And now for something completely different. Or so you might find yourself thinking upon entry to this educational and amusing (though not always intentionally) theme park in Guangzhou's Tianhe District.

Fruit of a Dongpu Farmers' Association fundraising effort directed at livening up the local economy, the sprawling 21.8 hectare (53.8 acre) Space Flight Spectacle (Hángtiān Qíguān, 航天奇观) includes manicured gardens, water sports areas, an amusement park, a "spectacle viewing area," a Space Flight Scientific Museum housing an original CZ-3B ("Long March"-3B) rocket, a Rocket Launch Command and Control Center, a "Space Travel" space flight simulator, Constellation Square, Friendship Camp and, inexplicably, the "Hall of Volcano and Earthquake" where you can enjoy a Univeral Studios-like calamity complete with tumbling Roman buildings and violent expulsions of (ketchup-colored) magma.

Campy yet impressive, the Spectacle is vintage China circa 2005 or so—wildly optimistic, funloving, slightly naive and absolutely unselfconscious about any of it. Go, have fun, and check your snark projectors and irony detectors at the gate.

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