GREAT EXHIBITION.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVIII, Issue 43, 19 January 1938, Page 15

GREAT EXHIBITION.

SAN FRANCISCO BAY. HUGE ARTIFICIAL ISLAND. SAN FRANCISCO, Dec. 23. A Chinese village to cost 1,250,000 dollars, and occupying more than a city block in space, will be built at the 1939 Golden Gate International Exposition on Treasure Island in San Francisco Bay. This was announced recently by Cingwah Lee, a prominent San Francisco Chinese, Who will be in complete charge of the project. The village will be erected arouiid a Chinese temple, near which will be planted a . “Tree of Lofty Thoughts,” the traditional tree of meditation of every Chinese home and village. Pieces of ancient and priceless jade carvings, mandarin robes, silk tnpestries, and other objects of art will be displayed. There will be a small section of the Chinese village devoted to native life, including actual tillage of the soil. Chinese farmers and village craftsmen will be brought from China for this section of the village. [ “BIT OF OLD CHINA.” \ Within the village will be a Chinese theatre and typical Chinese stores at which the work of the craftsmen can he purchased. Bits of native life from the interior of China will be brought to the exposition for the village. The workmen and attendants of the village will live there wearing their native Chinese costume. Within the village will be rickshaws pulled by Chinese coolies from Canton, buffalo carts, and other features which will make the exhibit virtually a “bit of old China.”

Treasure Island, the largest artificial island in the world, was reclaimed from the bottom of San Francisco Bay by United States Army engineers, who employed more dredges for the project than were used in building the Panama Canal.

More than 20.000,000 cubic yards of sa.ud were used for filling in, in addition to countless tons of rock. Around the island’s shore was built a rock seawall containing 280,000 tons of granite, making the largest seawall of its kind in the Pacific. Built on shoals, from 12ft to 30ft in depth, adjacent to historical Yerba Buena Island, Treasure Island rises 13ft above sea level. From February 18 to December 2, 1939, the exposition will occupy the island, after which it will be used as a central airport for the City of San Francisco.