9 February 2009
CCTV Headquarters & Mandarin Oriental Hotel on Fire in Beijing
Posted by Roger under: China News & Events .
Absolutely nothing related to furniture but… WOW!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3B1OnhSucP8&ed
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QzH_skByx3Q
Was heading home from a late night at the office, when the taxi driver keys me in on what just occurred. Surprisingly the Chinese media has said little even though its all over the news elsewhere. A friend texts me to tell me she heard about it from her friend in Germany who knew before her. In a strange way, this all symbolizes the conflicts, clashes and paradoxes which occur in China today and speaks to the lessons the west is yet to learn about China. Yes, you can rush into upgrade the hardware and build luxury six star hotels. But unless the software is upgraded as well, things can just as easily go up in smoke (literally and metaphorically). And quickly too. China may have Starbucks, but make no mistake – this is not Kansas and much lays beneath appearances.
Hardware |
Software |
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDhJuFQWfsI
On a side note, about a year and a half The Mandarin Oriental contacted us for assistance in setting up a gift shop in the hotel. While the German manager was pleasant and easy the deal with, the Malaysia gentleman we were dealing with was frankly a real pain in the butt to deal with (besides wasting our time). So… maybe it was Karma? Glad it was not our product that went up in flames…
I will be curious to see what the reported cause of this fire is but regardless of what’s reported I would guess there is a 99.9% chance this is fireworks related. China may have 5000+ years of continuous history (and even invented fireworks) yet they STILL have not figured out the obvious: that allowing thousands of uncontrolled, unsupervised, commercial standard fireworks (IE Illegal elsewhere) to be set off simultaneously across the country, in crowded spaces by individuals with no safety training (some with no education whatsoever) is a bad idea. Talk about growing pains… (For both China and the Mandarin Oriental)
On the last day of the holiday and fresh into the new year, some might see this as a very bad omen.
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