September 5, 2008
The setting is "Splendid China", a shuttered theme park in the South. Long before the Bird's Nest, this leisure park was designed to introduce Americans to the delights of Chinese architecture. To that end, little replicas of buildings and monuments were scattered across the grounds. The workmanship of China, made in the USA, is exquisite. The decorations on the tiny houses are best seen with a magnifying glass. And here too, the truly fine details of a building are often only