The members of the team were warmly received by the hosts, the Shanghai Film Bureau, and escorted to the bridge site. The site selected for the bridge is the little village of Jinze, located on a canal off the Yangtze River on the outskirts of Shanghai. MIT student Helen Lee created a replica of the Rainbow Bridge for a studio project. Jinze is in some way similar to Venice. The houses are built to the edge of the water, and the village prides itself on its many historic bridges.
China is blessed with many rivers, most of which flow from west to east and empty into the Pacific.
The Chinese emperors recognized from an early date that digging north-south canals would produce an aquatic transportation grid, and that is exactly what they did. However, the proximity of the houses to the river in Jinze meant that there was very little staging room for construction on the riverside. The first task was to secure the abutments. Professor Yang had originally suggested using circular hollow concrete bearing abutments. Fearing settlement and insisting on the use of 12th-century materials and methods, the team changed the design to granite masonry abutments on timber piles.