All eyes will be on the country known as The Red Dragon as the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics begin on Wednesday, February 2nd (the Opening Ceremony is February 4th). I am reminded of my high school band trip to Beijing and X’ian in 2003, which was just before they hosted the Olympics for the first time.
Although there were some calls for boycotts due to human rights violations (such as forced abortions/sterilizations and Uyghur Muslim camps), in the end, almost everyone seemed focused on playing the Olympics as planned albeit with Covid protocols in place. It seems like major sporting events like the Olympics should not be awarded to countries that constantly violate the rights of their citizens. The main focus of the rest of this blog entry will be on the current state of major theme parks in The Red Dragon. I will also provide some commentary on how likely I am to visit the parks. The first Tier 1 (Disney or Universal) theme park to open in what is currently considered the country was Hong Kong Disneyland on September 12, 2005. The politics were very different back then. The “Hong Kong Handover” from British control happened in 1997. Companies like Disney saw this as a significant opportunity to get a big foothold into southeast Asia. The park is the smallest Disney park in the world, although it can be considered a full day park after some more recent additions to it. I had high hopes of getting to Hong Kong Disneyland (and Ocean Park Hong Kong), but I’m tempering those expectations after Beijing’s greater control over the region. The next major theme park to be built in The Red Dragon was Shanghai Disneyland, which opened on June 16, 2016. It arguably has two of the best Disney rides in the world–Pirates of the Caribbean: Battle for the Sunken Treasure and TRON Lightcycle Run (which is coming soon to Walt Disney World’s Magic Kingdom). With Shanghai being on the mainland, I knew that there would be difficulties as a priest traveling there (for example, bringing materials to say Mass in my hotel room). However, with the direction that Beijing is taking, I don’t have a strong desire to travel there anytime soon. Another major theme park, which is conveniently close to this year’s Olympics, is Universal Studios Beijing. It opened on September 20, 2021. Certainly it will benefit from the close proximity to one of the world’s largest cities. With Universal parks also in Singapore in Osaka, Japan, I don’t currently have a strong desire to get to this newest park. Although there are several other large cities in The Red Dragon that would be potential sites for major theme parks, foreign investors will probably avoid pursuing those projects if government control continues progressing the way it has been.
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