Chinese tycoon's fabled fantasyland fast falling apart

If tycoon Yang Bin (楊斌) could look out of the window of the court where is standing trial, he would see the huge and bizarre property project which has become a symbol of his downfall.

Bus No. 260 departs at regular intervals from outside the Intermediate People's Court in the northeastern city of Shenyang heading for Holland Village, a sprawling complex of apartment buildings, offices and greenhouses.

The side of the bus carries a large advertisement, still in bright colors, urging people to "Move to Holland Village" and showing the 219-hectare real estate development's hallmark Dutch windmills and Baroque castles.

No one has followed the advertisement's advice since Dutch-Chinese businessman Yang fell foul of the law in September last year, and many have moved out.

"There are only about 60 security guards left here," said one young guard dressed in a gray uniform. "No one else goes to work here anymore."

Attention this week is focused on Yang's trial, which is expected to end in a verdict today with a long jail sentence for the 40-year-old businessman.

But next on many creditors' list of priorities is the question of how to recoup some of the money they lent to Yang's collapsed empire.

Auctioning off Holland Village could play a key part in making them happy, sources following Yang's trial have said.

Yang was thinking big when he tried to fullfil his dream of bringing home a piece of the Netherlands, where he worked and studied and eventually obtained citizenship.

It was to have been a garden of peace and refined taste, where residents could relax behind guarded walls and forget they were in the middle of northeast China's dreary northeastern rustbelt.

In the spirit of a new China where young entrepreneurs were allowed to foster bold ideas and turn them into practice, Yang planned to invest 1.8 billion yuan (US$200 million) into a dream-like place where people could live and shop in luxurious surroundings.

Even in Yang's heyday, Holland Village never escaped looking slightly bizarre, resembling a kind of fairytale Netherlands thought up by an architect who appeared to know the country from coffeetable books.

And more than eight months after Yang was placed under house arrest suspected of financial irregularities, the luster of the project has faded fast.

Decrepit and depopulated, it now looks almost as eccentric as the idea of a North Korean capitalist trade zone that Pyongyang picked Yang to run in September last year, shortly before his detention by Chinese authorities.

A clock on a replica of Amsterdam train station in the center of the village has stopped at 3:15pm, and it seems time has stood still all around it.

The vast flowerbeds that once adorned the sides of the street have disappeared, as has the water in the moats, along with the black and white swans.

The broad avenue separating Holland Village in two is rapidly deteriorating into a dirt road, while grass sticks through cracks in the pavement.

Panes are missing in many of the windows of the two-storey buildings that should have housed cozy little shops, and banners that previously welcomed visitors are torn to shreds.

Apart from being the residence for Shenyang's wealthy classes, Holland Village was also to have served Yang's vast horticultural business.

Extended rows of oversized greenhouses were built in a corner of the complex, intended for mass production of orchids and chrysanthemums.