Shanghai World Expo throws open doors

Shanghai World Expo throws open doors

Visitors queue to enter the India Pavilion at the Shanghai World Expo site in Shanghai May 1, 2010

May 1, 2010 (AFP) - Hundreds of thousands of people flooded into Shanghai’s World Expo Saturday at the start of a six-month showcase of culture and technology seen as the latest sign of China’s growing economic might.

Organisers have said all 500,000 tickets are sold out for opening day at the massive Expo park along the Huangpu river, where visitors will wander through the exhibits of 189 nations, as well as dozens of companies and organisations.

"Everything is very colourful," Cui Yan, a 23-year-old Chinese university student, said outside the Mexican pavilion. "The architecture is amazing."

"There are so many highlights — I’m worried I can’t see all of them on this trip," said Cui, who travelled from Ningbo, in neighbouring Zhejiang province, to be one of the first to catch a glimpse of the Expo pavilions.
A sea of people waited to visit China’s red inverted pyramid — the centrepiece of Expo park — with 50,000 tickets handed out within five minutes of the park opening.

Queues were long at all pavilions but by 4:30 pm about 200,000 people had entered the park — less than half the number of tickets sold.

Eager visitors used umbrellas to shield themselves from the blistering sun as they waited patiently, the long queues doing nothing to dampen their enthusiasm.

"I want to see the Canada pavilion first. So many of my relatives have emigrated to Canada and I want to get an idea of what kind of life they’re living," retiree Huang Huifang, 58, said as she ran towards the building.
Shanghai kicked off the Expo on Friday night with a star-studded music and fireworks extravaganza, signalling it would be bigger and brighter than the more low-key World’s Fairs in recent years.

Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli, Hong Kong action film star Jackie Chan and Chinese pianist Lang Lang performed for thousands of guests including Chinese President Hu Jintao and about 20 other world leaders.

A record number of countries are participating in the event, which is expected to attract at least 70 million visitors — the vast majority of them Chinese, many of whom have never travelled outside the country.

Li Huahe, a 47-year-old telecoms company employee from Urumqi in far-western Xinjiang, said he bought his ticket months ago but could only stay a few hours before heading home.

"I woke up at 5:00 am and I have a 2:00 pm flight. I’m worried about the crowds. I want to see at least one pavilion today," Li said outside the Swiss pavilion, which boasts a chairlift that soars over a three-storey-high meadow.

Nations with an eye on China’s consumer market of 1.3 billion people are pulling out all the stops to attract the attention of Expo visitors.

"I really hope people will discover the attitude of the Netherlands. We want to have friendly relations with China," Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende told AFP as he surveyed the grounds from the top of the "Happy Street" pavilion, which aims to capture the feel and creativity of Amsterdam.

Denmark has made a splash by bringing its "Little Mermaid" statue out of Copenhagen for the first time, France has Impressionist paintings and India is bringing in a cast of Bollywood stars.

Li Kai, seven, was stunned when he was told the statue was real.
"It’s shocking. I thought it was fake. We should treat her well because she travelled so far," said Li.
The hamburger and ice cream cone debuted at past Expos and food is once again playing a major role in attracting Chinese visitors to pavilions.

Belgium was promoting fries with mayonnaise, Australia was serving meat pies and France featured champagne tasting.

"This is the first time I’ve eaten foreign specialty food, I will try more," visitor Yang Wei said, sampling Uruguayan barbecued beef.

In Shanghai, the spotlight will be on the cutting-edge design of the national pavilions, all embracing the theme of "Better City, Better Life".

Highlights include Britain’s stunning dandelion-like "Seed Cathedral", Spain’s "Big Basket" made of 8,500 wicker panels, and Switzerland’s pastoral pavilion.

Du Yuping, a 52-year-old steel company employee from Shanghai, came prepared for the queues with a folding stool.

He said he came to Expo park last week on a trial opening day and ended up waiting up to three hours to see one pavilion, but was pleased to see that operations were running more smoothly on Saturday.

"I want to visit Expo at least six times," Du said, sitting on his chair in the queue outside the Norwegian pavilion.

"I’m focusing on European pavilions today."

By D’Arcy Doran, AFP

© Copyright (c) AFP

Expo extreme

China, in its neverending chase after superlatives in all spheres, is offering the world the biggest fair we’ve ever seen.

IT is the biggest and most expensive party to which you have ever been invited, and almost certainly the oddest – with buildings shaped like rabbits and apples, Copenhagen’s famous Little Mermaid on show, and violin-playing robots to serenade you.

With Shanghai’s 2010 World Expo opened yesterday and set to continue until October, the city will welcome an estimated 70 million visitors to the US$4bil (RM12.88bil) six-month event, as hyped in China and Asia as it is mostly unknown in Europe and most of the West.

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao has described it as the fulfilment of a 100-year-old dream.

Some speculate that the Expo could have an effect at the highest levels of the communist power structure, with a triumph benefiting the so-called “Shanghai Faction”, the group of high-level cadres allied to former president Jiang Zemin.

 

Each of the tiny flexible rods that cover the ‘Seed Cathedral’ holds an actual seed to represent the diversity of nature and potential of life. Almost 4,000 people created a near riot rushing to be photographed in front of Britain’s amazing pavilion during a trial opening of Shanghai’s World Expo last month. – AP

 

Others say China will take this opportunity to improve fractured foreign ties. The country’s relations with the outside world have been strained of late, with issues like the value of the yuan, a fight over censorship with Internet browser giant Google and the trial of four executives of mining company Rio Tinto for bribery and commercial espionage casting a pall over the country’s efforts to present itself as a respected international player.

But for Shanghai itself, China’s only truly global city, it is time to celebrate and put the politics aside for a while.

She surely does so gladly: After Mao Tse-tung came to power in 1949, Beijing’s hardline party bosses never trusted the Shanghainese, correctly judging them to be more interested in money than Marxism. Purged of its banks and international trading houses, Shanghai was kept on a tight leash and fell into an icy hibernation for decades. Now, the city’s 20 million inhabitants are firmly back in favour.

And the city itself has had a makeover that has cost an estimated US$45bil (RM144.9bil) – more than Beijing’s pre-Olympics transformation.

In a matter of weeks the city unveiled three subway lines – Shanghai didn’t have a metro system 15 years ago and now has the world’s biggest underground train system. It also opened a new airline terminal and revamped its waterfront. The facelift for the latter, the historic Bund, alone cost US$700mil (RM2.254bil).

Even by China’s frenetic pace of construction, the speed has been incredible – Pan Haixiao, an urban planning expert at China’s Tongji University, estimates that without the event the changes would have taken three times as long.

Perhaps this expo of superlatives will resuscitate the once-grand tradition of international gatherings that began with London’s Great Exhibition in 1851, gave Paris the Eiffel Tower and drew tens of millions of Americans to the landmark world’s fairs.

 

A close-up of the delicate, lace-like exterior of the Polish pavilion that is inspired by traditional paper-cutting. – AP

 

“They were the entertainment event of the year wherever they took place,” says Prof John Findling, author of the Encyclopedia of World’s Fairs and Expos, who suggests they had the kind of impact the Olympics do today. In their heyday, he points out, they were not competing with television, theme parks or the Internet.

“Visitors were anxious to see people from exotic places, the latest in science, invention and fine art, and to enjoy themselves.... There was nothing else in the way of amusement that was like it,” he says.

These days, few can recall recent hosts – such 2005’s Aichi in Japan – and the events have less razzmatazz and a more earnest tone. Their purpose “is to allow a global dialogue on important issues facing the international community,” says Vicente Gonzalez Loscertales, secretary general of the Bureau International des Expositions – the world’s fair equivalent of the International Olympic Committee.

But few outsiders believe that the opportunity to discuss urbanisation – this year’s theme is “Better City, Better Life” – is why 192 participating countries are laying out jaw-dropping sums to appear in Shanghai’s expo. Instead, they point to the thousands of companies hoping to cut lucrative deals and find new customers.

“It’s the 21st century equivalent to the old tribute to the emperor – we’ve all always had to pay to play in China, but wind-up clocks and oompah bands are old hat so now we have to build pavilions, sponsor things, cut cheques to official charities,” argues Paul French of the Shanghai-based consultancy, Access Asia.

There is certainly excitement among many Shanghai residents: 200,000 people attended a trial run early last week and even on cold, drizzling weekdays this past week, inhabitants have been gathering to peer through the 3m-high fence towards the distant Chinese pavilion.

“We have waited 150 years for the chance to hold the expo in our country. Now we have succeeded in two big events: the Olympics and this,” says 77-year-old Wang Xinghua. “I feel even happier when people from other countries come to visit – it represents China standing up in the world.”

Nearby, Song Mi, 47, is expecting officials to clear away her sugarcane cart in case it gives visitors a bad impression – and probably rightly, she thinks.

“I’ve been counting down the days until the expo opens. I want to see everything,” she says. “It’s the biggest thing that’s happened in my lifetime.” – Agencies 

By TANIA BRANIGAN

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