Shanghai Scrap

I realize that Expo 2010 (Shanghai World’s Fair) is getting a bit long in the tooth, but … I’d like to share with my Expo readers an interesting note that I received from someone involved in the design of an Expo 2010 pavilion. The topic is Expo lines (or queues, my British friends), and who should be blamed for the fact that visitors are waiting as many as eight hours to enter some of the most popular pavilions. Generally, it seems, the lines are treated as the inevitable consequence of China’s large population. And, in the Chinese media and blogsphere, at least, lines/queues are sited as stamps of quality: ie, the only reason people spend eight hours outside of the Saudi pavilion is that it’s so terrific inside (believe me, it’s not).

And this perverse state of affairs (queues = quality) has led to accusations from some pavilions (Turkey, most notably) that other pavilions (Saudi, most notably), actually manipulate their traffic so that they can enjoy the prestige of lone lines. The email below responds to that suggestion. I’ve edited out any information that could identify this person (and also some of his language – Shanghai Scrap is, ahem, a family blog). Beyond that, this is the unexpurgated opinion of someone who knows what he’s talking about:

The longer queues are being sited as a sign of quality by a lot of the Chinese media – it’s crazy and (as a designer) f****** insulting. (more…)

The superlatives attached to Expo 2010 – the Shanghai World’s Fair – are various and numerous: it is the biggest Expo site, with the most countries participating, and – guaranteed – the best attendance, in the history of the Expo movement. Less discussed, but just as notable, is the fact that Expo 2010 is the most secure Expo in history, as well. Or, at a minimum, it sure looks secure: fences and soldiers surround the site, attendees are required to subject themselves to metal detectors and their bags to x-rays. The situation is often so heavy-handed that staff at several pavilions have taken to calling this Expo, the Gulag Expo (riffing, of course, on Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s Gulag Archipelago).

So it came as no small surprise to me when, last night, while I was strolling through the busiest part of the Expo (in front of the Spanish pavilion), I came across a tout selling counterfeit Expo 2010 key chains and other knick-knacks to enthusiastic Expo attendees.

Allow me to put this in perspective: three touts selling counterfeit Expo goods at Expo is akin to  three touts selling counterfeit Mickey Mouse key-chains in the heart of Disney World – a Disney World rung by fences and guarded by thousands of national guard members, police, and private security guards. And I’m not the only blogger to notice this phenomenon: DeluxZilla, apparently, had it ten days ago. He suggests that the touts are getting the goods into the park by having accomplices toss them over fences. I suppose that’s a possibility. But I think the more likely explanation is that somebody – I don’t know who – has good reason (I’m putting this delicately) to ignore the situation.

In any case, let this serve as a new datapoint in the ongoing discussion of whether China can, or even wants to, enforce intellectual property laws. After all, if not at Expo, where?

From the moment that Expo 2010 (World’s Fair) was awarded in December 2002, the preemptive critics were ready to accuse the host country of presenting a watered-down, white-washed version of Shanghai, and China, for domestic and international consumption. And, to an extent, they were onto something: the China pavilion, and the Chinese provincial pavilions do, in fact, present a sanitized picture of contemporary and historical China. That is to say, if you go to the Expo looking for stories of migrant workers, of China’s factory culture, of its ongoing identity crisis that pits traditional culture against the chaos of market-oriented modern China, well, you won’t find it. But, then again, neither will you find stories about America’s homeless at the USA pavilion; understandably, nobody wants to air their dirty laundry at a World’s Fair. Instead, Expo 2010 exhibitors are all about progress, the ongoing march from history into the glorious present.

At least, that’s what I thought before I walked into the Shenzhen Case Pavilion and found myself standing in a shipping container hung with fake Van Goghs illuminated by a photograph of (some of) the young, shirtless artists responsible for painting the canvases. Shenzhen, for those unfamiliar with it, became China’s first Special Economic Zone in 1980, and has since been both a laboratory for free market reform, and a politically volatile symbol of China’s successes and failures as a market economy.

In any case, most of the trickle of tourists rushing through the tight pavilion space didn’t recognize – or seem to care about the paintings and artists – but I sure did. They are both from Dafen Art Village (located in Shenzhen’s sprawling outskirts), the semi-famous, oft-written-about (most recently in the July 20 edition of the Vancouver Sun) village where 60% of the world’s “original” copied oil paintings are produced mostly for export (to Wal-Mart and other mass market retailers in developed countries) by 8000 former art students and anyone else with the talent to duplicate an Old Master (or Warhol, or Chen Danqing, or whoever). (more…)

Without question, the most popular region of Shanghai’s sprawling 5 km² Expo 2010 (World’s Fair) is Zone C, home to the European pavilions, as well as the North and South American, African, and Caribbean pavilions (zone list available here). According to an email sent out on Sunday, and obtained by the staff of Shanghai Scrap shortly thereafter,  it is also home to an ” invasion.”

Dear participant,

The pesticide for your pavilion use is provided with by Zone C Department now. Please go to the property company’s office (Lu Jia Zui Property Company) on the first floor (interlayer) of Central and South America Joint Pavilion to get one bottle of pesticide (1KG). The mosquito eradication in public area is now controlled by the organizer. We hope that the supply of pesticide will help your pavilion to get away from the invasion of mosquito and other insects in time.

If you have any confusion in finding the storage place, please inquire 136——-, Ms. C—–.

Best regards,

[Name and address removed by ed.]

For the record, I’ve spent as much time at this riverside Expo (complete with an extraordinary restored wetland that is, let’s face it, ideal for mosquito breeding) as anyone who doesn’t actually work down there, and I’ve yet to see any signs of the Swarm. That is to say, bring your repellent, but by all means still visit … and allow this memo to serve as a marker on Expo’s road from theme park into something, well, quite alive, I’d say.

A week into Expo 2010′s [that is, the Shanghai World's Fair's] six month run I posted my ‘Simple Guide‘ to visiting the sprawling event that came down to one directive: go after dark. Much of that guide and advice was based upon visits during the construction phase, the soft opening, and two impromptu visits made during the sparsely attended first week. Since then, much has changed, both at the Expo (people are showing up, for example), and in my head (a dozen or so Expo visits, both as a member of the media, and as an unabashed Expo enthusiast, will do that).

So, on that basis, I’m going to offer a revised, updated Shanghai Scrap Guide to the Expo (though I continue to stand by most of my first wave advice). These recommendations are intended for people like me: people who have traveled a bit in their life, don’t find much novelty or exoticism in Western Europeans, and don’t have a desperate compulsion to spend six hours in line to see, say, what the Germans cooked up. Not that there’s anything wrong with Germans, or their take on national exhibition design. It’s just that, all things considered, I’m not six-hours interested, and neither are most of the people I know. In fact, if there’s one thing that I want to emphasize to my valued readers, it’s this: DON’T WAIT IN LINE FOR ANYTHING. There’s nothing – NOTHING – at Expo 2010 worth more than ten minutes of idling (with one notable exception – which I’ll get to). Now, don’t get me wrong: Expo 2010 is worth several days of your time. I’m just saying that, all things considered, those days are best spent seeing all of the things that don’t require you to stand in line. So let’s get down to business. (more…)

Even before Expo 2010 [the Shanghai World's Fair] opened on May 1, media, organizers, and visitors were buzzing about the epic lines expected at certain national pavilions. To be sure, lines (queues, my British friends) are reality at all modern Expos. But China, with its vast population, and determination to secure 70 million visitors before its six month Expo ends, magnifies the issue. Nonetheless, despite reasonable concerns about Shanghai lines dating back years, rumors have been circulating for months that “some” national pavilions were built, and have been managed, to ensure and lengthen the lines and waits – for the sake of national prestige.

So. On June 16, at a semi-regular meeting of Commissioners General held at the Expo site, the rumors became thinly-veiled accusations: mid-way through the meeting, the Commissioner General of Turkey all but charged the Saudi Arabian pavilion – notorious for its nine hour-long queues – with purposely manipulating visitors and wait times so as to appear as if it’s popular. His finger also turned to the Germans, hosts to six hour lines, for much the same, and more. Below, the Saudi pavilion as encountered during the Expo’s soft opening, before it became popular.

Thanks to an Expo friend, I have documentation of this exchange, in the form of the June 16 meeting minutes. Click here for a scan of the first page, including participants. And here, in the midst of a long section concerning lines, is the relevant passage:

The Commissioner General of Turkey notes that some pavilions are designed for long queues and that even some pavilions want long queues as a matter of prestige. He suggests that pavilions should speed up access at their entrances and allow, as is the case at the pavilion of Turkey, free entrance and exit to shows rather than closing people inside until the show is over. He notes that Turkey receives 45,000 people per day whereas Saudi Arabia is at around 25,000 per day. He also stresses that Germany had faced the same issues at Expo 2008 Zaragoza due to the design of their pavilion.

This blogger notes that Turkey rarely has a significant wait in front of its pavilion, despite the fact that – if the 45,000 figure is correct – it exceeds or equals the visitation numbers at many other popular pavilions, such as the well-queued United States pavilion. (more…)

What makes a great Expo 2010 (Shanghai World’s Fair) pavilion? Fancy architecture? 4-D films? A giant, custom-built theater complete with a rotating movie screen? Yes, yes, and yes! – depending upon how each of those features is deployed within the pavilion.

But in the opinion of this blogger – your trusty, loyal Shanghai Scrap Expo blogger – nothing – and I mean nothing – guarantees World Expo pavilion greatness quite like a flying machine. And so, breaking this blog’s unstated rule that: The Blogger’s Face Shall Never Grace the Home Page – I give you Mr. Shanghai Scrap, enjoying an invited flight in the Aerodium-designed vertical wind tunnel at the heart of the beautiful and truly awesome Latvian Expo 2010 (World’s Fair) pavilion.

[UPDATE 6/19: The Expo Museum has posted a great video of the Aerodium in action.]

The theme of the Latvian pavilion is “Technology of Happiness,” and having now experienced that technology for myself, I feel perfectly comfortable telling my readers that the experience of “flying” on a vertical blast of air is not only a happy one, it’s unlike any sensation that I’ve ever experienced before. The blast of air itself is extraordinarily powerful and – at first – disorienting. Your legs arms curve above you, your back bows, and you really wonder if you’re just going to crash to the floor (padded). But once I had the hang of it, I quite suddenly felt like a speck of dust being tossed about on a sunbeam. In other words: technology of happiness, indeed. After the page jump, Shanghai Scrap several meters above the floor of the wind tunnel. (more…)

My first visit to the USA pavilion happened a few days after it officially opened. It was a quiet evening, and the large crowds of recent weeks hadn’t yet materialized. I didn’t have to wait long in line, and after only a few minutes I was ushered into the lobby where I watched two young Americans make announcements – and joke – to a Chinese audience transfixed by their linguistic and cultural fluency. A few minutes later we were ushered into a movie theater where – just as in the lobby – a young American warmed up and joked with the crowd. The last theater was home to the true star of the show (if you ask the Chinese audience), a stocky young American, no more than twenty-three, I think, who worked the five-hundred audience members like a stand-up comedian. After the film, they rushed up to him with cameras, questions, and curiosity.

As I left the pavilion, I raved to my companion about how the young Americans I’d just seen – officially, they are members of the USA pavilion’s Student Ambassador program – are precisely who and how I would want the USA to represent itself at Expo 2010 (the Shanghai World’s Fair). Entrepreneurial. Optimistic. Well-educated. Young. Open to China and other cultures. Sense of humor. Sense of integrity.

My companion raised a brow at me and, knowing that I’d long been critical of the USA pavilion, challenged me to write something complimentary about the Student Ambassadors on Shanghai Scrap. That seemed reasonable and so – then and there -I accepted the assignment, and at the first available opportunity I asked Martin Alintuck, then the pavilion’s Communications Director (and now the President/CEO of the pavilion), if he’d be willing to help me do it. Alintuck agreed right away.

And so, without further ado, allow me introduce Shanghai Scrap’s readers to Ryan Lovdahl, 23 and Katie Sirolly, 22, two members of the first class of eighty student ambassadors selected to work at the US pavilion until mid-July (a second class of eighty ambassadors will overlap them by a week or two and serve until the end of the Expo on October 31).

Katie and Ryan are both recent University of Delaware graduates. Though University of Delaware doesn’t have a Chinese language major, it does have a foreign language requirement, and the two of them both chose Chinese. Along the way, they showed an aptitude for the language that resulted in both being selected for year-long scholarships at Beijing Language and Culture University, paid for by the Chinese government. Ryan spent two years at BLCU; Katie spent one. Afterward, both sought out additional opportunities to study, travel, and work in China. And so, in 2009, when the Student Ambassador program, was announced, both jumped at the opportunity to apply. (more…)

[As noted in the prior post, this is the last week of All Expo, All of the Time at Shanghai Scrap. We're wrapping up some loose ends before moving onto - or returning to - other subjects.]

Loose end #2 – Expo sleepers.

No, I’m not talking about undiscovered pavilions or restaurants. I’m talking about all of the people sleeping on the southern end of the elevated Expo Boulevard that runs the length of the massive Puxi side of the Expo 2010 grounds. It’s a big place, after all, and a good visit exhausts the energy of even the fittest. So what to do? Pick one of the twin-sized benches on the elevated boulevard, slip off your shoes, and … snooze. Some afternoons – especially warm ones – it looks like a triage zone up there.

In the interest of documenting this perfectly understandable phenomenon, I present, as a gift to my readers, 36 Expo Boulevard naps, as photographed this afternoon. [ed. note: individual photos may contain more than one nap.] (more…)

[A brief note: this week is going to be the final week of the All Expo, All of the Time theme that's taken over Shanghai Scrap. We have non-Expo posts planned for next week, and we're going to like doing them. But, for this week at least, a few loose ends to tie up before moving back into prior and new beats. Of course, Expo won't be leaving our thoughts entirely - we have some items that we'd still like to explore over there - but I think a solid month of exclusive Expo blogging is quite enough. Anyway, back to the Expo blogging.]

Loose end #1. Potential conflicts of interest at the USA pavilion, and a response from the pavilion’s president. [fair warning: this is going to get long and technical; for US pavilion wonks, only.] (more…)

Last year, on the occasion of Shanghai Scrap’s second anniversary, I swore that I wouldn’t do a post marking Shanghai Scrap’s third anniversary. However, recent events – namely, Expo 2010 (World’s Fair) – have convinced me that an anniversary post is definitely in order. Long-time readers may recall that I used last year’s anniversary post to list the top 5 most popular posts from the last twelve months. However, due to the fact that the most popular posts from the most recent 12 months were all Expo-related, I’m going to take this (self-imposed) opportunity to list the five most popular non-Expo related posts from the last months. The purpose of this exercise – and it’s quite sincere – is to remind myself and regular readers that Expo is not forever, and I fully intend to resume blogging about other subjects, and soon (a few more Expo posts in the works, though). Until then, allow me to exhibit to you just what happens in the Russian restaurant beside the Russian Expo pavilion after the Expo closes at midnight.

There’s a whole lot more of this Expo after-hours business available for those looking for it. And, if I were a certain local city blog, I’d try to find somebody who could get in and write about the phenomenon. Here at Shanghai Scrap, we’re interested in more staid Expo-related subjects.

Anyway, for the record, the most popular Shanghai Scrap post of the last 12 months – and, as of this weekend, the all-time most popular Shanghai Scrap post – is the recent Reporter’s Guide to the USA Pavilion Debacle at Expo 2010. But, as noted above, this blog has long been about more than the Expo. So, without further ado, the top five most popular non-Expo related Shanghai Scrap posts of the last 12 months.

1. Giant UFO Over Shanghai. [Sigh. Two years after I posted it mostly as a lark, it remains the #2 search result if you google 'UFO Shanghai'. Who knew people were still looking?]
2. Buddhist protests and Muslim riots. [Some thoughts on the initial media coverage of the riots in Urumqi  last July. It also touches on the untenable online correction policy at the New York Times - a subject to which I returned a couple of months ago.].
3. Why are 40,000 containers of scrap metal idling in Hong Kong and Guangzhou? [To my everlasting surprise, this was widely linked by blogs with no interest in Scrap, but considerable interest in how China operates.]
4. Interview: Monday Night Football’s play-by-play man in China airs it out. [Tied with the criminally under-appreciated 141 Shanghai Christmas trees post as my favorite post of the year. Considerable thanks to NFL China for agreeing to it.]
5. “I’m a big supporter of non-censorship” [My extremely unpopular but heavily trafficked criticism of Obama's performance at his November 2009 town hall in Shanghai. My critics suggested that it hailed a grand new moment in US-Chinese relations; seven months later, I'd say they over-sold it.]

A couple of quick observations. First, despite the fact that I consider this blog – primarily – a reported blog, the most popular posts – with a few exceptions (most of my Expo posts) – remain opinion pieces. Second, the foreign audience for serious China blogging (say, my 2008 posts about the iron ore trade) remains a niche; that is to say, if you’re an English-language China blogger in need of traffic, you’d best connect your China material with something that isn’t China-related (ie, the Expo, Obama, sex). Bluntly put, around here at least, the serious China blogging does less than 10% of the traffic that a one-off post about a disgusting new snack available at Shanghai-area Starbucks outlets does. And, to be honest, I’m probably with my readers on that one.

This evening I had the distinct honor of attending the opening of the Latvian Expo 2010 (World’s Fair) pavilion. It was a notable event for two reasons, in particular. First, the Latvian pavilion is the last of the stand-alone Expo 2010 pavilions to open (Expo opened on May 1); and second, and more important, the Latvian pavilion is built around something called an “Aerodium” – basically, a giant, vertical wind tunnel into which people – including, say, prime ministers – can be inserted for the purpose of levitating/flying. And so this evening, to his everlasting credit, Latvian Prime Minister Valdis Dombrovskis, donned a flight suit and helmet, stepped into the Aerodium, and – to the obvious discomfort of his security detail – levitated/flew. Below, Dombrovskis’s flight as witnessed by the staff of Shanghai Scrap (that’s 39-year-old Dombrovskis in the middle).

Just to be clear: the Prime Minister is, in fact, a Prime Minister, and so the staff of the Latvian pavilion took extra care with his flight. But when it came time for the staff to take flight and show the full capabilities of the Aerodium, they didn’t hesitate at all. Photographic proof, after the page jump … (more…)

The other morning I received an out-of-the-blue email from Pete Ford, Creative Director for the Australian Pavilion at Expo 2010 (World’s Fair). He was going to be in town, he told me, and he wondered if I’d be interested in a “front and back of house” tour of his creation. Absolutely! As I’ve noted elsewhere on this blog, the Australia pavilion is one of the best of the national pavilions at Expo 2010; it’s also a bit of a technical marvel. The centerpiece is a theater-in-the-round featuring a – how to describe this? – a rotating set of movie screens that surround several set-pieces that emerge from a stage. The screens, meanwhile, feature projections showing scenes from Australia and – this is the real kicker – views of the set-pieces inside of them as if the screens were windows rather than white surfaces, providing each seat with a unique view of the show. That’s no small trick. See below.

So last week, without hesitation, I met Ford at the entrance to the pavilion. It was, like every day at the Aussie pavilion, a busy day: lines wrapped around the building, folding over and around each other. As Ford led me up the ramp, past artworks specially made for the pavilion, we were jostled by the dense crowds rushing through the wide corridors, and he laughed: “I knew it was going to be busy – but MAN!”

Ford, and his company, think!OTS, aren’t newcomers to Expos. As we walked through the pavilion exhibits, he told me that his first was Expo 88 in Brisbane, Australia, and that think!OTS designed the Australian pavilion for Expo 2005 in Aichi. “So it was easier for us to begin work on this one,” he explained. Formal work began 3.5 years ago, but the current pavilion wasn’t a given: think!OTS first had to be selected in open competition against other firms and groups. Obviously, it was.

Outside of the theater itself, I asked Ford how he came up with the idea of screen spinning around a prop that emerges from a stage floor. “I was drinking beer,” he told me. “And I was holding the bottle, and the coaster, and I had the idea of the coaster going ’round and ’round the bottle.” (more…)

Late this afternoon, while leaving the Puxi side of the Expo 2010 (World’s Fair) grounds, I happened to pause at a bus stop which – to my great surprise – provided this (presumably) inadvertent commentary on Shanghai’s Huangpu River.

It’s true: despite monumental efforts to improve Shanghai’s riverfront (including wonderful work at the Expo site), the river which runs through this great river town remains highly polluted. I actually did a bit of looking into this subject a year ago, and if you’re interested in the details, you might consider paying the fee necessary to access this paper. Gross river, indeed.

[ed. note: The staff at Shanghai Scrap believes that there's rather too much writing about Chinglish in the foreign media and blogsphere - especially by people like me who really have no business making fun of someone else's foreign language ability. And that's why we maintain a "One Chinglish Post Per Year" policy at Shanghai Scrap. Needless to say, there was very little discussion about whether or not the above entry should be this year's example; not only is it funny, it is -arguably - an apt commentary on a pressing environmental issue. Congratulations, Expo 2010.]

[Addendum: Additional Shanghai Scrap thoughts on Expo 2010 English, from 2009, here.]