Construction of a 250 million yuan ($36 million) garden, including a toilet facility inlaid with gold, is stirring up controversy in the Panyu district of Guangdong, China.
Liang Weisu, general director of the Nanyue Garden construction project, said the garden, which opened to tourists in September, will become a special attraction in the southern province.
The ‘six-star’ toilet is gilded with pure gold leaf in its doors, windows, roof and outer walls. Its cost was 8 million yuan.
"We built the luxury toilet to help change the minds of some foreign tourists who think toilets are always dirty in the mainland," said Liang.
The garden’s buildings were gilded with more than 10 km of pure golden leaf and mounted with more than 200,000 pearls and jewels in its doors, windows and outer walls of the garden’s pseudo-classic architectures.
In the garden itself, there are intricately carved beams, painted pillars and the glitter of gold and jade on all sides.
Apart from small donations from home and abroad, most of the construction funds came from the Panyu district government.
Some residents have said the tourist attraction's cost is outrageous, and that the money should have been spent on schools or on programmes to help the poor.
