By the time the lunch gong sounded in the great hall of the Heng Yang monastery, I had already placed generous votive offerings at a shrine in the Temple of the Goddess of Mercy, watched a flour-doll and knot maker at work, witnessed minor grievances being aired at the Ancient Courthouse and met a talking Sun Yat Sen in the Wax Museum. Why not slow the pace down, the brochure kindly suggested, with a visit to the Chamber of a Thousand Pleasures?
Singapore's Tang Dynasty City, as it is known, is cleverly billed as "The World's Only Living Empire." But it is not the only recreation of past cultural glories on offer in Asia, where a growing number of countries are waking up to the possibilities inherent in theme parks.
Only the day before, I had visited another cultural digest called Dragon World -- a cleaner, more efficiently run version of Hong Kong's wonderful, ruined, soon-to-be-condemned Tiger Balm Gardens. At Dragon World, I had witnessed the creation of humanity by the legendary and very swift (it took less than five minutes) Pan Gu and Nu Wa, experienced the Wrath of the Water Gods chute, and eaten in the Celestial Picnic Gardens, which also doubled, according to the blurb I carried, as a "corporate picnic area for company functions."