Jackson Hole

Hi Grandpa,
How are you doing?
Far too long since we have spoken.
I just got your new email address by Nina forwarding a message with some nice old pictures you had taken of the family.

I am still over here in Beijing, China. 

Just yesterday, I had a very funny experience. I went to a fake “Jackson Hole” north of Beijing, past the Great Wall. Supposedly, the developers copied the master plans directly from the Wyoming town, and just plotted the whole thing down onto some hilly countryside on the border of Hebei Province (the province surrounding Beijing). This placement is crucial in that it allows for lower taxes and for owning another residence past the 1 or 2-house limit imposed on urban dwellers. As a development including more than 1000 new homes, it’s not finished yet but there are already a few weekend “cowboys” living there. 

A group of us was there because of some interest the developers had shown in supporting our organic farmer’s market, but I found it incredibly difficult to get past the innocent and yet eerie surroundings (innocent, because what do they know about Jackson Hole? and so an innocent delight in surfaces; eerie because of such enthusiasm for surfaces—but I suppose the same could be said about the “real” Jackson Hole!). I suppose it’s easy enough to understand why Jackson Hole might be an appealing image as a place to escape to: exclusive, natural, adventurous. Branding language simply extracts anything but a few keywords from a place and leaves the shell of it as identity (this is far from the only place-theme gated community around Beijing, which run the spectrum of European and North American stereotypes). Most of the wood was just imitation, made of plastic, although our guides claimed the rocks were real, and kept asking me as we toured a house, “Is this how you live in America?

After the tour they gave me a cheaply-made bolo necktie with “Jackson Hole” on it. 

They couldn’t tell me which house was a copy of Dick Cheney’s.

I thought you would like to see some of these images.
I hope all is well!

Love Michael