In the mainland, a walk in the park is truly big business

July marks the start of the traditional peak season for tourism on the mainland as students begin their summer holidays and parents take a break. For many holidaymakers, strolling city parks or hiking in the country parks are among the favourite activities. However, they must watch their pockets, not from thieves but from the managers of those facilities.

As almost all the parks on the mainland are controlled by the authorities at various levels, they should allow ordinary mainlanders to enjoy the benefits of the taxes they pay for public services. In Hong Kong or London, all of the major parks are free and maintained by the governments.

But many mainland officials treat parks or cultural heritage sites purely as commercial vehicles and try to devise various ways to make money. Even monks, be they Buddhist or Taoist, have joined the dig for gold.

The mainland is famed for its soaring mountains, and for each one, there are likely to be one or more ancient temples known for their exquisite architecture and mythical statues. Visitors can often find that the live-in monks spread out around and inside the temples looking for the gullible.

Once a potential target is found, a monk would approach and start to compliment the great fortune that the face of the target has indicated and invite them inside for a detailed fortune-telling session. Inside, the monk would try various ways to coax the target to donate money or buy the most expensive incense sticks. Those who decline to be scammed are sneered at. Many temples function more like businesses and the monks like salesmen. Used correctly, commercial development of the mainland's tourist spots and cultural heritage sites can help raise money to protect and preserve, but too much of this commercialisation is counter-productive and threatens long-term damage to the mainland's culture and its heritage.

Sometimes the greed of tourism officials takes them to preposterous stretches of the imagination. For instance, state media reported recently that at least three counties in Shandong and Anhui had splashed huge amounts of money to back their claims to be the home town of Ximen Qing , a playboy/sexual pervert depicted in the famous Chinese novels the Water Margin and the Golden Lotus.