This is Randi Hacker with another Postcard from Abroad from the KU Center for East Asian Studies.

When it comes to life imitating art, Zhangjiajie National Forest Park can’t be beat. China’s only national park boasts 185 square miles of Chinese landscape spectaculosity, the stuff of classical Chinese brush painting scrolls. Spire-like rock formations rising from the valley floor, paths winding through deep green foliage, mist-shrouded craggy mountains that are certainly home to Daoist immortals. But it’s not just Chinese classical art that is being imitated here: it is also the Jetsons. Amid these natural wonders, China has engineered a few futuristic wonders, namely The Glass Skywalk and the soon-to-be-completed Sky Bridge. Both walkways offer the acrophiliac a chance to walk hundreds or thousands of feet above the park floor and look down. As the promotional material on a Chinese website says, “It’s not for the fainted heart!” Amen.

From the KU Center for East Asian Studies, I’m Randi Hacker. Wish you were here.