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RSS Feed Around the World16. 08. 10. - 13:00
Lazy bums
Cash strapped park officials in China are putting the wind up lazy bums who loaf on their benches for too long - by fitting steel spikes on a coin-operated timer.
If visitors at the Yantai Park in Shangdong province, eastern China, linger too long without feeding the meter, dozens of sharp spikes shoot through the seat.
Park bosses got the idea from an art installation in Germany where sculptor Fabian Brunsing created a similar bench as a protest against the commercialisation of modern life.
"He thought he was exaggerating. He didn't foresee that a very practical country like China might actually use them for real," said one critic.
Parks in China suffer from chronic overcrowding at weekends when millions of people try to escape the country's teeming cities.
"We have to make sure the facilities are shared out evenly and this seems like a fair way to stop people grabbing a bench at dawn and staying there all day," said one park official.
Austrian Times
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F.Brunsing wrote on 17. 08. 2010 from Berlin about "Lazy bums..."
nothing in this Article is for real! the pictures have been taken by myself 2 Month ago in a park in Berlin. the bench has been set up there for a video- and photoshooting. This article has nothing to do with journalism! I explicitly distance myself from this.
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From the editorial team wrote on 18. 08. 2010 from China newsroom. about "Lazy bums..."
It was never declared that the Berlin project was for real - but it is a fact that the German idea has inspired the project to be set up for real in a Chinese park. We simply reported on this fact - art inspiring real life instead of the other way round! In essence this project has now encouraged the debate about the issues it was inspired to do - we will be sure to cover the installation of the Chinese benches if it still goes ahead.
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