The serenely beautiful Austrian village of Hallstatt attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors each year. And deservedly so, with its idyllic lakeside setting at the foot of Mt. Docstein in the Salzkammergut, the traffic-free town of less than a thousand residents is a touristic gem.

So, it’s not entirely shocking to find that a Chinese development company has begun building an exact replica of the village in Huizhou, Guandong Province.

While many Hallstatters are nonplussed by the project, most villagers are sanguine about the duplication of their little town of Gothic and baroque buildings.