Fireworks and enthusiastic crowds at the opening ceremony of Expo 2010 Shanghai
Adam Minter (@adamminter) criticizes foreign correspondents for missing the story and point of Expo 2010. I largely agree and my commentary follows below. The Shanghai 2010 Expo ends today, October 31.
As an experienced international traveler, the Expo sucked for me (4 visits, mostly for events). I also thought the 2000 Expo in Hannover, Germany sucked (the architecture was less impressive and the U.S. didn’t even bother to participate). The Expo concept is irrelevant to many international travelers (more on this later).
But the Expo was not for me anyway. It was for the ~98% of Chinese who have never left China, and many of whom will never have the opportunity. That’s why I think China is one of the places where the Expo still works well (good luck to 2015 Milan, but I think Europe is a terrible place to hold an Expo, far too many have seen the ‘real’ deal of foreign nations). But I’m glad that hunger to discover the world exists here in China as strongly as anywhere else. Hopefully visitors learned new things about new countries, though I fear that much of the content in the pavilions was of mediocre quality at best. Still, I think many truly enjoyed it.
The China Pavilion, about 4x larger than any other. Grandiose, but a nice combination of modern lines & Chinese design
On the cynical side, the number of visitors I saw who waited in line for hours and then ran through the actual pavilion just to collect the stamps, does lead me to question ‘lemming-like behavior’ and whether they were just showing off for friends back home. But perhaps that reflects more upon the poor content of many of the pavilions than it does the visitors.
The World Fair (Expo) is a confusing and poorly conceived event (how many people remember 2008 Zaragoza, 2005 Aichi, or even 2000 Hannover, the last ‘major’ Expo? –yes, there are ‘major’ and ‘minor’ Expos, don’t ask). The Expo asks government bureaucrats to design Disneyland, around some weak theme, that most pavilions ignore anyway — ‘Better City, Better Life’? In the end, I’d say leave Disneyland to the pros, and it should arrive in Shanghai around 2013. I bet it’ll be received at least as well as the Expo and probably offer far more bang for the buck, for Chinese and foreigners alike. So my problem is with the Expo concept itself, rather than Shanghai’s execution, which was world-class.
England's "Seed Cathedral" - one of the few both visually stunning and conceptually engaging pavilions. It's a shame it'll be torn down tomorrow.
I’m extremely fortunate, even spoiled, to have had the opportunity to travel to around the world, which rather ruins the Expo for me. The countries aren’t exotic or magical, as they likely are to other less-traveled visitors. There’s very little in life that I’d wait in line for more than an hour for. I enjoyed the architecture and was impressed by the inside of the UK’s seed cathedral, but that was about it–most other attractions were lame and way too crowded, with overpriced food and drink. And I think that’s the viewpoint from which many foreign correspondents approached it. But that’s not the story for the overwhelming majority of Chinese.
Regarding foreign press, Expo disinterest is not limited to China. In fact, I think Shanghai’s Expo received far more press than previous Expos, as it should have. Still, I agree with Adam that there were many stories and angles that the foreign press missed here–certainly a far better tie-in than ‘dog ownership’!
Tags: expo, foreign press, media, travel
as an inexperienced and emotional traveler, the best representative of a country or a culture is the people there rather than any other products made by people.
but I do like the innovational concept of UK. And totally agree on “It was for the ~98% of Chinese who have never left China, and many of whom will never have the opportunity. ” since i have global traveling plan, expo seems irrelavant to me at all.
Expo… never a fan of it. Hate to say it but my only visit to it still feels like a “day-mare”. People were like in a war, running to wherever they are going, shouting to each other, hungry and nervous. And the queues all seemed endless.
It’s good that you see “hunger to discover the world exists here in China as strongly as anywhere else”, though.
Yeah, Expo’s don’t have much appeal to me either. I couldn’t wait in hour long lines ( I heard it was much longer than that for popular countries), eat overpriced food, crowds, ect. But if you think this was bad, have you heard about the Xi’an horticulture expo? It’s a really bad excuse to make a ton of money. It’s a big deal here in Xi’an, because as you said, Chinese don’t often get the chance to travel internationally. That’s why this expo has paper passports where you walk around to teach country’s agricultural exhibit and get it stamped. Pretty tacky, in my mind– but I could imagine it would be exciting if you have never left your country. It’s an experience most people desire, and it is exciting! Anyways, nice post, and definitely no regrets here about not making it to the Shanghai world expo.