PHOTOGRAPH FOR TIME BY KARL CHIU

BARBARIANS AT THE GATE: Minnie Mouse welcomes visitors at the entrance to Hong Kong Disneyland

Magic Kingdom
	A new Disneyland will bring in the tourists, but can it turn workaholic Hong Kong into Fun City?
	By Michael Schuman | Hong Kong

Posted Monday, July 18, 2005; 20:00 HKT
Main Street, U.S.A., at the new Hong Kong Disneyland looks exactly like the one most Americans remember from their childhood. The classic Disney thoroughfare of quaint buildings and gas streetlights is a painstaking replica of one of the original attractions at Walt Disney's Anaheim, California, theme park, which opened 50 years ago this month. But resurrected in China, Walt's idyllic vision of small-town America has a surprisingly un-Iowan flavor. Inside one Victorian building is Main Street's first Chinese restaurant, the Plaza Inn, crafted as a stylish tea shop from early 20th century Shanghai. The interior has finely carved wooden columns, and walls painted with traditional Chinese landscapes based on the Disney animated movie Mulan, which was inspired by a Chinese legend. The crew of workers in white hard hats, who are still screwing the last filigrees into place, will soon hang fish-shaped Chinese lanterns from the ceiling. "It's turn-of-the-century America, with a Disney overlay, with a Chinese overlay," says Tom Morris, one of the park's chief "imagineers"—Disney lingo for a creative designer. "You can go to different places and different times. That's what's so great about Disneyland."

Disney has certainly proved it can transport tourists to different places. The company's theme parks in California, Florida, France and Japan saw nearly 100 million visitors last year alone, according to Amusement Business magazine. But can Disneyland vault an entire city into a new era? Hong Kong will begin to find out on Sept. 12, the scheduled grand opening of the $3.6 billion Hong Kong Disneyland. TIME recently took an exclusive tour of the park as it was nearing completion on sparsely populated Lantau island, west of the city center. A lot is riding on Disney's success here. Not only is Hong Kong Disneyland the foundation for a major push by Disney into China, but it is also seen by many as the catalyst for a transformation of Hong Kong from a narrowly focused capitalist bastion into a playground of gentle family amusements such as whale shows and roller coasters.

The prospect of millions of free-spending mainland Chinese visitors descending upon the former British colony has already had a profound local impact. The Hong Kong government has invested $4 billion in tourism projects over the past six years—including its stake in Disneyland, of which it is the majority owner—while the private sector is kicking in other attractions, among them a bevy of new hotels. Factor in the glitz and gambling of nearby Macau—which American casino kingpins are helping to convert into a Las Vegas of the Orient—and the Pearl River Delta, previously known mainly as a vast factory, is beginning to acquire serious drawing power as a tourist destination. In a few years, "anyone with a kid will be forced to say: 'Let's go to Hong Kong,'" says Allan Zeman, developer of Lan Kwai Fong, Hong Kong's chic nightlife district.

Continued...

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