Beijing’s big sky country?


Europeans and Americans have long fantasized about the Exotic Orient. For instance, the wallpapers here were created for the export market and show dazzling scenes from a fictive China. 

Likewise, China today is facing West—to the American West. On the outskirts of Beijing, a recent development called Jackson Hole has attracted the moneyed class to its spacious timbered McMansions, arrayed along streets with names like Moose and Route 66. The American experience only starts there. Security guards come uniformed as park rangers. There’s a clapboard country church, wagonwheel lamps, and a daily smorgasboard featuring American pork chops. “America represents wilderness and freedom, and also a big house,” said a resident. Giddy-yup.        —Diane Richard, writer, December 17

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Photo credit: Sim Chi Yin for The New York Times

Source: Andrew Jacobs, “Living a Frontier Dream on the Outskirts of China’s Capital,” The New York Times, December 8, 2015