BEIJING: Harry Potter rides, the Jurassic World Adventure and Minion Land… Chinese social media platforms were flooded with posts and photos posted by the lucky visitors to the Universal Beijing Resort theme park during its trial opening starting September 1. This is a rare time in a long while when an America-themed topic has attracted such obvious and widespread praise in China.
The popularity enjoyed by the theme park is in sharp contrast with the cold shoulder given to the Sina Weibo account of the US Embassy in China, which will be flooded with negative comments whenever the account posts something. There has been no public backlash toward the park, which is contrary to the “pervading anti-US nationalism” in China portrayed by Western media. Why is that?
Donning a Harry Potter cloak, a magic wand in one hand, a giant glass of Butter Beer in the other, 30-year-old Liu Chenxi said Tuesday that the day she spent cosplaying at the resort’s Wizarding World of Harry Potter zone had given her the most happiness she’s felt in a long time.
Liu was surprised to find others dressed just like her, drinking the same beer. “It’s like I’ve found my tribe, and they’re all living in Hogwarts.” “I was super fascinated about Harry Potter when I was a child. Being there in the Universal Beijing Resort threw me right back to that kind of carefree happiness, which can only be felt in one’s childhood,” Liu told the Global Times.
The park started ticket pre-sales to the public on Monday midnight. People stayed up late for the moment and tickets for the opening day of September 20 were snapped up within half an hour. A few hours later, tickets for the upcoming Mid-Autumn Festival and National Day holidays were sold out. The ticket sales system crashed once due to the excessive number of visits. Tickets prices range from 418 yuan ($66.34) to 748 yuan.
Zones based on popular properties in China such as Harry Potter and the Transformers Metrobase featuring the evil Megatron attracted long lines. But there are some Universal firsts, including the Kung Fu Panda Land of Awesomeness.
Li Wei, 43, despite not having Harry Potter in his childhood, enjoyed his day out at the park, the first Universal Studios theme park in China. “It’s a place where you can spend the whole day having fun with your family,” he said. Li’s 5-year-old son loved the Kung Fu Panda zone and spend the longest time there. “They are really dedicated to catering for Chinese consumers, and they took care to really appeal to Chinese people. And foreign employees there speak fluent Chinese. All the slogans are in Chinese. Really convenient!”
Qin Gang, Chinese Ambassador to the US, shared his experience of a rollercoaster ride at Universal Beijing Resort before he left for the US. He tweeted that his rollercoaster ride has reminded him of “the shape of China-US relations. After all the tumbling and shakes, the rollercoaster came to a soft landing in the end.”
The theme park, involving hundreds of billions yuan of investment, is co-invested by a Beijing-based state-owned company and Comcast NBC Universal broke ground in 2001 in the southeast suburbs of Beijing, when China and the US were about to walk hand in hand in a closely intertwined period of cooperation. It opened at a time when the bilateral relationship has hit the lowest point in decades.
– The Daily Mail-Global Times News exchange item
