Developer's green dreams turn quarry into park

A bird's eye view of the bunker group in Huashijie Amusement Park in Taiyuan, Shanxi province. Provided to China Daily

Milk dealer impresses visitors, investors with public forest project built on mountain area

Hundreds of investors visited Taiyuan's east mountains when the city government opened the 800-hectare mountainous area to bidders in 2007, but only one saw the potential of the area long scarred by stone quarries: 55-year-old milk dealer Han Guolin.

While he was confident from the start that he could "exploit the buried treasures in the barren mountain", Han's hair still turned from black to gray over the next five years as he spent more than 300 million yuan ($47 million) turning the bleak mountain into a public forest park.

A tale spun around the mountain says it was there that Tai Tai, a legendary warrior, led the people to combat floods 5,000 years ago. "I think I inherited Tai Tai's persevering spirit in 'repairing' the mountain," Han said.

In return for the environmental restoration, Han's contract with government allowed him to develop commercial projects on 20 percent of the land. Similar deals were offered in 2007 to 16 businesspeople who agreed to restore mountains around Taiyuan, capital of Shanxi province, that were ruined by decades of quarrying and coal mining or by industrial and household waste dumps.

Most of the investors were real estate developers and they built expensive villas on their 20 percent share of the land they restored.

Han built an amusement park.

He transformed the barren rock into ponds and rafting courses. There is a children's park with themed entertainment, a sports center and a campground. There are restaurants, museums, exhibits, natural landscapes and at the top, a huge castle and underground bunker.

"I am the designer of the amusement park," Han said. "I invited professional companies to discuss the feasibility and safety of these amusement projects and participate in the construction work."

On one mountain slope, 124-meter sand, grass and water slides were built. A quarry pit became a pond with fish for tourists to catch in the summer and for skating in the winter. In a deeper section, visitors can row boats. At the bottom of a quarry pit, a stone measuring 20 meters high was sculptured into a turtle.

Wang Bin, a visitor from Taiyuan, praised the park's whimsical elements.

"I feel the designer is realizing his personal dreams in the park," he said.

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