Shanghai Expo: A significant event or cash up in smoke?

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Haibao represents

The Shanghai Expo, hyped by some, denigrated by others and unnoticed by most of the world, opens just over a month from now.

Two China-based writers gave us their very different takes on the Expo. Julen Madariaga is a European man living in Shanghai and is the author of the Chinayouren blog, Chris Yew works in the advertising industry in Beijing.

Shanghai slowly warming up to the Expo

by Julen Madariaga

The Spring is late this year in Shanghai. With temperatures well below the average for March, the thousands of Haibaos, the blue mascots shaped like 人 (person) that stand on every intersection of the city, must be feeling the chill.

Starting May 1, the Expo is just over a month away now, but Shanghai continues to live its busy life, and the locals are slow to warm up to the idea.

Despite breathy reports from advertising agents indicating that Chinese people are excited about the Expo, it is hard to find anyone seriously for or against it in Shanghai.

The mood is of Shanghainese aloofness, and even the controversy about the impact on housing prices (this year’s hot social issue) has failed to catch on. Online, popular Shanghai-based forums like KDS still don’t have any Expo threads among the hot topics.

Surely nobody is missing the ugly politicization that preceded the 2008 Olympics, nor the lamentable scenes seen during the torch run. But sometimes bad press is better than no press, and it is hard to avoid the feeling that a bit more of controversy might help to kick start the fever.


On the international scene, the promotion efforts have come under criticism lately. While some individual pavilions are doing a great job of promoting themselves (e.g. the U.K. and Germany) see some websites here), other countries like the U.S.A. are facing serious financial and planning problems and have not done much advertising.

More crucially, the work done by the general organizers of the Expo seems too exclusively focused on China. They have invaded the country with an army of Haibaos, but the international side of the campaign is weak, as illustrated by this ineffective billboard that appeared on New York’s Times Square. Even the official website of the Expo displays an amateurish visual design seemingly disconnected from the futuristic pavilions that it advertises.

An event unique in history

In spite of all the above, the Expo’s spring is finally starting. With the end of the NPC meetings last weekend, the focus of the Chinese media is turning to the Expo, and the city newspapers are publishing long special sections dedicated to the event.

Slowly, news and pictures of the construction are starting to trickle onto the internet, and the security measures that started this week in the Shanghai metro are making everyone aware of what is coming.

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Pavilions emerging from the mud, a photo on popular Shanghai forum KDS

It may be coming a bit late, but it is coming sure, and there are good reasons to pay close attention. All seems to indicate that the Shanghai World Fair will be a significant event, comparable to the classic World Fairs that shaped our ideas of the Western metropolis.

The raw numbers of the Expo speak for themselves. It is expected to attract between 70 and 80 million visitors, which would make it the highest attendance of any single event in history, by a large margin. While television audiences of a sport show can dwarf this quantity, in terms of real human contact the number of people from different cultures that are going to get together is unprecedented, and it has the potential to change the relations of China with the World.

At a time when misunderstandings between cultures are rife, such events that promote communication and participation rather than passive spectator animosity can have a very real impact.

For most Chinese it is extremely difficult to travel abroad, especially outside the South East Asian region. In spite of the number of foreigners concentrated in Beijing and Shanghai, for many inhabitants of smaller cities foreigners are still a novelty, and their cultures are greatly misunderstood. With the 3 day entrance passes set at relatively affordable prices, these people will flow into Shanghai en masse.

For many of them, the possibility of meeting all the different “foreign friends” classified by continent and country will be as exciting an any of the buildings in the Expo. Foreign visitors may be surprised when people take pictures of them as if they were walking pavilions.

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The Saudi Arabian pavilion

As with all events involving large construction projects, detractors point at the purely commercial interests of the participants, who see the Expo as a country branding event. While this is certainly true, the fact that all the countries will have direct access to the most promising tourist market of the world will also be a motivation for them to show their best attractions.

Although less hyped in the media, the Expo 2010 will be a more friendly event than its Beijing 2008 forerunner, both for foreign and for the Chinese visitors. The security challenge is important and the inconvenience of five months of high security measures will be felt in Shanghai, but the relatively relaxed international atmosphere will make things easier for all. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has already announced it will adopt an easy visa policy during the Expo period, so we will probably avoid the difficult conditions that made 2008 a tough year for many foreigners wishing to work or just visit China.

This year’s event also makes much more sense than many of the Expos organized in the last decades, almost exclusively celebrated by developed countries. This is the first World Fair in a long time where the organizing country has something to prove, and it will make all its efforts to make it a special occasion. Like Paris or Chicago in the 19th century, China is living the enthusiasm of an economic revolution. We already saw two years ago what the Chinese are able to produce for the grand occasions, and the EXPO will be a better chance for many people to enjoy that directly.

This will be the last large-scale international event marking the ascent of China, and together with the 2008 Olympics it will serve as a landmark in history. It is possible that in a few years, many in the West will not remember what the 2010 Expo was about, but for the people of China, this year might mark the beginning of a new era.

Shanghai Expo 2010 – The rite of cash

by Chris Yew

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A giant funnel for sucking money? Image source

With 44 days to go until the Shanghai Expo, 194 confirmed participants are finishing off their pavilions: busily piling together pyres of money in various shapes and sizes. Some take the form of organic matter, others the shapes of noble beasts, and even one will resemble paper wrapping if the U.K. pavilions promotional materials are to be believed.

Whether a phallic edifice or a fold-away flange, these money heaps share the same ultimate fate: they are built to burn like wicker men, like ritual sacrifices of each country’s resources and investments.

The U.S. almost left the table, attracting a large amount of media attention with their potential failure to raise the 60 million dollars needed to bring their national pavilion to Shanghai.

Either way, one should look beyond aesthetics and consider how the money spent by America (and by the Chinese) has been used for creating a valuable and beneficial experience within the building. As the majority of visitors will be domestic nationals, many will approach pavilions such as these as an opportunity to experience a country’s real culture and values for the first time – beyond the tired cultural exports readily available inside of China. Sadly, inside the U.S. pavilion one will find a kind of media “megaplex”.

The story of the states will be told in a mashed-up, audiovisual pastiche. Rather than actually make an effort to break cultural cliches, the U.S. thought it might be better to overwhelm visitors with such stereotypes. As well as a “Planet America” tourist promo featuring “howdy, there!” greetings from real, everyday Americans, visitors will also be treated to a dose of Broadway theater and a “4D” movie show, featuring effects such as vibrating chairs to physically shake the ideals of American entrepreneurialism into its visitors.

The case of the US pavilion is an apt example of the whole event’s money-splurging insignificance. There is barely any connection with Shanghai’s theme of “Better city, better life” and the thematic realization of this through urban sustainability. The goal of creating a pavilion with this purpose is quite feebly expressed in the smallest of fonts, as if a last-minute thought, on the U.S. Pavilion website.

Expo organizers have even set a new Guinness world record for the largest pattern of cars ever assembled. Perhaps not the greatest example to set in an event focused on urban sustainability.

The ceremonious promotion from each nation’s self-built pavilion feels no more than just that: a big, overblown advertisement for what is essentially a national parade float.

Although many have attempted to dress environmental and sustainable values inside the frames of their ski-lift rides, sand castles and European gardens, the ultimate effect is a cliched, overpriced fairground ride.

On the other hand, pavilions will argue that this national branding exercise will strengthen ties to China and create more global business opportunities. For many reasons it is difficult to imagine great discussions or important business decisions being made around a pavilion that looks like a Universal Studios mock-up of Ayer’s Rock.

It’s also clear that these jaw-dropping sites make convenient distractions from the real issues facing the world in 2010: How do we make sustainable cities? What can countries learn from other in urban planning? There seems to be little on offer in terms of local or global insights; rather a shame considering that this should be the key value of a World Expo.

Instead, on a stage set by China, nations are getting ready to turn their investments in the Expo into a fiery pyre of money.

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