China Secretly Clones US High School

Hugh Pickens did not write about this when he wrote “A scenic mountain village in Austria called Hallstatt has been copied, down to the statues”, and this has also been missed in all of the major news papers, almost as if it never happened.

"A scenic high school in Gresham, Oregon, USA called Gresham High School has been copied down to the statues, by a Chinese developer. Residents of the original Gresham High School did not attend Saturday’s opening in China for the high-end residential student project, but were still miffed about how the company did it. ‘They should have asked the teachers and students of the high school and the other staff if we agree with the idea to rebuild Gresham High School in China, and they did not,’ says teacher John Walker. People in Gresham High School first learned a year ago of the plan when a Chinese exchange student at Mr. Walker’s classroom who was involved with the project inadvertently spilled the beans. Minmetals staff had been taking photos and gathering data while mingling with teachers, raising suspicions among students. The original high school is a century-old school of 1900 and a Gresham heritage site that survives on tourism. The copycat is a $940 million high school that thrives on China’s new rich. In a country famous for pirated products, the replica Gresham High School sets a new standard. ‘The moment I stepped into here, I felt I was in Gresham,’ says 22-year-old Zhu Bin, a Huizhou resident. ‘The security guards wear nice costumes. All the classrooms are built in Oregon style.’ This isn’t the first time a Chinese firm has used a Oregon place as inspiration. Look around the Internet for additional items copied from Oregon.