . . . this is what we can do.’

  At that moment, the speeding bullet train burst out into brilliant sunshine and CJ found herself staring at an awesome sight.

  The train zoomed out across a vast trestle bridge that spanned a gorge four hundred feet wide and five hundred feet deep. While spectacular, however, the gorge was not the sight that seized her attention.

  On the far side of the gorge sat an absolutely colossal landform that resembled a volcano, with high slanted walls that appeared to enclose an immense valley. It appeared to be rectangular in shape, its sides stretching away into the distance for many miles.

  A towering mountain peak poked up out of the centre of the rectangular crater, a storybook pinnacle.

  And flying around that peak, gliding lazily, their wings outstretched, were seven massive animals, animals that were far larger than any flying creature CJ knew.

  Even from this distance—and the train was still at least a few miles from the crater—CJ could clearly make out their shapes: sleek serpentine bodies, long slender necks and, most striking of all, enormous bat-like wings.

  Five of the creatures must have been the size of buses while two were bigger still: they each must have been the size of a small airliner.

  ‘Good lord . . .’ Wolfe said, mouth agape.

  ‘Holy Toledo . . .’ Hamish gasped.

  CJ couldn’t believe it either, but there they were, lifted from myth and flying around in front of her.

  She was looking at dragons.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ Hu grinned. ‘Welcome to our zoo. Welcome to the Great Dragon Zoo of China.’

  Fairytales cleanse and sanitise what were once true stories.

  In fairytales, knights are chivalrous, clean-shaven and wear shining armour—when in truth they were swarthy, filthy rapists and thugs. Castles are bright and gay when in truth they were grim fortresses.

  If dragons were real, then in all likelihood they were not graceful, high-chested, noble creatures; rather they would have been dirty, ugly, reptilian and mean.

  —CRAIG FERGUSON, THE POWER OF MYTH

  (MOMENTUM, SYDNEY, 2013)

  As the train rushed toward the crater, Deputy Director Zhang quickly put on a new blazer.

  It was bright red in colour, just like his old one, but it bore a different logo on the breast pocket: a gold dragon inside a gold circle, with the Chinese flag filling the background. Ringing the circumference were the words: THE MIGHTIEST AND MOST MAGNIFICENT PLACE ON EARTH.

  Red information folders emblazoned with the same logo were handed out.

  CJ felt both intrigued and misled. A carefully prepared switch had just been executed by her hosts right in front of her eyes.

  She also felt a twinge of anger when she saw the smug CCTV reporter, Xin Xili, and her crew filming CJ’s surprised reaction. Xin’s snide remark about CJ not being one of the world’s leading experts on large reptiles for much longer echoed in her mind.

  Hu Tang affixed a Great Dragon Zoo of China lapel pin to his jacket and said, ‘I must apologise for all the fake branding at our train station and on our people’s uniforms, but it has been necessary to keep our zoo a secret for so long. As you will see, it is worth it.’

  About five minutes later, the bullet train pulled into a station in front of the main entrance to the Great Dragon Zoo of China.

  The entrance building was magnificent.

  Jutting out from the front face of the immense crater, it was a glorious white building that looked like a cross between a castle and a spaceship. It must have been forty storeys tall. Two high-spired towers shot skyward from its roof, framing the central edifice.

  The structure’s marble walls were glittering white and perfectly smooth. They shone in the sunlight. And there wasn’t a sharp corner to be seen on the thing: it was all sweeping curves of marble, glass and steel. It was a post-modern masterpiece.

  A long silver drawbridge spanning a moat led to an eighty-foot-high silver door that gave access to the incredible structure. Right now, the drawbridge lay open.

  The entire building rose all the way up the southern face of the mighty crater, reaching right up to its rim.

  A vast piazza lay before the glistening white building. Standing proudly in the middle of it was a gigantic crystal statue of a dragon rearing up on its hind legs, wings outstretched, jaws bared. It must have been seventy feet tall.

  ‘Our main entrance building was designed by Goethe + Loche, the prestigious German architectural firm,’ Zhang said as he guided the group out of the train station and across the piazza to the drawbridge. ‘And our crystal dragon was designed by the French sculptor Christial. It is rather striking, is it not?’

  ‘Magnificent . . .’ Wolfe said.

  ‘Superb . . .’ Perry said.

  CJ said nothing as she walked underneath the statue.

  Everything about the scene—the marble square, the crystal dragon statue, the moat and drawbridge, the post-modern castle—it all just sparkled.

  It was, she had to admit, impressive. More than that, it was distinctive, as distinctive as Disneyland.

  But as she considered this, CJ also realised that Seymour Wolfe had been correct: the Chinese hadn’t designed any of what she’d seen so far; it had been the work of European architects and artists.

  Countless bollards and rope fences had been erected around the square, creating aisles that switched back and forth in anticipation of the enormous crowds the Chinese expected to come here.

  There were no queues today, but CJ could imagine them. If the Chinese had really created a zoo with dragons in it, the crowds would be monstrous.

  With those thoughts in her mind, she followed her hosts across the drawbridge and through the superhigh silver doorway into the Great Dragon Zoo of China.

  Entering the main building, CJ stepped into the loftiest atrium she had ever seen in her life. The ceiling of the vast space hovered an astounding thirty-five storeys above her, as if it had been designed to house a space shuttle.

  CJ saw a tangle of white-painted girders up there, suspended from which was a collection of enormous—and very lifelike—dragon sculptures that appeared to be made of fibreglass.

  Some had their wings outstretched while others dived toward the ground, hawk-like, talons pointed forward. Others still stood on massive pedestals in coiled, crouched stances, as if ready to pounce. All had their fearsome jaws open, fangs bared.

  The dragons, CJ noted, came in several sizes. Their colours also varied: some were brilliant and vibrant, with splashes of red-on-black or yellow-on-black, while others were more earthy: rocky greys and olive greens.

  Eight glass elevators ran up the side wall of the giant atrium and CJ and her party rode up in one of them, rising past the suspended dragons, all the while filmed by the CCTV crew.

  ‘This,’ Wolfe said, gazing at one of the more aggressive dragon statues outside the elevator’s glass walls, ‘is simply amazing. This is what it would be like to fly with dragons.’

  Hu Tang smiled. ‘My dear Mr Wolfe. You have not seen anything yet.’

  The elevator opened onto an entertaining suite. Food and drinks had been laid out.

  A fifty-metre-wide bank of floor-to-ceiling windows and glass doors faced north and CJ found herself drawn to them. The glass was tinted to keep out the glare, so she could only just make out the vista beyond the windows.

  It looked like a primordial valley, with forests and rock formations, lakes and waterfalls, all of it veiled in the ever-present mist of southern China.

  With Hamish behind her, CJ pushed open one of the tinted doors and stepped outside. Sunlight struck her face and she squinted.

  When her eyes recovered, CJ saw that she was standing on an enormous, enormous balcony. It stretched away from her until it stopped at a vertiginous edge more than four hundred feet off the ground.

&nb
sp; CJ stopped dead in her tracks at the view that met her.

  ‘Goddamn . . .’ Hamish breathed.

  What lay before them was more than just a primordial landscape.

  It was a colossal valley, roughly rectangular in shape, encased by high raised rims like those of a meteor crater or volcano. But it was far larger than any meteor crater or volcano that CJ knew of. By her reckoning, this megavalley was at least ten kilometres wide and twenty kilometres long.

  And it was breathtaking.

  The central mountain dominated it, and now CJ noticed a man-made circular structure near its summit. Ringing the central mountain were several lakes and some smaller limestone peaks. The grey soupy mist that overlaid the scene gave it a mythical quality.

  CJ could make out some modern multi-storeyed buildings dotting the valley, a couple of medieval-style castles, and an elevated freeway-like ring road that swept around the inner circumference of the crater, disappearing at times into tunnels bored into its rocky walls.

  Even more impressive, however, was the network of superlong and superhigh cables from which hung slow-moving cable cars that worked their way around the megavalley.

  And soaring above all of this were the most astonishing things of all: the massive dragons, wings flapping languidly as they banked and soared.

  ‘We’re definitely not in Kansas anymore, Chipmunk,’ Hamish said. ‘This is even better than when Stephen Colbert took over from David Letterman.’

  ‘How do you build something like this?’ CJ asked.

  Wolfe appeared beside her, also staring slack-jawed at the view. ‘And without anyone knowing about it?’

  Hamish lifted his camera and took a bunch of shots. When he was done, he nodded skyward. ‘This crater’s completely open to the sky. Why don’t the dragons—or whatever they are—just fly out of here?’

  CJ turned to find their two hosts, Deputy Director Zhang and the politician, Hu Tang, watching them with knowing smiles on their faces. They had expected this reaction.