Almost everyone has heard of the Olympics – a lot less people know of the World Expo, an event of Olympic-like scale taking place once every five years at various venues. Its purpose is to promote creativity and appreciation of diversity through displays, performances, exhibitions, etc. The Space Needle in Seattle was one such exhibition, built during the World Expo in 1962 and representing the latest ideas of the time with its elevated rotating floor.
“Better City, Better Life” (城市，讓生活更美好) was the theme of this year's Expo in Shanghai, fitting considering the location. As such the Theme Pavilion housed huge exhibits of the many aspects of city life, from transportation to everyday life to infrastructure.
A snapshot of city life.
Though looking at the displays, I thought the theme could have been going green. The Theme Pavilion had an entire branch devoted to the environmental consequences of industrialization and eco-friendly tips for city dwellers. Most of the city and country pavilions had some sort of displays showcasing their going green efforts as well. It was almost amusing to see each country attempting to one-up the next.
Madrid is green, just like everyone else.
Besides that, the order of the day was surround-image movies, with every other pavilion featuring one or two 3-D or dome films. The images were projected onto screens that were placed in a circular shape, making viewers feel as though they are in the actual movie. A few of the pavilions chose to show movies differently, using projectors covered by four semi-transparent screens to create a 3-D image that can be seen from all four directions.
Hologram technology in the Taipei Pavilion.
Of course the most obvious attractions of the Expo are the buildings themselves. Drive by on the highway and you'll see dozens of huge, colorful structures. The first one to catch my eye was the China Pavilion, mainly because of its sheer size. All the other pavilions are large buildings, at least three or four stories high, but China towers over them, symbolic of the massive Chinese population.
*looooom*
A few hundred meters over, there was France with its aesthetically pleasing glass building surrounded by trees, Britain with its spiky porcupine-like pavilion supposedly symbolizing a seed sprouting, and others. Across the Huangpu River are the city pavilions – London, Ningbo, Osaka, etc. - all also artistically designed to represent the city in question. It's almost worth the price of a ticket just to see the interesting structures. Just remember to bring plenty of food if you don't want to be paying close to 100 RMB for a meal. And for your legs' sake, buy a small stool to sit on while in line.
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