WWW

# 2010-2020 LOOKING BACK AT

A GLORIOUS DECADE

# GREAT WALL MAKE-OVER

# PET OF THE FUTURE
# HAUNTED IN THE MEGAMALL
# FAT CAT CRUSHED
# ARE CELEBS WATCHING US?
# PLUS MUCH MORE INSIDE...

this week
10 Years
Cunning
City !
 Beijing 2020: a safe haven for your investment!
This
see it.
is the central business district of
Soaring
Beijing how we at Checkmate Real-estate
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 CC, October 14, 2020 Mayor He Xin Cheng (何新城 )
opening statement at the Cunning City’s (诡异之城 )
10th anniversary celebrations
Welcome citizens! Welcome visitors! Ten years ago this land under our
feet was farm land. Ten years ago the sky was gray with dust and soot,
and our hands blistered from spades and rusty shovels. Today we are
here to look around us at what we have created. We have created a
dream. A dream of glass and concrete, of parks and avenues, schools
and office towers.
In this our beautiful city has excelled where so many have
failed. Far from the glare of Shanghai, the prowess of
Guangzhou, and the splendor of Beijing, we
have blossomed. Without hesitation
we have developed beyond a
mere production
center
to become
a powerful trade hub,
an educational center, a tourist
destination, a shopper’s paradise, a city of
the masses. Today this city is a metropolis, and one of the most
competitive on the globe.
To get here we have walked new and uncertain roads. We have built
with blind courage and persistence. We have abandoned the existing
and relinquished tradition. We have denied the permanent and embraced
the dynamic, and evolved even beyond ourselves.
Today this city is all cities. Every morning it reveals itself in unseen
ways. It’s like a forest — its roots digging deep in the hard soil, its
branches our dense roads and bridges, its canopy of green like our
terraced estates. Today the Cunning City no longer is a city. It is a
world. A world where we live, produce and consume. You will all agree
when I say, this brave new world we have built together: its structures so
extravagant they make other cities redundant; its artificial landscapes
so subtle they can rival Mother Nature herself.
Who can resist such glorious temptations when it nurtures us, serves
our desires, and our pleasures? The Cunning City always knows what
we want. It’s a friend with a mind of its own, and a body at work for us
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day and night. Behold its arteries throbbing in the dark.
Today for the first time we look back and take pride in our achievements.
Onlookers, local and foreign were curious — critical sometimes.
Policy makers have often tried to deprive us. But the Cunning City was
strong from its conception. It is not an instant city, but an urban
nucleus unfolding rapidly. Its success formula is widely imitated. The
Cunning City has unleashed a social revolution. Too many cities were
merely thrown up by well-connected businessmen and over-zealous
officials. Their vitality perished with the first cracks in the paint. Their
concrete shells, now empty, lie scattered around the landscape. We have
invested together, avoiding opportunism and state squander. Many of
you gathered here today left the fields or abandoned the factories and
construction sites to build your own home, your own city. Now we all
benefit from the prosperity of the Cunning City Corporation.
Those days the world around us was in turmoil, occupied by greed and
religious extremism. All we believed in was progress! Mass migration
was our exodus. The new city was our promised land. Our faith:
Progress, Performance and Prosperity
With this belief, you, the citizens have designed a city in the likeness
of your own desires. You have packed
the center
to its full commercial potential,
and sculpted suburbs to fit effortlessly into your comfortable
consumer lifestyle. Who wanted walls or gates, when shopping
could be so seamless? Who wanted to wait, when you could
instead always be moving? Today we can add two more Ps – those
of perfection and play. What’s left for us is to enjoy the ride.
This presentation was brought to you by Omnigroup, your friendly affiliate!
bURB 
 bURB bURB 
 burb 0agazine: CONTENTS
concept and artwork: neville mars POLITBURB
texts: adrian hornsby, neville mars
layout: neville mars, adrian hornsby Brain-Melt-Eurotrash 14
graphical contributions: xiong yi fei, jeffrey ludlow, vanessa lee, Still spilling off ships and into trouble
alexis martin reyna, jeff gompertz & yoko taketani, Wang zi
Hot From The Dragon’s Mouth 18
contributing authors: louis coulomb, erich schienke, elena simons, Dark stuff afoot in the north west
jeremy mercer, beatrice ferrari, Wei Wei shannon
Cunnning City Facts & Figures 28
This page )5((]H++XPDQV7R2FHDQV Catch the latest via r exclusive datastream
team: neville mars, hou xiu, li xin lu
COOL NEW STUFF!
From Ming to Bling! 16
Check out ancient China 2020-style
Wanna Haves! 30
R latest wish list
Carving Out Neighborhoods 40
Blast of light for the Cunning City
IN THE HOME
The Rise of the Phoenix Panda 22
Who said genebenders can’t be cute?
My Home — My Network 42
Find out how Apple never needs to go outside
TALK OF THE TOWN!
Marriage 4 a Moment 44
He’s blue — she’s pink …
Fat Cat Trampled in Cat Crazed Stampede! 48
Whoa, but how did that happen?
What a Podd Question! 49
Kooky celebs get their spy pods
Ghost in the Sponge 52
Strange things afoot in r favorite mall-chine
PERSONAL FOCUS
Urban Growth 66
A story of er-road-ed dreams and new high-deas!
Yoko Where Are You? / Unidentified Youth 60
Odd disappearances and haunting scenes
SPORTS AND LEISURE
Shanghai Shehui’s Silver Signing 24
The Puds net another big name
High Art for the Faint at Heart 64
Fancy a spot of culture? Well just look around you!
SPECIAL FEATURES
The Cunning City 26
10 years on and more alluring than ever
Freeze 72
Dreamers get busy with Humans 2 Oceans
 bURB ADVERTISEMENT bURB 
 1(21'5($06
$QLPDWHGOLJKW installation
1HYLOOH0DUV

10 bURB bURB 11
“The dynamic city is the
Chinese Dream!”
12 bURB bURB 13
 POLITBURB
Brain-melt-
eurotrash
MIGRANT MIGRANE
This month another dilapidated
European freighter, ironically
dubbed the MS Bright Future, ran
aground coming into China — this
time quite literally under the nose
of Pudong’s celebrated Golden
Mao. It’s hard to imagine what the
father of the CCP would have had
to say, but it seems unlikely he
would have felt much sympathy for
the 286 illegal European immigrants
on board. As individuals they may
have been dirty, malnourished, and
sick, but as part of a growing trend,
they represent further administrative
headaches and international
embarrassment.
This is the last in a string of
such incidents, including illicit
migrant vessels caught docking
near Shenzhen, Qingdao, and on
Chongming Dao island, as well
as European stowaways found in
numerous freight containers up and
down the coast. No estimates have
been released for how many may
have slipped through the net.
The risks associated with EU-China
people trafficking are considerable.
The smugglers themselves are
notoriously brutal, and to avoid
suspicion, will devise complicated
and lengthy travel routes. It is
suggested that illegal migrants are
often subject to abuse en route,
and held for many years in debt-
bondage upon arrival.
This form of migration is however
no more than a dark tributary to
the much wider flow. An increasing
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number of Europeans are arriving
in China through regular channels,
and showing every indication that
they intend to stay.
T r a d i t i o n a l l y EU m i g r a t i o n t o
China has come from Turkey and
the Balkan areas, but a gathering
wave is now observable from
regions further north. This is largely
attributable to the “melted brain”
syndrome, where burnt out creative
sectors and bad loans have led
to economic instability and rising
unemployment.
But the migration is not all job-
orientated. Learning-migration
also has a significant role to play,
with a substantial growth in the
number of students traveling to
China. Figures from 2019 show a
36% increase on the previous year,
making Europeans by far the largest
single group in the class of foreign
students enrolled in institutions of
higher learning in China.
Early indicators show that having
completed their studies Europeans
do not return home. According to
the OECD, the return rate over the
period 2008-2019 was only 14.1%.
While this is all indicative of
continuing Chinese economic
strength, questions hang over the
issue of urban integration. European
communities tend to be segregated
within the city, and internal violence
between different ethnic factions
worries the PSB, who increasingly
are being forced to view the influx
as a threat to urban security.
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FROM MING
COOL NEW STUFF!

TO BLING!
GREAT WALL GETS A
2020 MAKEOVER

Sick of pics of the drab old wall in

decline? “No more!” says Guo Pu,
the construction magnate who has
taken on the task of bringing it up to
date.
You can’t doubt the man’s en-
thusiasm, and, with the whopping
800 billion RMB he’s bringing to the
project, his power to make things
happen. The proposals include:
• an automated anti-vandal taser
protection system

• speakers every 50m play-

‘I’m not just talking about a wall
face-lift here,’ says Mr Guo. ‘I’m
talking about the whole thing: im-
plants, bigger lips, smaller nose,
cheekbones, ass — the works! That
wall is old, but we’re going to make
it sizzle!’
• replacement of damaged
stones with neon-pink kevlar
bricks
• full end-to-end coating of the
wall with high gloss teflon
ing mood music and nature
sounds
Much of the original wall was
built during the Ming dynasty in the
14th and 15th centuries. Now at last
it looks like Ming’s gonna get his
bling on!

16 bURB bURB 17
 POLITBURB
Hot!!!
from the Dragon’s
DISTANT SOUNDINGS
Fragmented reports have been cir-
culating this week that US military
forces made an incursion into Xin-
jiang province in north western Chi-
na. According to one source, this is
part of a covert operation aimed at
‘backing Muslim separatists in their
struggles against repression and in-
timidation at the hands of the Chi-
nese military.’ At an international
press conference Chinese officials
vociferously denied any attack,
while at the same time condemning
the idea as ‘unlawful aggression.’
The suggestion of humanitarian
concerns was deemed a ‘human
rights smokescreen [being used] to
influence developments in the great
Yugsar basin.’ The area has been
thrust onto the international stage
ever since deep NMR mapping re-
vealed a 400 billion barrel oil field
beneath its dusty plains. Satellite
images suggest Russia has begun
to mobilize troops on its Kazakhstan
and Mongolian borders, signalling
an intention to respond if the puta-
tive conflict threatens to spill-over
into its territory.
Since global oil production peak-
ed in 2013 the US has focussed all of
its military might on securing energy
supplies and maintaining transporta-
tion routes. This has been the source
of significant tension between the US
and China. It now looks as though
ten years of economic tit-for-tat
between these two countries may
have finally come to a head. The
zero-sum interdependencies of the
Wal-Mart era are a quaint memory
of a gentle early millennium. China
has shifted from being the US’s dis-
count overseas factory to a verti-
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Mouth
cally integrated and highly efficient
economic powerhouse, with a thriv-
ing internal market, and strong eco-
nomic ties with populous Brazil and
India. What’s more, until recently,
China’s foreign reserves were bulg-
ing with US dollars and treasury bills
even while China no longer de-
pended nearly as much on exports
to grow.
Economists seem to agree on only
one thing these days: when the oil
price broke the mythical $300 a
barrel in 2017, the global economy
suffered a deadly blow. Since then,
the lights have virtually gone out in
Africa, and much of South America
is down to a flicker. The smaller, less
resilient – mostly European – com-
panies have either collapsed or
been taken-over by larger ones, fur-
ther consolidating global corporate
structures. Mergers and acquisitions
have brought together the most
unlikely of couples. Last week saw
the hostile take-over of Ballistika,
Russia’s largest military hardware
manufacturer, by the mammoth
Exxon-GE-Pfizer Group (EGPG).
Most of Ballistika’s dozen or so plants
are situated in North Eastern China
— plants which have for the last 6
years been China’s foremost sup-
plier of advanced missile technol-
ogy. But with the suggestion of US
troops trickling into Xinjiang prov-
ince, some things may be about to
change.
As many commentators have
pointed out, the most important
bURB 19
cont. from page 18
developments in recent years all
seem to be hinged on whether or
not adequate supplies of energy
can be secured. There isn’t a ma-
jor multinational in the world that
doesn’t have a stake in the oil and
gas supply chain, be it upstream
or downstream; be it in shipment or
commercialization. Many alliances
have been built around political ob-
jectives. One of these has been to
squeeze China out. Facing chronic
widespread power outages and oil
price spikes, China has been forced
to step up coal production dramati-
cally over the last few years. Calls
by Beijing to reopen at once hun-
dreds of derelict and ill-equipped
coal mines grimly echoes the Great
Leap ventures that brought so much
hardship and environmental degra-
dation. About one third of the coal
is currently being converted to liq-
uid, synthetic fuel to make-up the
two million barrels a day shortfall
from conventional oil. The rest is ei-
Wherever you’re from …
20 bURB
ther burned on site or transported to
power plants around the country.
The amount of CO2 released into
the atmosphere by China has dou-
bled in the last five years. Perversely,
some might claim this is an indica-
tion of how well things are going. Af- Feeling
Observed?
ter all, the true scale of global warm-
ing cotinues to be hotly debated.
The quintupling of freak hurricanes
since the beginning of the century is
suggestive, but climatologists from
the Hadley Center predicted a wa-
terlogged Benelux by 2020, and this
appears not to be the case. And so,
until it is, to some there is no global
warming. This seems to be the mind-
set predominating in boardrooms,
and up and down the global strip
mall.
Here in the Cunning City, the man
on the street is little concerned with
the world’s conflicts and upheavals.
He’s worked hard to be able to con-
sume hard, and no border skirmish is
likely to upset that.
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IN THE HOME
The Rise
of the Phoenix Panda
This month saw the final goodbye
to the giant panda as scientists fi-
nally admitted defeat, and agreed
to scrap their stock of frozen pan-
da embryos. Attempts over the last
few years to culture the embryos,
either in artificial environments or
in the wombs of closely related
species, have led to one failure af-
ter another. There has been grow-
ing criticism of what has become
known as the “panda pit”, and the
oversized global “panda pocket”
when it comes to funding.
‘It’s not a technology issue,’ Dr
Zhu, head scientist at the Wolong
breeding center insists. ‘We have
very advanced fake wombs, and
with the right drugs you could
make a crocodile give birth to a
panda bear. The wall we’ve come
up against is simply an exhausted
genetic stock. Ultimately it’s the
quality of the embryos you have
to deal with, and frankly, they’re
junk.’
This argument is no revelation,
but rather confirms what skeptics
have been saying for years: that
when it comes to the giant panda,
we left it too late.
Things started to look seriously
bad for the world’s favorite bam-
boo-binger back in 2005. A mas-
sive simultaneous efflorescence
of arrow and umbrella bamboo in
the mountainous regions of both
Sichuan and Shaanxi provinces
led to a wide-spread die-off of the
two bamboo types most favored
by the panda bear. The already
low wild panda population suf-
fered high death rates. Over suc-
22 bURB
ceeding years a number of bloated
panda corpses were found on vil-
lage garbage heaps, where, rum-
maging for sustenance, they had
confusedly ingested batteries, plas-
tics, and various heavy metals.
In the meantime pandas in cap-
tivity continued to feast on “panda
powerbars”. However, the concern
for scientists was maintaining a suf-
ficient genetic pool to ensure the
overall health and diversity of the
species. In 2008 an initiative was
brought in to map the genome of
every remaining panda individual:
at that time 75 in all.
The task was completed in 2011,
but increasingly pandas born from
this tiny base were showing reces-
sive traits, including brownish fur
and distinct behavioral oddities.
Fears around Asperger’s syndrome
pandas seemed to be confirmed by
low levels of social behavior, and
a reluctance to engage in mating.
Centers exposed pandas to massive
quantities of video footage of repro-
duction in the wild, but while this
did provoke an outrage about pub-
lic expenditure on “panda porn”,
as well as widespread sales of pi-
rated dvds, the pandas themselves
weren’t getting hot.
‘It just didn’t seem to float their
boat,’ Dr Zhu comments, remember-
ing sadly that period.
By 2014 the wild panda popula-
tion was officially zero, and center
workers were becoming increas-
ingly pessimistic about the outlook
for the species in captivity. Numbers
had sunk to 51, and sexual activity
was at an all time low. ‘All of our cur-
rent embryos date from this period,’
Dr Zhu notes. ‘That means our entire
genetic stock is 51 bummed out
panda bears. We’re not even deal-
ing with a full deck.’
But while Dr Zhu and his team
were determined to drive down to
the very bottom of this dead end al-
ley, a splinter research group calling
themselves Pandas For Tomorrow
(PFT) decided to explore a different
route. ‘We had always been inter-
ested in the possibility of cloning,’ Dr
Xu, spokesman for PFT, has told us,
‘but the directors at Wolong were
too attached to some dated idea of
“natural generation.” The challenge
was always to persuade very con-
servative board members to allow
us to harvest their precious panda
stem cells. That’s why the Clonotron A
was such a breakthrough.’
Panda stem cell harvesting was
generally regarded as a threat to
potential fetuses, and therefore re-
jected out of hand. But just as things
looked to be deadlocked, a paral-
lel technology came to the rescue.
The Clonotron, developed in South
Korea, allowed a new genetic map
to be imprinted or reprogrammed
!
B
!
onto an existing stem cell cluster.
ed
And while panda stem cells weren’t
forthcoming, PFT, in a bold move,
n
decided to pursue a “phoenix pan-
da hack”. Using genetic information
m
from the 2011 census, Dr Xu came
a
up with new “theoretical” pandas,
d
and then printed their genomes onto
n
stem cells garnered from American
a
raccoons. Raccoons are closely re-
P
lated to pandas, and with a little fine
tuning, Dr Xu was able to design ge-
bURB 23
 SPORTS AND LEISURE
cont. from page 22
nomes that would take.
The phoenix panda burst into the
public sphere in 2017, when it am-
bled down the catwalk of Paris Fash-
ion Week for top designers Prêt-à-
Porter, and had that infamous bowel
movement. Prêt’s dwindling global
popularity seemed to be confirmed
by the silent comment of this brand
new species, but while Prêt was out,
the phoenix panda was very very
in.
Naturally docile, readily adapt-
able to domestic food, and at only
one third the size of a giant panda,
the faintly striped phoenix panda
quickly became the luxury pet to
have on the end of your diamond
leash. Stars were caught on cam-
era with them, and city tycoons had
them sitting conspicuously in the
SHANGHAI
SHEHUI’S
SILVER
SIGNING
Three million jerseys emblazoned
with the number 10 sold in the
first week alone. A guaranteed
full house for every game at the
newly-expanded Honhkou Stadium
months before the Jia A season
kicks off. The football demigods
in Madrid, Manchester, and Milan
weeping bitter tears of frustration.
Thus far, Shanghai Shehui’s 1.8
billion RMB gamble on the magical
touch of Rudolfo is paying off.
The reigning Chinese champions
stunned the football world by
24 bURB
backs of their vintage petrol-burn
cars.
But the practically limitless sup-
ply of raccoon stem cells has been
bringing the availability and afford-
ability of the phoenix panda to the
upper-middle classes. A cub now
retails at a cool 500,000 RMB, and
just about every chic district in the
city has its peppering of owners.
Analysts are expecting a sharp rise
in demand following the official ex-
tinction of the phoenix panda’s un-
lucky forebears.
Dr Xu taps the ash off the end of
his exquisite Cuban cigar. ‘Sure I la-
ment the death of the giant panda,’
he says, ‘and this admission from
Wolong is something of a grave-
stone. But nature moves on. And
business is booming.’
ADVERTISEMENT
signing the most coveted prospect Rudolfo was the target of a dozen
in history to the richest contract in top European sides, including
history. Rudolfo, a fleet striker with Real Madrid who had offered a
an assassin’s touch around the net, record transfer fee of 200 million
scored an aneurysm-inducing 47 euros to lure him to San Bernabeu.
goals for Corinthians last season, But Shanghai’s director of player
leading the Brazilian club to victory operations, Sun Qi, flew to Parque
in both their domestic championship Sao Jorge to negotiate directly with
and the Copa America. the player and the club, and won
GO TO page 61
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Rise & Shine: the great awakening
Like the gasses involved in the Big
Bang, huge clouds of people were
compressed into the Cunning City.
Superheated centripetal forces had
amassed an indefinable amalgam
of energies, materials and individu-
als. Urban tissue swelled, but like
those moments right before the
Bang, everything was ingeniously
packed together.
Vaulting the need for physical
proximity, packets of light bolted up
and down optic fibers, drawing the
scattered fragments of the world’s
aspirant metropoli into a unified cun-
ning web. Global capitals merged
and demand-threads co-aligned
in the continuous presence of the
strong urban force. Global rivalries
ceded the battleground to a unified
structure for desire. The Cunning City
was only too capable — too swift
and supple — when responding. Its
26 bURB
lissome fabric was able to move
and stir change, thus activating
the full commercial potential of its
own unique condition. Its ability to
process consumer urges fedback
into urge-generation, with an in-
evitable spiraling upwards.
National and ethnic identities
unwound in the context of vec-
tors of such extreme magnitude.
As people traversed the fluid
virtual and physical spaces of
the Cunning City, they became
chameleons — translucent bod-
ies refracting the urban con-
text. Constantly shifting charac-
ter, the first conclusion was that
each person had become many
people. But in fact, the opposite
was occurring. Just as the Cun-
ning City had collapsed distance,
and substituted choice for will,
it was melding individualities …
GO TO page 36
bURB 27
14 percent small settlements, 47 percent urban. Current population spread: 12 percent rural, 18 percent small settlements, 70 percent ur On October the 5th, the United
Nations announced that global population had reached the 10 billion mark, just 8 years after passing 9 billion. Population density now amounts to 19.6 inhabitants per
POLITBURB
square kilometer. CUNNING CITY - FACTS & FIGURES Females burst into tears 29 times a year on average, beating males by 450 percent. Population spread in 2000: 39
percent rural, 14 percent small settlements, 47 percent urban. Current population spread: 12 percent rural, 18 percent small settlements, 70 percent urban. Urban area
totals 102014400 square kilometers. Rural area totals 408057600 square kilometers. Last year’s migration from rural to urban area x 1000: January 367, February 243,
March 156, April 156, May 278, June 293, July 368, August 271, September 255, October 199, November 133, December 250. Inhabitants by age 0-12: 16 percent, 13-18: 20
percent 19-45: 32 percent, 46-65: 9 percent 66-80: 13 percent 81-150: 10 percent. If all of this year’s Valentine’s cards were attached in a chain, they would span
the earth 1.8 times. ‘To do’ lists contain an average of 14 items. Within the built area of non-residential construction, shopping accounts for the majority- 33
percent- of the area, followed by 20 percent for living, 17 percent for offices, 10 percent for industry, and 9 percent for education, 6 percent for infrastructure
and 5 percent for recreation. Last year, 350 children were reported to the police for glass breakage resulting from snowball games. Median height of residential
construction in urban area is 45 floors. Median depth of residential construction is 9 floors. Those living above the 60th floor engage in sexual intercourse 1.3 times
more frequently than those living below the 15th floor. Champagne consumption is 3.1 times higher. Sewer capacity increased by 36% in the last twenty years. Inhabitants
of the park regions are three times more likely to develop caries before the age of 17 in relation to the average citizen. Females pay 5.4 visits to the bathroom,
males go to the little room 3.4 times a day. Migration from Less Developed Countries (LDC’s) to More Developed Countries (MDC’s) amounts to 132.000 per month. In city
centers households occupy an average of 31 square meters, while suburban residency averages 45 square meters and rural households enjoy 61 square meters. Suicide is
up by 5 percent in the last 5 years. Demographic indicators suggest a trend towards shrinking families in dense urban areas, countered by a strong increase in household
members for suburban areas. Household size for rural areas is expected to remain steady at 4.3 members. Single parent families: 44 percent, two- parent families: 39
percent, other: 17 percent. Families enjoy the following domestic dwellings: 23 percent apartments of which 34 percent owned and 66 percent rented, 17 percent lofts
of which 37 percent owned and 63 percent rented, 9 percent villas of which 73 percent owned and 27 percent rented, 12 percent farms of which 89 percent owned and 11
percent rented, 3 percent bungalows of which 79 percent owned and 21 percent rented, 6 percent mobile units of which 96 percent owned and 4 percent rented, 13 percent
homeless shelters of which 0 percent owned and 85 percent rented, 17 percent on the streets of which 0 percent owned and 0 percent rented. Per thousand inhabitants,
households keep 80 dogs, 154 cats, 39 hamsters, 390 goldfish, 21 parrots, 37 rabbits, 293 stick insects, 21 gerbils and 189 other. The world population travelled a
total of 64000 billion kilometers last year (6800 km per capita). Citizens in possession of a car are 2.1 times more likely to also own a monthly subway subscription.
Travel on foot takes an average of 14 minutes per trip, of which 6 minutes are spent in elevators, 4 minutes in semi-covered space, 3 minutes in open air and 1 minute
otherwise. Taxi rides are considered a ‘special treat’, an ‘emergency convenience’ or an ‘obsolete nuisance’. Subway- station employees spend 12% of their working
hours cleaning discarded fee tickets from the ground. National trips by pals 41 percent, aeroplanes 23 percent, public transport 22 percent, cars 10 percent and human
power 4 percent. International travel utilises aeroplanes 54 percent, pals 23 percent, public transport 19 percent, boats 2 percent and human power 2 percent. Air
travel increased by 67 percent in the last ten years. Within this period 872 new destinations were opened to air traffic. 76 serious crashes (>50 fatal victims) and
98 minor crashes (<50 fatal victims) occurred. Airline seat spacing has been increased on many commercial flights to accommodate for an increasingly obese populace.
Wallets contain 3 paper notes, 11 coins, 3 plastic cards and 17 gold tooth chippers. Private corporations account for 96 percent of GDP. Tax rate dropped by 7 percent
in the past two years. Tax income dropped by 9 percent. Governments filed 44 antitrust lawsuits against multinational corporations, of which 17 led to financial
settlements and 27 were pronounced unfounded. The ten largest corporations employed 800 million workers resulting in a total profit of $ 7466 billion. If commercial
enterprises were combined with countries and ordered according to annual revenue or gross domestic product depending, China would be the first nation state to appear
on the list in position 28. International goods trade totals a yearly 15,3 billion megatons, of which 30 percent transported by road, 28 percent by train, 27 percent
by air and 15 percent by sea/river. Last year 430550 patents were registered. ‘Lessons from the Little’ is becoming a major trend as adults discover how much essential
knowledge on computing children have to offer, and kids recognise a source of income. In the meanwhile toddlers have lost interest in last year‘s fad, the Down
Syndrobot. Hours of sleep by age: 0-1: 15.3, 2-5: 10.0, 6-12: 9.6, 13-18: 7.0, 19-45: 6.5, 46-65: 5.7 66-80: 9.3 81-150: 9.6. Starting 9th of February performance
artist Alicia Saunders will be showing her 4 meters of purple toe and fingernails after a successful aesthetic nano-treatment. Average jobholders get 12 days of
vacation a year, which they prefer to spend ‘by the seaside with my family’ 28 percent, ‘at meditation camp’ 22 percent, ‘refurbishing my home’ 14 percent, ‘playing
Pester the Poor’ 7 percent, ‘looking for a new relationship’ 6 percent, ‘other’ 21 percent. Long distances are crossed in an effort to enjoy these activities in exotic
places: 63 percent of respondents visit another continent, 22 percent go to another country and 15 percent stay home. Sharp competition has driven many small hotels
out of business, but the major chains have more locations on offer than ever, especially by the coast. Civil wars rage in 38 backward nations where liberation movements
battle democratic government. Shi’ites continue to dominate 78 sober, peaceful nations. In the 34 More Developed Countries Libertarianism and Empowerment are reigning
ideologies, though strains of Sunnism and Back to Body movements can sometimes threaten the status quo. The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) reported last
year that the world’s 225 richest people now have a combined wealth of $3.4 trillion. That’s equal to the combined annual income of the world’s 4.5 billion poorest
people. Seventy countries were worse off than 15 years ago. At present, 6 billion people live on less than $2 per day while 1.3 billion get by on less than $1 per
day. Seventy percent of those living on less than $1 per day are women. With global population expanding by 120 million per year, World Bank President Marshall J.
Bush cautions that, unless we address “the challenge of inclusion” 30 years hence we will have 7 billion people living on less than $2 per day. Median width of
pavements: 1.7 meters. Since World War II the public has come to see terrorism, not war, as most disturbing experience. After some minor Left Wing and Palestine-
related attacks in the seventies, the world was virtually free of terrorism for three decades. A modest hijacking incident in New York at the beginning of the millennium
sparked a new surge of attacks. Al Qaeda has since inspired Sunni and atheist anti-civilization militia to carry out a plethora of terrorist acts, of which the
annihilation of Israel is most memorable. Methods used successfully in the last decade: 54 common explosives, 19 hijackings, 13 biological weapons, 7 neurobombs, 3
dirty bombs. All directed at major MDC cities or sites of tourism. The relatively new neurobombing is expected to occur with increasing intensity in the coming years
with Saudi Arabian arms industry going steady. 23 percent of citizens sleep in multi-protection tents, 54 percent own and often carry protective garments, 31 percent
live in the moment and 13 percent would purchase protection if only they could afford it. Thanks to sustainable manipulation, pigs yield 245 meat consumptions, up
from 230 five years ago. Bacon is 20 percent leaner. The median package of sausages contains 8 sausages. Aroma Lard is becoming increasingly popular as a sandwich
spread amongst the lower classes. Children prefer strawberry, banana, coconut flavours. Adults prefer andouilette, aubergine and coconut flavours. Worldwide energy
consumption: 31 percent petroleum, 28 percent renewables, 15 percent natural gas, 16 percent nuclear, 7 percent coal and 3 percent incineration. In the LDCs, 80 percent
28 bURB
of illnesses are water-related. Worldwide water withdrawals from water bodies have risen from 700 m3/person/year in 2000 to over 1300 m3 today. Freshwater bURBlakes,
29
COOL NEW STUFF!

Wanna ...
There was a time you could just PICK UP the phone when it rang.
The Phoney brings back that sensation from the good-old days!
It's a revolution in watch and telecommunications design that allows
you actually to detach the horn when it rings and plug it in your ear.
Made possible with the bluetooth hands-free earpiece and speaker in
one!

STR8^
Tired of dragging that bottle of Scotch under your armpit?
STRAIGHT UP, the one shot Scotch in throw away container saves the day. Bite the
top off and gulp, gulp, gulp!
Also available in a handy friends-pack.

Transformers watch out!

Those mad Martians bring us the latest
in home-away-from-home cinema. Convert
the back of your lorry into a small office,
an outdoor presentation center, a megas-
creen cinema and driving disco with the
pull of a string! www.BARC.tv

Future chic is back!

This stainless steel chesterfield couch swept us off
our feet. Built to hover above the ground over a built-
in bright pink neon light, you can enjoy CHESTER

... haves!
in and outdoors as the buttonholes ensure a stay-dry
seat!

5 Minute Mies
Thinking of turning that derelict
lot into an art studio and making
some handy cash while you’re at
it? This prefab ’n’ brick build-it-
yourself Miesian package does
just the trick!

30 bURB bURB 31
 next issue:
Cities to
the moon
PFFW
EEEI
I!

# Moon Metropolis mushrooms with a ring of

brand new satellite stations. Efforts to curb
moonsprawl are initiated, but inhabitants
argue there is no shortage of space.
# Luxury hotels open on Moon Metropolis,
only how are the mohitas?
# Moon relocation: fine for some, but does it
help us down here? Get the C.C. perspective.

A Burb.moon exclusive reveals all ...

32 bURB bURB 33
 1 Paris 2000, Koolhaas according to Mars:
“Urbanism is nothing more than the strategic
injection of inhabitants, directly followed by
the meticulous planning of a red light district
to ensure a twenty-four hour economy”

Great

Great Great

34 bURB bURB 35
 Britney’s house see p.49

cont. from page 26

Through the collective gratification of its citizens, the Cunning City has developed a mind of its own.
36 bURB lucid commercialism ==
= fast fluid change bURB 37
 ?
★

R O N G ★

N E W
E G O
P I R
★ ★ EM

38 bURB bURB 39
COOL NEW STUFF!
Do you feel your street has become
too compact, your neighborhood
too full and you don’t see the sun
enough? Do not despair. The City’s
planners have not abandoned you.
A new solution engineered to revi-
talize the most dense districts of our
Metropolis has been successfully
implemented in two overdeveloped
quarters.
Head of design of the Light for Life
project Jun Wu explains: ‘The easi-
est way to understand the urban op-
eration we have developed is if you
think of it removing the core from an
apple. With this procedure we liter-
ally carve out neighborhoods from
the urban tissue and return day-
light. At all strategic crossings vast
atriums will be cut from the existing
building-mass to allow a stream of
sun to penetrate the inner parts of
our City. Light will trickle down and
be dispersed by multi-faceted glass
domes covering the shafts. Finally
the intricate inner spaces of our
City will be experienced in their full
splendor. The smooth tube-shaped
walls we have created will take
over the role of the exterior facade.
With the buildings turned inside out,
it will be the job of the voids to con-
vey the feel of the different areas in
which they are nestled. Inside, for
those in possession of the valid pass
of course, easy access to the neigh-
borhood is granted, and a system
of closed-circuit cameras ensures
safety.’
The homes of nearly 3 million peo-
40 bURB
ple will be affected by the urban
renewal of the Light for Life project.
Concerns have been raised by
home-owner groups about possible
evictions related to the project.
‘The demolition of residential
space has been a serious concern
during the design process. We want-
ed to avoid forced evictions at all
cost and I personally can assure the
residents the current relocation is
only temporary. We have solved this
problem by creating a much more
efficient layout of the apartments
around the atriums and a slightly
smaller surface area per dwelling.
In return you can enjoy the luxury
of a glass elevator that takes you
right from the underground parking
through the atrium straight to your
apartment or even to the rooftop.
These two minutes should be a daz-
zling experience. From the top of the
atrium the daunting scale and bus-
tling activity of our City can be fully
appreciated. You will see crowds
of people plummet down in the el-
evators around you and soar by
on escalators crisscrossing through
space. It is my belief that in this pre-
dominantly interior world we live in,
some bestowal of authentic daylight
will be the strategic supplement we
need to ensure a bright future for our
City.’
How will these tubes be carved
out and where will the debris go? An
inside perspective on the technical
challenges of the Light for Life project
continues in our next issue.
bURB 41
in the home

‘Hi! I’m Apple. I

Apple is another happy newcomer
to the Cunning City!
moved into the my-home-my-net-
work development last Spring when my vil-
lage got swallowed. At first I thought, “Oh no! Re-
form housing — NO WAY!!”, but I couldn’t have missed
the mark by more! Here you can really feel the aura of
continuous improvement our City is achieving — and on
every level of scale! My apartment may be small, but
links directly with the grocery store, the mall, the cin-
ema … Just about everywhere I ever want to go
feels like a part of my bedroom! I’m re-
ally living in the network!’

MY HOME - MY NETWORK
42 bURB bURB 43
TALK OF THE TOWN!

Romance
MARRIAGE 4 A MOMENT
V.D.U. Prometheus meets Lolita
in Heels at the …

Okay so you’re a total SCREENIE,

but you’re always stuck in front
of the WRONG screen. You’re al-
ways either pushing DATA or stuff-
ing FILES or bent over STATS about
OTHER PEOPLE. They’re out there
SPENDING MONEY and HAVING A
GOOD TIME, while you’re pinned
in an office like an OX under a
YOKE, or a BEAR in a TRAP, or may-
be like the thing you resemble
most, which is a SHRIMP IN FRONT
OF A COMPUTER SCREEN!!!!! And
every week your boss comes in
and piles on MORE PRESSURE and
TIGHTENS DEADLINES, which means
you WORK LATER and EAT MORE.
What’s left of your day in terms
of TIME FOR YOURSELF is a SMOKE
beneath a GLASS SKYSCRAPER as
you shuffle back to catch the D-
rail home. And maybe, you think
to yourself, MAYBE, I’ll catch a
few ZZZs on the train, somewhere
in between SPONGEMALL and the
OMNICOM MONUMENT. You’ll
need them, coz you’re not going
to bed — OH NO — you’re not
even going home …

Okay so you’re YOUNG, you’re

CUTE, you’re out of SCHOOL but
sometimes you still wear the UNI-
FORM just coz it makes you feel
DIRTY. You don’t WORK coz it’s
BORING and you don’t WORK
OUT coz you’re still skinny as a
KID and twice as BAD. And any-
way you don’t EAT ANYTHING you
just DRINK CLEAR COCKTAILS and
suck the SUGAR off of the rim of
the glass. OKAY, so SOMEtimes
you eat SOMEthing — like a RE-
FRIED PANCAKE with SOY SAUCE
and HONEY and a pair of PIG’S

44 bURB bURB 45

cont. from page 44
EARS on top — YUH-HU-HUMM!!!!
Or maybe, you think to yourself,
MAYBE, some RICH GUY is gonna
take me out tonight to some FAN-
CY RESTAURANT and buy me a
BEAR PAW, coz I’m THAT SEXY …
Okay, so you’re not even gonna
get any sleep on the D-rail, coz
the SCREEN is in there too, and
you can’t not CHECK the STOCK,
and what about that VMAIL you
were waiting on? and while you’re
here you might as well take a look
at what there’re playing on U-TV
(DAMN Cindy is looking HOT! HOT!
HOT! these days). You know you
can’t just be doing ONE thing at
ONE time — it has to be MULTIPLE
things ALL THE TIME. If every cell in
your body isn’t feeling SQUEEZED
then you’re not MAXIMIZING, and
if you’re not doing that …. So you
figure, OKOKOKOK, I’ll let ONE
side of my brain go to sleep while
I keep up with the SCREEN with
the other. Then after 2 minutes I’ll
SWAP OVER and rest the other side
for 2 minutes and work with the …
and then I’ll SWAP BACK … and so
on like that until I get home maybe
36% REFRESHED! The truth is you’re
one of those guys who’s always
half SLUMPED and half FRENETIC
— SCRABBLING for SOMETHING in
the middle of a half EMPTY car,
with a bit of old MAGAZINE blow-
ing about your shoe. And that’s
when you feel it: that STRESS to
CONFESS — maybe it’s SOMEONE
you’re looking for — SOMEBODY
— only you don’t know WHERE TO
GO. You’re always in the RIGHT
place but at the WRONG time, or
in the WRONG place at the …
Okay, so you’re SEXY, but you
know you’re a total SCREENIE too.
You go to the RESTAURANT, but
only if they’ve got U-TV on the
TABLETOP. You go to the SPONGE-
MALL, but you spend the whole
day driving SOFTPODS through
POSTREALITY, or sunbathing under
a 3.8 YOTTAPIXEL SUN. You up-
loaded your V-LIFE profile into U-
WORLD, and now you’re hooked
46 bURB
GIRLS:
on the personalized TURKISH SOAP
OPERAS they’re churning out about
you — about your ROMANCE in the
CALDERA with a fictional HOTELIER. It
follows you EVERYWHERE. It’s playing
on the MIRROR in the HAIRDRESSER’s,
and on the ADVERTISCREENS in the
SHOPS you go in. It comes with you
as you ride the D-RAIL and wander
in the PARK, passing from SCREEN
to SCREEN to SCREEN as you walk.
You COLLECT OBSESSIVELY to have
the SAME THINGS as her — as you.
You haven’t seen your OWN FACE
for months; only the DIM REFLEC-
TION of it behind the IMAGE you are
watching. You’ve been TAKEN OVER.
You’ve become an expression of
DATASTREAMS. In this CITY, you have
NOTHING YOU HAVE TO DO and yet
your LIFE IS SO PRECIOUS. You’re
FLOATING. You’re like a FRAGRANT
DREAM. The only thing that remem-
bers where you’ve been is the TRAIL
OF COMMERCE — the OMNICOM
slips which SOMEBODY ELSE is pick-
ing up …
Okay so the 2 of you FIND EACH
OTHER because YOU ARE BOTH LOST.
You are STRAY PARTICLES in the city,
but there is an URBAN GRAVITY
which sucks you TOGETHER. It hap-
pens in the SKYWALKS or somewhere
along the CONTINUOUS COMMER-
CIAL CORRIDOR. Maybe in the ICE-
CREAM PARLOR, where SCREEN-
FACADES have turned the building
inside-out. You see EACH OTHER,
and the CONFLUENCE OF UNMET DE-
SIRES turns into MOMENT IN SPACE,
and an ACT OF CONSUMPTION. The
environment has MEDIATED LACK
by SUPPLYING TOUCH. One of you
NEEDS the KISS of AIR and FREE-
DOM. The other NEEDS a PRESENCE
in THE REAL WORLD. It is an oppor-
tunity to BUY THINGS TOGETHER, and
maybe RENT A ROOM. It is a MAR-
RIAGE 4 A MOMENT — a FLEETING
THING, as TOTAL as it is EPHEMERAL.
For an hour, or even perhaps a lit-
tle less, neither of you are looking at
screens, or even conscious of them.
YOU CAN GO BACK NOW. BACK TO
WORK — TO PLAY. GAME OVER. IN-
SERT COIN.
bURB 47
TALK OF THE TOWN!

D D
PO !
T A ON
FAT CAT TRAMPLED A T I
IN CASH-CRAZED STAMPEDE! WH UES
Q
‘I just don’t know why it had to happen to Cindy,’ sobs Lu Qian. We are stand-
ing in the CBD, right in the very spot where less than a week ago Lu Qian’s pre-
cious pet met her fate. It was in this foreboding Beijing canyon, between sheet walls C.C.ers have been wondering for
of reflective glass, that Cindy — a ginger tabby weighing in at a massive 15lbs — was months what the deal can
trampled to death. be with the crop of odd
‘I’d been telling her she had to lose some of that catty fat, and we really had to get out pods turning up on
more,’ Qian tells me. ‘Now I only wish we’d stayed at home.’ the tops of our sky-
Since its official inception back in 2016, arguments around “equality day” have been rag- scrapers. A bURB
ing. There are those who say it’s an admirable form of charity, and why shouldn’t the givers exclusive reveals
have a little fun? Others insist that “fat cat” executives tossing great wads of RMB from the ex- that these these
clusive heights of their skyscrapers is just another sick expression of the wealth gap. are being used
It all started with two CEOs bragging in a skywalk about how their bonuses had gotten so big as luxury look-
they could throw half out the window and not even notice. After a dash of daring, and with out posts by full picture page 36
a lick of that competitive spirit, the pair were stuffing all the dosh they could find through an EX-CELEBS, who
air vent to the outside world. What neither of them had expected was how elated this would sit watching the swell to hell,’ Sin ment, but sources have led us to
make them feel. Word got out among the board rooms, and pretty soon top floors millions that once remarks. ‘They’ll believe that her pod is sitauted atop
across the CBD were crammed with businessmen with serious cash. gazed up at them. hang out at tourist the Omnigroup tower in downtown
The notes were fluttering down. Reactions in the streets below hot spots just to get C.C.
were wild. into other people’s The pods themselves are relative-
Regulations ensued, with the product we all know today CREEPY holiday snaps. Some ly cheap and flexible, and, with the
as “equality day” — an annual moment of madness in the will even expose themselves right connections, you can set one
city, when rich executives throw money out the window, Fame, money, and glamour cer- to CCTV cameras in the hope that up just about anywhere. It seems
and flash crowds follow the wind to push and grab tainly do bring happiness, but can there’s a security guard somewhere that Spears, along with a host of oth-
HAVE at whatever they can get. The terrible tragedy for also be a dangerously addictive watching.’ ers, is cashing in old favors in ex-
YOU Lu Qian and her cat Cindy is that when the wind mix. Once hooked, stars let their change for a top spot to drop a pod,
EXPERIENCED changed suddenly, their innocent walk cravings race out of control, and and sit and city watch.
SOMETHING was overrun by a cash-crazed cold turkey leaves them looking PUZZLED No-one knows how far this trend
STRANGE? TELL US stampede. creepy and acting weird. will run, nor how many more pods
ABOUT IT AND MAKE A
QUICK 10,000 RMB! ‘I managed to ‘It’s just like any other lethal emo- But this new pod development are likely to appear in the near fu-
jump ti-drug cocktail,’ says bURB celeb marks a buck in the trend. Former ture. But Hu Sin is certain of one
Send us your real life story – if expert Hu Sin. ‘You see the same attention seekers seem to be turn- thing: ‘As the Cunning City raises up
we print it, we’ll send you up patterns with people who load up ing a telescope of their own back and spits out celebs faster and faster
to 10,000 RMB! Don’t forget the on sexcess, compulsive partying, or on the world, and this has sent both year on year, the pool of potential
gory details, and any pictures
you might have snapped! massive noshnanza food binges. It’s experts and relatives spinning. city watchers out there is going to
Contact us through www. all “hello handsome” while you can ‘I don’t know what she does up keep on growing. The kinds of favors
bURB.tv wit h your keep up supply, and “so long san- there all day,’ says Lynn Spears, you’ll need to have in hand for a re-
name, age, address ity” as soon as it starts to dry up.’ mother of former teen idol Britney. ally good pod location are going to
and mobile ‘Some of these celebs have be- ‘She used to be so outgoing. Now get bigger, and more extreme. What
number!
come so dependent on media at- she tells me she’s surveying the city sorts of things? Well that’s a matter
tention that when they feel the lime- — well what does that mean?’ Brit- for the starlets, and the guys with re-
light fading, their whole lives go from ney Spears, 38, declined to com- ally big towers.’

48 bURB bURB 49
 cont. from page 48
back and squeeze behind here,’
Qian explains, as she shows me a
marble pillar at the foot of the Jing
Hu Bank Tower. ‘But Cindy wasn’t so
fast — how could she be?’ At over
twice her recommended weight,
and living off a diet of king prawns
and KFC, it’s hardly surprising Cindy
didn’t make it. But who could have
anticipated the bitter irony: that the
generosity of her fat cat compatriots
up in the office towers would have
brought about her untimely death?
‘Those people were scary,’ Qian
tells me, as she describes the crowd
she watched rush past that day. ‘I
saw hunger in their eyes.’

50 bURB bURB 51
 TALK OF THE TOWN!

GHOST IN THE SPONGE pneumatic skin

Ever since our story last month about What’s more, because the mall is a
how clairvoyant Minnie See felt a co-op, owned collectively by repre-
presence in the new Spongemall, sentatives from the hundreds
our inbox has been literally bursting of different stores
with your responses. Thousands of within, there’s
BURB readers have visited the mall no sense you
with their spook-sensors pricked up, are intruding
and come back to us with sightings on a corporate
and strange tales. Who the ghost is sphere. ‘This is
or quite what they want is yet to be- very important,’
come clear, but one thing’s for cer- Minnie tells us,
tain: it loves retail! ‘because ghosts
‘The Spongemall’s a great place don’t like places
to hang out,’ explains Minnie, ‘and where they feel
so we shouldn’t be so surprised if they have no
someone from the spirit world thinks right to be.’
so too.’ But whether it’s the thou- A number of
sands of great bargains, the fantas- readers have
tic range of food, or the just the lively felt the soft tran-
atmosphere that draws the ghost sitions of the
there is anyone’s guess. Spongemall may cinema-escalator
have something
SPOOKY to do with it. ‘It’s
funny, you know,’
laughs Wang
‘Spirits have divested themselves Mi, 19, a stu-
of their earthly shell, and so they ac- dent who likes to
tually can’t eat normal food. I don’t spend lunchtimes in
think this presence has anything to the Spongemall. ‘When you
do with Yumsy Noodletopia,’ Minnie go there you don’t really feel like
insists. ‘It’s about something deeper, you’re going into anything, and then
which perhaps we can’t even per- before you know it you’re in the mid-
ceive.’ dle. One time — I was wearing this
But we spoke to Lin Kao, 44, of cute little tartan skirt — I was deep
Yumsy Noodletopia, who couldn’t in when I felt a wind on the backs
disagree more. ‘Personally I’m not of my knees. I knew immediately
all that superstitious,’ says Kao, ‘but the presence had come in with me, subway
I know our noodles are superlicious. probably accidentally, and had only
I don’t see why the ghost wouldn’t just realized it himself! Then I turned
make Noodletopia his top spot in the round and there was this old man
Spongemall. After all, he’s still got a blowing bubbles at me. The whole
nose — I mean ghosts can still smell, thing was incredibly exciting.’
right? Smell that! Mm mm mhmm!’
One thing the Sponge-Specter BRAZILIANS
may appreciate about his favorite
haunt is how easily you can glide transparent deck
in and out of the space, and with all But not everyone has such a great
the glass atria, it’s always full of light. experience. Career girls Wen Wa, 24,

52 bURB bURB 53
 cont. from page 52
and Fun Li, 22, were traveling up
to the wax clinic on level 4 to get
Brazilians when they encountered
the phantom. ‘We were on the es-
calator,’ Wa starts to explain. ‘It’s
a double helix so you spin round
as you go up and there’s always
plenty to look at. But then some-
where around two and a half there
was this awful eggy-cabbagey
smell.’ Li goes on: ‘We were stuck
behind these two businessmen so
we couldn’t start walking to get up
out of it any quicker. The men were
both really fat, and I think they’d
just been drinking at some busi-
ness lunch or other. They seemed
a bit wobbly. We just had to stand
there and watch their backs, and
wait for the smell to go away.’
‘It was a bit gross at the time, but
I’m glad at least to have met the
ghost,’ Wa reflects.
The mischief doesn’t stop there.
People have not only felt and
smelt the wraith, but some have
heard it too. Sun Hong, 32, was sit-
ting minding his own business on
the public square on top of the
Spongemall when he had a ff-ff-
fvairy strange encounter.
HUGE!
‘I was just sitting on a bench,’
Hong says. ‘It was all pretty nor-
mal. There were some oldsters
playing mah-jong, and a few
kids rollerskating. Perched on a
wall were these two girls with big
knockers 4 — and I mean HUGE!
— andHaier, they a were wearing these
successful mainland
brand, lendsHaier +ownHaier
pieces of its logo t-shirts. You know
o western brands entering the
Asian Market. the
Its logologo?
is portionedSo they had that, with
ut to brands needing the hair, ice
the two
ream or underwear. Openinglittle
up mop-tops right over
he way for Global brands to
their
align themselves withnipples.
an I was just staring at
already iconic
them. And then there was this like
image. Great
deep voice in my head saying,
4
‘Go downstairs and buy a bottle of
Haier, a
successful mainland
rand, lends pieces of its own logo
western brands entering the
n Market. Its logo is portioned
to brands needing the hair, ice
m or underwear. Opening up
way for Global brands to
ign themselves with an
already iconic ADVERTISEMENT
image.
54 bURB
Haier shampoo.’ Well I wasn’t going
double level
to mess around with a poltergeist or
whatever this thing is, so I did what
he said right there and then. Thank
God he’s left me alone ever since.
That trip was scary.’
MACABRE
Of course, the man who has seen
the most macabre mall moments of
all is Zhi Yu, the chief security guard.
‘I don’t think there’s a single part of
this Mall that that ghost hasn’t been,’
public square
Yu informs us. ‘And I’ve been watch-
ing. He’s on all the levels, in the light
as it comes through the spongy
panels, and he skulks around the
Hotel Without Operator — peeping
through keyholes I’ll bet!’ The retail
program of the Spongemall is in-
terspersed with hotel floors, offering
people rooms for as short or long a
period as they like (you just swipe
a smartcard at the door). It’s filled
with tourists, exhausted shoppers,
schoolgirls doing a spot of home-
work between class and volleyball
practice, sneaky couples stealing a
moment, and people just taking a
conference center art gallery
break. But there’s creepy company
in there too these days it seems. A window shopping escalator atrium
number of guests have described
incidents of mysteriously losing
small items, hearing ‘sounds’, see-
ing ‘things’, and experiencing odd
or even ‘out of this world’ sensations
while staying there.
‘There was even a crazy incident
under deck
in the cinema-elevator, on the other
side of the building,’ Zhi Yu shares with
us. ‘This guy spent almost a whole day
Great
just riding up and down, watching a
trailer for the new Shell & Motorola
movie. It was like he was a man pos-
sessed.’ The movie is about a group
of polar bears, who use cell phones
to call each other and say goodbye helix of escalators internal passages
before their ice floes melt.
Great
Great
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 of r!
o n te
s s i ec
r e l sp
m p al
’ s i em
t i st ng
Ar Spo
e
th

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 ROUTE 1 spotted ROUTE 2 PRESENCE FELT ROUTE 3 PEEPING TOM
58 bURB bURB 59
PERSONAL FOCUS
cont. from page 24
the bidding by tripling Madrid’s
offer.
‘Our goal is to become the best
club in the world,’ Sun said at
Rudolfo’s introduction ceremony.
‘This is simply the first step.’
Last season, Shanghai proved
the strength of the Chinese football
league by advancing to the finals of
the FIFA Club World Championship,
thrashing European stalwarts
Bayern Munich and Chelsea along
the way. With Shanghai’s signing
of Rudolfo, as well as recent high
profile acquisitions such as Mark
van Broken by Hyundai Beijing and
Omario Hernandez by Shenzen
Jianlibao, some experts are
predicting this to be the beginning
of an era of Chinese football
dominance.
‘It’s true that Chinese clubs may
not have the tradition of great
European clubs like Juventus or
Olympique de Marseille,’ said
CCTV football commentator Xie
Donghug. ‘But at the moment, the
Chinese clubs have the wealth and
willingness to pay the top salaries.
In this sport that’s what will make
the difference.’
CC MET POLICE CONFIRMED
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Unidentified Youth
In the north-eastern waterway
of the Tai Yang Gong district
of our City the body of a young
woman has been found. The body
emerged early Saturday morn-
ing, floating downstream from
the sewage system towards the
Haidian student compounds.
The woman, estimated to be 23
years old and of Korean de-
scent, is assumed to have com-
mitted suicide. Autopsy on
the body has revealed a high
concentration of the drug DBD
(a hallucinogenic found in
mind-mints). The drug howev-
er is not likely to be the
primary cause of the woman’s
death. Casualties of the ge-
netically engineered drug are
highly uncommon. This shrouds
the death of the woman, who
remains unidentified, in mys-
tery. Found facing upward in
a pristine white dress, of-
ficials described the scene as
’bizarre’.
Questions have been raised
about a possible link to the
Spring Suicides of 2017. The
seven young girls who commit-
ted a ritualized group sui-
cide were high-ranking fol-
lowers of the Urban Demons.
This religious sect was be-
lieved to have been disman-
tled after the arrest of
their leader Eric E. (better
known as “The Architect”).
The steadily decreasing speed
of the expansion of our City
is speculated to be a cause
for so-called Urban Demons
to take up their practices.
Followers of “The Architect”
believe the continuous suc-
cess, particularly urban ex-
pansion, of our City is the
result of their periodic
sacrifice of young women.
Police have declined to
comment, but the theory is
substantiated by a tattoo
found on the body. The image
on the left ankle depicts the
letters J and E intertwined,
surrounded by a red heart.
The CC metropolitan police
have issued a statement urg-
ing anyone with information
regarding the identity of
the woman to come forward.
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 H2O armament
ADVERTISEMENT
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* advertisement *
 SPORTS AND LEISURE
High Art for the Faint at Heart
Art is on the rise. This weekend the
mayor of the Cunning City will take
center stage at the grand opening
ceremony of the largest museum to
date: The Modern Art Center for Bril-
liant Urban Experiences or MACBUX.
The opening will take the mayor
and her entourage on an audio tour
across 9 different urban districts at a
comfortable 12 miles an hour. Along
the entire two hour ride the museum
will feature a rich mix of contempo-
rary art producers from all corners
of the globe. But MACBUX is more
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than a large modern museum; most
prominently it features the greatest
cultural achievement of this century:
The Cunning City. This makes for an
unprecedented urban experience.
As a result of the impressive scale
of contemporary art-installations and
sculptures (on average works have
quadrupled in size over the last two
decades) art more and more oper-
ates solely at the level of our City.
The increasingly dense networks of
our City have been effectively spun
together by a single building that of-
fers its audience a provocative, effi-
cient and intensely dynamic experi-
ence of mega-art with our City as its
natural urban backdrop.
It is a fact tourists have always
been drawn to the most precious,
white and minimalist environments
in town: museums. Here their long
journey is rewarded with the global
culture of internationally renowned
artists contained by a structure of in-
ternationally renowned architecture.
The radically abstract shape of the
MACBUX perfectly distances itself
from our City it displays. The main
volume seems carefully draped like
a giant handkerchief or glove, hov-
ering amidst the patchwork of our
infrastructural masterpieces, hous-
ing estates and brain parks.
The innovative architecture of the
36 kilometer long tubular structure
waves through the most diverse
areas our City has to offer. The di-
lapidated and chaotic areas, such
as the upcoming Chinatowns, can
be observed up close by citizens
and tourists alike. On a travela-
tor one glides through the smooth
glass tube that will take you from
our City’s cultural center right down
to its historic ruins. Surrounded and
protected by a safe and controlled
environment the tour incorporates
disregarded districts and will bring
you face-to-face with the generally
forgotten population of substance
abusers and prostitutes in the de-
serted back streets and alleys. This
makes the MACBUX a truly remark-
able urban experience. A strong
tingling sense of a long lost urban
reality took hold of this reporter
entering the last stretch of the ride.
It invigorates the art on display
with a layer of social sensibility not
seen since art was still made by
artists. Moreover it confirms even
the darkest corners of our City
can and should be perceived as
breathtakingly beautiful.
Open Tuesday to Sunday. Tickets available at all
D-rail entry points or online at www.macbux.gov.cn
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PERSONAL FOCUS

Urban Grow th
“I simply couldn’t believe what had happened. I
thought my life was about to come full circle and
my dreams would at last come true. But instead
this was turning into the worst day of my life …”
Yin Jun — better know as the King of Feet — is turning the gray spaghetti
roads around the Cunning City into fields of hope. His story, one of
remarkable dedication and love for both his City and his family, started at
a very early age. READ ON OVERLEAF FOR FULL STORY!

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 grew up in the village. To me
the Cunning City was always
the jewel on the horizon — a
shimmering world of riches and
brilliance, but with a cold center.
I was always drawn to the city, but
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still there was something holding
me back. It was like a voice in my
boyhood head.
As I grew older, the voice became
real. It was my little brother talking to
me. Hui was 6 years my junior, but
by the time he was 5 he had read
more books than me, and spoke
like a wise man. ‘Do not spend days
on just eating.’ he would say to me,
quoting the ancients.
But Hui was also a very natural boy.
He loved to watch for spring blossom
on the apple trees, and divine for
underground water sources. He
could be perfectly content with his
books, a well, and a little land for
rice and bee-keeping.
Desire
But I didn’t have Hui’s pure soul. I felt
the allure of the city even on my skin.
At the age of 14 I was almost mad
with desire. One evening I stood
on the veranda of our little house
gazing at the Cunning City, growing
brighter in the distance as night fell.
‘What should I do,’ I asked Hui. There
were tears in my eyes. ‘How can a
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cont. from page 69
sparrow know the will of a swan?’ he
answered.
The next day Hui fell ill. He was
shivering, and had a very high fever.
Anything he ate or drank just ran
right through him. Three days later
he was dead. I knew that somehow
the Cunning City had sucked up his
life to draw me in. We buried Hui in
the garden beneath the apple tree,
and that night I set out.
As I walked I made a promise:
‘Hui, I’ll never forget you. I’m going to
make it big in the Cunning City, and
then once I’m rich I’ll come back
here and plant a whole orchard of
apple trees. And in the middle of the
orchard I’ll build a mausoleum, with
a statue of you 10m high, all plated
in zinc and gold, with mermaids and
dolphins and horses.’ Our family was
poor, and could only afford a very
humble grave.
Success
When I arrived in the Cunning
City I got a job giving women foot
massage in an enormous mall. I
have always harbored a curious
fascination for women’s feet, and the
work was something I both enjoyed
and was good at. Clients liked the
way I made them feel, and would
ask specially for me.
When moving walkways were
introduced around the city, women
suddenly found they had extra
freetime when they went to do their
shopping. I saw an opportunity,
and started my own foot massage
company, with “pit-stop” booths
offering foot services to women as
they got on and off the travelators.
It was a great success. Soon I had
booths at all of the major transport
nodes. But I didn’t stop there.
I opened a line in luxury
foot experiences for women. It
reimagined KTV, sauna, bathing,
and exclusive food and drink within
an environment dedicated to the
pleasures of the foot. Next we
started to offer callipodian cosmetic
surgery. Now there are tens of
thousands of women with arch lifts
and toe implants, and hundreds of
different clinics. We were the first to
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bring the wonders of plastic surgery
exclusively to feet.
The Homecoming
At the end of the fiscal year last
March I went through my entire
estate. It’s true I wasn’t in the C.C. top
100, but those guys are unbelievably
rich. I still had ten times the money I
needed for what I said I’d do, and a
lot more beyond. It was time to go
back home, and find Hui’s grave.
The morning I left I was so excited
I nearly peed myself. But I managed
to hold it in somehow, and got into
the car to start driving west. It had
been ten years. I thought my life was
about to come full circle, and at last
I would realize my most precious
dream.
But traveling outwards the city
seemed to be coming with me.
Areas I remembered as little migrant
villages were all built up. Fields had
been taken over by vast entertain-
ment complexes, and enormous
residential blocks followed one
after another for what seemed like
forever. The feeder roads were all
vast but the traffic was still bad. At
various points subway lines burst into
the open and disrupted the roads.
I got spun around several times,
and as I didn’t recognize anywhere
anymore, I was soon horribly lost.
It took me almost all day to find
where my home used to be. Now
it was nothing more than a knot of
tarmac and concrete. The Cunning
City had been expanding ever since
I left, and swallowing up anything
in its way. Giant infrastructure had
been run right over my parents’
home, and over Hui’s grave too. I
looked at the roads all jammed with
buses and cars. It was one of the
worst feelings in my life.
A Real C.C.er
When your vision’s off, then you
should change your glasses, they
say in business, and it’s true in life
too. It wasn’t possible to build the
mausoleum, but those kinds of
places are creepy anyway, and
nine times out of ten the corpses in
them are fake. No mausoleum, no
problem! I said. I’m a real C.C.er
now — I move on, and I make things
happen.
The day I spent wandering around
forlornly looking for Hui’s grave, I
met a lot of new people. They all
live out there, in between the roads.
When you get big infrastructure, you
also get a lot of offcuts and space
beneath flyovers. Families put up
makeshift homes in the gaps and
run little workshops — you wouldn’t
believe how busy those places
can be! And they’re not just sewing
buttons. They’re doing some hi-tech
stuff too, like making the tiny solar
powered boom boxes which play
birdsong throughout the Cunning
City.
What I started to see was a big in
situ labor force, and a lot of under-
used land. When you add up all
those little bits, there are fields and
fields! I still hadn’t forgotten my
orchard idea, and I began to see
a possibility opening up. I was so
excited I was scribbling ideas down
on the cuff of my sleeve.
Yin Jun’s Cow-tel is set The first thing I did was hire a
to tell a whole new story team to plant apple trees. We hung
about urban growth. daylamps which shine just the right
60m tall and powered color light, and so growth is really
entirely by cow farts, it
might seem like a milky
fast, and you can harvest every
dream, but could be 4 months. Whatsmore, the run-off
built as soon as 2023! rainwater from big roads is very
tough, and so the apples we grow
ADVERTISEMENT
practically never rot. In fact they
shine like tires! Finding clients was
easy, and soon I was selling apples
all over town.
Appletastic! But it
doesn’t stop there …
There’s been a lot of talk about
urban farms, but this was the first time
anyone had really made it work. The
secret was to fragment the farm into
lots of little pieces, and plant it out
among the urban wastelands. Apple
trees are quite big and so you need
a decent offcut, but you can keep
going down in size according to
what’s available. We fit 15 strawberry
plants on a scalene triangle of less
than 0.2m2, and there are patches
like that everywhere!
But we’re thinking big too. I started
to wonder if there were some way
of gathering together my scraps
and stacking them. As we always
say in the Cunning City, “Stack Up
or Crack Up!” I’ve got my labcoats
working now on a high-rise farm
(pictured left). We’re calling it the
Cow-tel because we’re integrating
livestock, and using the methane
from the cows’ farts to power the
heat and electricity for the building.
We might even have some surplus
power to sell back to the grid — on
top of the milk!
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SPECIAL FEATURE

FREEZE: H2O (Humans to Oceans)

DREAM SOLUTION OR COUNTER-REVOLUTIONARY NIGHTMARE?

Advocates call it the “Noah’s Ark of ideas” and “a city for an evolved
humanity”. It is a city they feel will offer the depoliticized free space
necessary at a time of increased global tension, apparent diminishing
democracy and intensified censorship. But how free are the FREEZE vessels?
And can they, amidst increasing pressure to territorialize international
waters, stay afloat? Pioneer and principle spokesman Hou Xiu reveals all in
our Interview with an Earthling …

72 bURB bURB 73
 interview with an earthling
was born in 2012. Right
after China and America
had gloriously captured
all but one of the Olympic
medals. Only the gold medal for ar-
chery passed them by. It was won
by my father; a monk from a small
island in the south of Japan.
After that any international compe-
tition seemed fruitless. For my father it
was a clear demonstration of the two
superpowers dominating the world.
Even the success of boom countries
like India, Brazil and Russia didn’t
prevent the cultural and political
dominance of the PRC and the USA.
With nowhere to hide the time was
ripe for drastic measures. He de-
signed the first of the Xu Ni Shan; the
mother ship of a fleet of a thousand
H20-vessels (Humans to Oceans)
that now roam the world’s seas. Ever
since the launch we have been ma-
neuvering between the force fields
of these two insular, one party con-
tinents.
I was born here; on the mother
ship. Together with my peers I am
the first generation of a new breed
of floating population. We are a
strain of humanity evolved within a
neutral environment. Surrounded by
the endless horizon of the sea our vi-
sion is unobstructed. Protected by
the impenetrable walls of the glass
architecture our bodies are uncon-
taminated. As the ice caps continue
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to melt and the water levels rise we
remain calm and afloat.
We are a people encapsulated
by freedom; living in bubbles void
of politics or ambition, promises and
disillusions. Our thoughts flow freely,
new ideas and inventions emerge
and evolve unhindered. Born and
raised in a state of suspension; con-
stantly in motion; adrift, we remain
undetermined and undeterred.
Cities are no longer defined by
the roads that lead there. Our global
migration and modern technolo-
gies have collapsed geographi-
cal space, and remapped what
was once a hierarchy of capitals
and mega-cities. All that is left is a
floating plane of lines, across which
points move in all directions, all at
once … and no two points are either
closer together or more distant from
each other than from any others.
The confluences and intensities of
these lines ignore existing territories,
and indeed perform acts of deter-
ritorialization. We proclaim today it
has become inevitable to disown
place, and instead imagine flows.
Our mountains are the result of just
such an act of imagining. To be
floating is to be neither rising from
anywhere, nor falling toward any-
thing. Our hollow floes neither ad-
here to nor transcend anything.
We offer no ideology, and we have
no roots. We are neither leaving, nor
staying. We are decentered, and we
decenter everything around us. Civ-
ilization up to now has focused on
the to and from, on destination and
departure, the here and there. Con-
stantly in motion we live in the now;
in the middle where things cross and
change.
Today our people represent all
corners of the world. The fleet has it temporarily curbed pollution levels and vegetables and farm our pro- your home, your city, your religion,
become an un-discriminatory ref- and silenced lingering wars. It was teins in cubicles of countless insects. your society are not predetermined.
uge; a hideout for hackers and a moment of inspiration for many; Nuclear energy propels us forever There exists a state void of local con-
anarchists, a safe-haven for scien- its inventors are living anonymously forwards and incidentally protects cerns; a clear mental space that will
tist and artists, for secret lovers and amidst our people. us from aggressors – it would simply allow you to flourish. A non-political
freedom fighters alike; a borderless Within this environment para- be too destructive for any terrorist space that can absorb the lives and
nation confined to the international digm solutions for global problems state to attack and sink us. ideas of any spirited human being.
waters. have emerged that we are trying But let me be clear. I am speak- Admittedly this will sound hard to
Personally I have never touched to implement on the mainland. We ing to you here today not as a rep- comprehend at a time of increased
the shore. I am however like any- govern ourselves through simple resentative of any kind, but as a global tension, false democracy
one here perfectly in touch with the open-source democracy; we have proud individual and a common hu- and fake freedoms. But a modern
world, and the reality of the main developed the formulas for a global man being that has the luxury of liv- Noah’s Ark of pure thought is roam-
land. As I understand it’s a mate- currency. We breathe the pure air ing a common life. As this message ing freely in your area. Take a mo-
rial world; money driven and power that we produce. We cultivate our reaches you, enjoy a short moment ment to envisage freedom …
hungry, dangerous and lonesome. own food in hanging gardens of fruit to let your mind go blank. Your life, we still have room for you.
But this might not be evident to the
rest of the global population. Unlike Hou Xiu
the 7.5 billion souls left behind, we child of Freeze
have unlimited access to real infor-
mation. The world’s 29,000 TV stations
paint a picture of contradictions and
fabrications. Our satellites receive
uninterrupted and uncensored data
from across the globe. Our hackers
offer unfiltered web access.
The network of H20-vessels is to-
day the central super-node of the
world wide web, a new HUB dis-
rupting the stale arrangement of
mega-servers and mega-cities and
the lopsided access to information
they represent. We offer a plateau of
limitless connectivity. Now informa-
tion is the true continuum of intensi-
ties. We have reconfigured the axes
of the global topology, of capital,
creative sectors, ideas, identity, in-
fluence. The physical localities of
power are forced to come to terms “Nothing less than the most tantalizing worlds have been
created by the early Modernists. Their renderings of
with our virtual space. And indeed relentlesly rational cities illustrate the ambition to maximize
in the past the world has been con- the efficiency of the built environment. Space itself was
fronted with this new reality, when altered. Like designers through the ages they set out to bring
to life the dream at the heart of every inspired architect: to
the makers of the infamous V-virus create completely floating buildings on the scale of the city,
brought the global economy to a simultaneously rejecting urbanism and gravity.”
standstill in a virtual pandemic. But
this did not only affect the economy;
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FREEZE (H2O) — Humans to Oceans

FREEZE is a response to the rising need to achieve non-political space:

space that can absorb the lives and ideas of an evolved humanity.
FREEZE is highly utopian yet painfully necessary at a time of increased
global tension, diminished democracy and intensified censorship. It is
a space void of territorial concerns — a futuristic Noah’s Ark of ideas,
roaming as freely as the world’s sea levels are rising.

项目介绍：“冰山一瞥”是非政治空间的不断上升的产物。一个超现实化，
但又在不断上升的全球紧张局势，逐渐减少的民主制度以及增加的审查制度
中及其需求的一个空间。一个没有疆界烦扰的空间。随着世界海水的上升，
一个自由漂浮的诺亚方舟的理念。
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 TOWERING CHINA
domino installation, 5.2m x 3.7m
DCF / Neville Mars

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