Urban exploration in China is something I thought I would never do – and actually only did by chance. In October of 2013 I was on my way to a second trip to North Korea; not *Pyongyang and the southern parts* again, but North Hamgyong province and the Special City Rason in the north of the DPRK. To reach those areas you don’t fly into Pyongyang via Beijing, but you enter and exit by land. Meeting point for those trips is the Chinese city Yanji, an up and coming 400.000 people town quite close to Russia and less than an hour away from the North Korean border. The tour to Korea ended on a Monday evening… and since Korean Air doesn’t offer any flights on Tuesdays I was stuck in Yanji for a whole day. My buddy Nikolai, who spent a couple of months learning Korean in this town without any tourist attractions at all, told me about a half-abandoned amusement park in the city center. “Half-abandoned” sounded like a dying amusement park to me, one with fewer visitors than necessary, one that is supposed to close soon. Little did I know that he meant an amusement park where literally half of the attractions were abandoned. And that’s not even the weirdest thing about it!
The People’s Park (人民公園) in Yanji looks like a normal public park when entering from the south – a big pond full of water plants, a couple of peddlers selling food and plastic toys, some sculptures (including tasteful nudes), a few benches, and senior citizens playing games at tables. After a couple of minutes you’ll reach animal cages and stalls filled with all kind of more or less exotic animals… as the People’s Park features a free public zoo. But that’s not all! Right where the zoo ends is a small dump area with a couple of abandoned seats, small stands and parts of carnival rides – and at first I thought that was what Nikolai meant when talking about the half-abandoned park. Boy, was I wrong!
Within earshot of the rusty remains I spotted small Ferris wheel, blasting some music into the silence of this sunny Tuesday noon. Customers? None. Potential customers? Only a few more.
The (not so) big wheel was surrounded by 15 to 20 other carnival rides. Two or three of them were also open and running, half a dozen others looked more or less well maintained – and the rest of them were actually abandoned, except for the single demolished one; paint flaking off, weeds growing through a mini roller coaster, seats weathering, concrete crumbling.
This place was so friggin weird! It looked like an abandoned pay-as-you-go amusement park, but it wasn’t, because every other minute you would run into some sweethearts looking for entertainment, and there was music playing in the background all the time; some of it being karaoke sung by a few senior citizens further up the hill. It was so creepy and bizarre – and calming yet very exciting at the same time! Usually I have to sneak around and jump some fences, especially when exploring abandoned theme parks… but not this time! Relaxed I made my way from attraction to attraction and took pictures of whatever I wanted at my own speed, not worrying about anything. When I thought it couldn’t get any better (except for being there on a misty day!) I hit the weirdo jackpot!
I’ve seen a haunted house or two in my lifetime, but none with a naked female torso breaking through the wall on the upper floor, a big hand trying to hold her back, partly covering one boob – next to a monstrous mutant face. But that’s not all! To the left and mid-air was a nude couple (male and female) in a grotesque pose, attacked by two gigantic green snakes – the guy’s face full of panic, the girl’s face barely visible, but clearly in agony, one of the snakes biting into her left shoulder and half of the exposed torso.
The back of the abandoned haunted house wasn’t a tiny bit less bizarre and probably my favorite area in the whole park. There I found a couple of concrete or gypsum animals lying on the ground and standing around, the greyish material spalling off in huge chunks, revealing steel wires underneath. Next to a path nearby was a huge Buddha statue rotting away, made of a Styrofoam looking material – accompanied by the concrete statue of a naked Chinese fairy, right in front of a white rabbit with red eyes carrying a gigantic mushroom… which at this point I felt I must have smoked earlier!
The *second abandoned Japanese sex museum* meets *Nara Dreamland*… with no security standards whatsoever. One of the remaining running rides was a monorail through half of the park. It’s height? About two meters – and no protection at all. I was able to touch the rail at any time and even smaller people carelessly stretching could get hurt seriously by one of the monowheel looking cars. Trash, broken glass and mirrors, rusty metal, brittle animal figures – everything was scattered in the woods around the park and nobody seemed to care about it.
The carnival section of the People’s Park in Yanji was one long bizarre exploration and one of my favorite abandoned amusement parks overall. Deserted theme parks are generally creepy, but the fact that this one was only half-abandoned took it to a whole new level!
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Abandoned Kansai 
Unbelievable!
Exactly my thought when I went from the carnival dump to the main area and especially the haunted house… 🙂
Lovely captures!
Thanks a lot, Sofia!
Weird! What a great find… 🙂
At first I wasn’t too happy to spend an additional paid vacation day in a city without any tourist attractions – and then I explored the park and couldn’t wipe that grin off my face. 🙂
Pretty haunting, even in the bright sunshine. Great pictures though!
Thanks, Carl – at least it was bright sunshine, not one of those overcast days that ruin every photo without contributing to the atmosphere.
Interesting pictures. It leaves me with lots of questions.
Oh, I have so many questions, too, but it’s close to impossible to find any information about Yanji, let alone specifics about this park. (At least not in English.)
Still amusing! thanks for sharing.
Thanks for being a regular reader and commenter, Harrie!
Amazing pix, as always.
Thanks a lot! 🙂
I’m enjoying your photos! I especially liked the gold and blue sign with the barbed wire and the pattern of the red/white/blue roller coaster. Plus I always love a good cityscape–made even better by the mirrored image!
Thanks a lot! I spent about two hours along that river, taking dozens of mirror shots – it was such a lovely afternoon. And, like I said, there is nothing else to do in Yanji…
Well, time well spent!
I think so, too! 🙂
these are great! wow!
Thanks. Usually when I start taking photos at a place I hope that I will end up with a dozen that’s not too embarrassing – this time I knew I would have a hard time cutting down to only the most interesting ones. 🙂
Superb! Beautifully written and shot. I’m lucky enough to have spent a fair amount of time in SE Asia but have still yet to visit the DPRK much to my shame and bitter disappointment, This post just reinforces all the more how determined I am to get there before too long. Out of interest – how freely are you able to move around? I was lucky enough to visit the old Soviet Union about 30 years ago. Fascinating as it was, I really only saw what the authorities wanted me to see. Cheers Lindsey
I am sad to say that the situation will probably be much like in the Soviet Union 30 years ago. In many, many ways. The most common thing to do is joining a group – and there you’ll basically have zip possibilities to move freely. Out of sight of the guides once in a while, but there is a rather strict schedule with little chances to improvise. At individual tours you can plan a schedule yourself, but once it is set, you won’t be able to change major things. Also, you won’t be allowed to roam streets freely, shop wherever you want whatever you want… and even the questions you ask you should consider the consequences. If the guides don’t like what you say, they can limit you even further – if you get along well, you get more freedom within their limited possibilities…
I was trying to decide if this reminded me of the amusement park from the “Silent Hill” games or the one from the film “Spirited Away”. The creepy animal statues tipped it in favor of “Silent Hill”.
I would say Silent Hill, too, Dennis – especially since Spirited Away usually is associated with *Nara Dreamland*. 🙂
There was a huge investment boom in ill-conceived theme parks in China in the mid 90s. I guarantee there are many more >1/2 abandoned. Though this one might be more surreal than most.
Hm, maybe I should read-up on China then… So many places to go to, so little time! 😦
Great location for a horror film
Yeah, maybe I should aim for a career as a location scout?!
Wouderful pictures! you made a half-abandoned park very captivating. The style of the amusement park in Yanji is little bit like the chinese society toady: mixed up.
Thanks a lot, Olivia. Too bad there is not much else to see in Yanji, because it’s actually one of the few places I’d like to revisit in a couple of years…
Did you feel a little creeped out?
Of course, naethan! It was a strange mix of creepy and feeling totally safe, because for once there was no trespassing involved…