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Sunday, July 27, 2008

Beijing manufactures its own scenery for Olympics

A billboard blocks the view to a construction site against the backdrop of a polluted skyline in Beijing, China Friday, May 2, 2008. Beijing is usually shrouded under a blanket of gray pollution. Beijing is usually shrouded under a blanket of gray pollution. As a cover-up during the Olympics, city officials have tried to add some color. But it's mostly artificial, shades of blue and green coming from enormous murals and posters, many showing off palm trees and blue skies erected like Hollywood sets to hide the reality of the Chinese capital.  (AP Photo/Oded Balilty)
AP Photo: A billboard blocks the view to a construction site against the backdrop of a polluted...

BEIJING - Polluted Beijing is usually shrouded in gray, so for the Olympics, Beijing city officials have tried to add some color.

They have taken a dusty metropolis with thousands of cranes hovering over construction sites and sought to create an idealized Beijing. Enormous murals in shades of blue and green, many showing off towering palm trees and blue skies, rise like Hollywood backdrops to hide the reality of the Chinese capital.

Beijing Olympics emblems are often used to hide unfinished construction projects. Some of the make-believe scenes are pastoral, showing a path wandering through a tangle of trees, or rolling green hills that suggest a quaint village lies just out of view. The murals typically hide a bare concrete wall, an ugly hole in the ground or a building site.

Feel like a game of golf? One mural guides the urban viewer down a lush, green fairway complete with sand bunkers.

Original here


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