Expanding Patriotism at the Expo

   An undertaking more expensive then the massive Beijing Olympics and attracting far more people, the Shanghai World Expo had already been visited by 54 million people.  We took the train system built for the Expo to spend a very eye-opening experience seeing how many countries in the world want to represent themselves.  When we arrived, we were expecting a diversity of visitors, however we quickly learned by the difficulty we had in finding a map with English on it, that this year's Expo was mainly for Chinese tourists.  Each country has its own building inside of which there are displays meant to show off the country and how it works toward this year's Expo theme of "Better City, Better Living."  We headed straight for the American pavilion inside of which we were greeted by 75 corporate sponsor signs.   Perhaps this was an accurate representation of America, but it still would have been nice to know that the U.S. can afford to pay for its own international PR.  We were then taken through three 15 minute videos that each highlighted some aspect of American pride.  I was deeply moved by the videos.  

Beginning with a humorous yet well planned video showing Americans trying to say "hello" in Chinese (Nihau).  Initially they all stumbled over the words and were laughed at, but over the course of the video they learned and tried really hard to say the Chinese right (which, by the way, is no easy task!).  The moral of the video is that while we don't know about China now, we are working hard to learn.  Then came a lackluster video with children talking about the future and what we could do magically to make a brighter future (it was rather trite).  Then the eye-opening video came.  There were no spoken words and an artsy display of a story of a girl in NYC trying to revitalize a street corner that was run down.  Despite many set backs including vandalism and weather, she got the whole neighborhood involved in the project showing determination, perseverance, and the power of the individual to affect change.  It occurred to me that perhaps not all of these traits that I take for granted in America are universal, and I was very proud to live in a country that tells kids to go out and change the world!

The Israeli pavilion was a fun IMAX-like movie highlighting the technological achievements that they have made.  But, the translated Chinese that they used in the film included a flowery language and poetic descriptions that were distinctly Chinese (it was very similar to the Chinese pavilions).  It was interesting to see how the Israelis had made a large effort to make their pavilion appreciated by Chinese, while the American pavilion used a very American approach with very little Chinese outreach.  The Pakistan pavilion did not have much in it, but it entirely focused on the equality of all of its citizens, especially its women whom it then featured in a display with pixelated pictures.  The Saudi pavilion had a 3 hour wait and was reported to cost a whopping $300 million!  We didn't have the time to wait, so we didn't see the Saudi pavillion. The Nepal pavilion was a beautiful wooden monument to Buddha that was made by 300 Nepal families working for 3 years to carve everything.  We didn't get a chance to see the North Korea pavilion, but we did get to see the Shanghai pavilion.  Inside the Shanghai pavilion was confirmation of its meteoric growth and modernization; we took a stationary ride that flew through time and showed how the city's architecture had changed.  Smells were piped in during the multimedia presentation, the platform moved to simulated trains, plains, and trams, there were bubbles spraying into the room when the main character drank an elixir of life and was de-aged 50 years, and there was water when it rained.  Overall, a spectacular display of technology to view the changing face of our first destination in mainland China.


The Chinese pavilion:

 The Nepal pavilion: