Yes, believe your eyes: That is indeed a five-story building floating down a Chinese river

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And yet in some ways it’s not at all what it seems.

Living in Asia means nothing can surprise you. Between large intestine scarves and huge robots driving in the street, the things you can see in countries such as Japan, China, and Korea are like picking from a box of chocolates; you never know what you’re gonna get.

So when the below video of a five-story building being pushed down a river by some boats in China surfaced on the Internet, it was less surprising and more, well, perplexing. How did it get there completely intact? How is it floating? Why is it floating? These are the burning questions that immediately came to mind.

It turns out, that yes, it is indeed a five-story building, but it’s not one that has been completely uprooted from the land, to be installed elsewhere. It’s actually one of the last of Chongqing City’s many floating restaurants, built to function and operate on the water. It and its many counterparts were once considered quality restaurants in the Chongqing City, popular among locals and tourists alike for their fresh fish meals and beautiful views.

But they contributed to the destruction of the Yangtze River, which has become dangerously polluted thanks to rapid economic and industrial growth. The Chinese government has recently taken strides to protect the river, and so the municipal government has banned the floating restaurants, who often had no waste management facilities, and thus dumped their sewage directly into the river.

This particular restaurant, which is said to be named Impression Jangjian, did not have its own motor, and thus needed to be pushed out of the region by two sturdy barges. It’s the last of the stationary floating restaurants in the city, as the others having been dismantled in the last few months.

I suppose for residents of Chongqing City and those familiar with the floating restaurants, the sight of a five-story building simply coasting down a major river might not have caused them to bat an eye. For the rest of us, however, it was rather a shock to see. Of course, it’s certainly not the first perplexing and amusing building we’ve seen in China, and it certainly won’t be the last, so we’re just glad that this one has a reasonable explanation behind it.

Source: YouTube/Cool China via Toychan Net
Images: YouTube/Cool China
Reference: International Rivers, JQK News, The Global Times, China Daily