Residents find funny bottom line in 10-year tourist scheme

MAINLAND BUREAUCRATS do like their numbers: the Three Represents, The Gang of Four, the Stinking Ninth and so on. No new policy or propaganda campaign, it seems, is complete without a number attached.

Last week it was Guangzhou's turn, as the city launched a tourism drive centred on its Eight Scenic Spots, which I prefer to think of as the Eight Wonders of Guangzhou.

The Eight Wonders of Guangzhou campaign is part of a much larger city-wide development effort in which Guangzhou has promised its citizens '[in] one year [a] small change, three years medium change, 10 years large change'. Or as it is rendered in Mandarin: 'yinian xiaobian, sannian zhongbian, shinian dabian'.

Unfortunately for Guangzhou's propaganda tsars, the characters for little change and big change are perfect homonyms for - how should we put this? - two certain bodily excretions or functions. Thus, when the city government officially launched the small-medium-large change campaign in the summer of 1998, local residents had to suppress their mirth as officials pledged time and time again in formal ceremonies to 'one year urinate, three years medium change, ten years defecate''.

The Eight Wonders of Guangzhou campaign is supposed to transform the city into a thriving tourist destination over the course of its middle-change period, and is thus not stained by any scatological associations. It will attempt to sell the city to tourists by emphasising a mix of natural and man-made wonders.

The natural wonders include Baiyun Mountain, a large natural park area north of downtown Guangzhou that is sometimes referred to as the city's 'lung', and the Pearl River, which is frequently cited in environmental studies as one of the country's most polluted waterways.