Why Did Chinese Officials Paint a Mountain Green?
Officials in Fumin County, which is located in southwest China’s Yunnan Province, have decided to paint an entire barren countryside green. While it seems likely that everyone involved in the decision had at least “one too many” cocktails, villagers are scratching their heads and wondering why anyone would spend money to do this.
For villagers in southwestern China the new green painted mountain, which cost the government some 400,000 yuan ($51,000), is a weird conundrum, but it does have an explanation.
Laoshou Mountain was quarried for more than two decades but has been recently shut down following complaints about dust and noise from villagers.
Last summer when government workers began spraying the mountain, which is an entirely barren countryside, green. Villagers were perplexed as no one was told why the local forestry bureau was trying to simulate planted trees. indeed, wouldn’t it make more sense to use the money to plant real trees instead?
A few villagers suggested that those village officials whose offices faced the mountain were doing this in an attempt to alter the region’s feng shui, the ancient Chinese belief of harmonizing one’s physical environment for maximum health and financial benefit.
The only problem with this is that feng shui needs to be a genuine arrangement, and fake green trees won’t cut it because Mother Nature knows the truth.
It appears no explanation is being given, so all we can do is guess at what their true intentions were.
(Link)
By MDeeDubroff on 13-06-2009
Comment by C Yellow
June 13th, 2009 at 4:33 pm
Once again the Chinese government has proven themselves to be detached from reality.
Comment by Faust
June 13th, 2009 at 5:46 pm
While it's not seriously bad, it's one of the dumbest things I've ever heard done from a government.
Comment by pacat
June 13th, 2009 at 8:01 pm
At last!!! A monument to Kermit,my hero.That can be the only logical reason to paint a flaming mountain green.
Comment by Jon
June 13th, 2009 at 8:34 pm
could it be that plant seed mixture that is already a green color? Maybe they're just trying to reseed it?
Comment by Dan
June 14th, 2009 at 2:05 am
That is awful, but they do this all the time in America too. They use green paint when they excavate along side highways to make the mud look like grass, and they tear entire mountains down in Kentucky to get at the coal, and then paint the plateau that is left over an unnatural green color.
Comment by martx
June 13th, 2009 at 9:16 pm
Somehow the second photo looks like a bad photoshop.
Comment by Nick
June 14th, 2009 at 4:32 am
This is not 'news'. In fact this story is so old that the paint you talk about has probably all but disappeared.
Comment by nahiku888
June 14th, 2009 at 7:26 am
agreed..and a lousy PS job no less
Comment by M Dee Dubroff
June 14th, 2009 at 10:30 am
Thank you all for your comments.
Comment by stuff
June 14th, 2009 at 12:53 pm
This was a April Fool news that was reported on a green peace website . It was just a April fools news article
Anyway so strong is the prejudice that even this has been published as real news
Comment by weirdasianews
June 14th, 2009 at 5:34 pm
I don't know.. A lot of people reported it. New York Times, CBS, and a lot more.
Comment by Bluegill
June 14th, 2009 at 6:52 pm
I remember while at Bergstrom Air Force Base during the Johnson years, they would paint the grass green in a path about 50 feet wide along both sides of the main road going to the flight line. It was supposed to be Base beautification. All the other grass would be brown and dead looking.
Comment by ahsan
June 15th, 2009 at 5:13 am
cool news.
see also http://www.myearningtips.blogspt.com
Comment by robsaker
June 15th, 2009 at 10:27 pm
The green "paint" along the sides of highways is actually grass seed embedded sometimes in algae and other nutrients. This bedding helps provide the grass seed with enough nutrition to grow and keeps the seed from blowing away. It's green because of the ingredients in the bedding. Other areas use straw as bedding.
We do lop the top off mountains for coal, but I've never seen it painted.
Comment by robsaker
June 15th, 2009 at 10:28 pm
I'd like to see if they did this for some reason like erosion control. That looks like fairly unstable ground. They might have also been trying to plant some sort of seed in the ground.
Comment by Sanjuro
September 20th, 2009 at 7:44 am
Is this before or after they buried all those dogs they beat to death?