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)
C Yellow
Once again the Chinese government has proven themselves to be detached from reality.
Faust
While it's not seriously bad, it's one of the dumbest things I've ever heard done from a government.
robsaker
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.
pacat
At last!!! A monument to Kermit,my hero.That can be the only logical reason to paint a flaming mountain green.
Jon
could it be that plant seed mixture that is already a green color? Maybe they're just trying to reseed it?
Dan
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.
robsaker
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.
martx
Somehow the second photo looks like a bad photoshop.
nahiku888
agreed..and a lousy PS job no less
Nick
This is not 'news'. In fact this story is so old that the paint you talk about has probably all but disappeared.
M Dee Dubroff
Thank you all for your comments.
stuff
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
weirdasianews
I don't know.. A lot of people reported it. New York Times, CBS, and a lot more.
Bluegill
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.
ahsan
cool news.
see also http://www.myearningtips.blogspt.com
Sanjuro
Is this before or after they buried all those dogs they beat to death?
egadfsa
i dont think chinese is that bad..
lol
well it's not like we didn't see it coming