Barely Expo'd

In Chinese, China is "Zhongguo", meaning the Middle Kingdom — as in the middle of it all. With its emergence as an economic superpower, it could poised to be in the centre of everything again. It's hard not to be somewhat impressed with the march of prosperity and progress in this country, as it has lifted hundreds of millions of its citizens from abject poverty in mere decades. It is brimming with optimism about the future, probably much like America was in the middle of the last century. At least that is the mood of Expo 2010 in Shanghai. The fair isn't as much for foreigners, but more to introduce the once cloistered Chinese to the world and their place in it. The impressive show has a very stong environmental message to it showcasing the very latest in green technologies and trends, encouraging the Chinese that the way forward has to be cleaner and smarter.

I got off to an early start to get to the Expo, taking the Metro to one of numerous entrance gates. I warily purchased a discounted ticket from a scalper, and was relieved when the card went in the turnstile without a hitch. The sheer scale of the Expo gounds is enormous, the gathering spaces are designed for tens of thousands at the very least.  I had a hard time deciding where to go next after entering, as the line-ups for the popular pavillions were building up fast, some as long as a couple of hours. Forget about visiting the iconic China Pavilion as it was reservations only, otherwise you would be waiting there for the entire day. I figure I'd go to the theme pavilions mostly, check out some interesting countries and generally go for the less popular venues instead of wasting most of my time in a line up.

The theme of Expo 2010 is "Better City, Better Life",  aimed at China's and the world's increasing urbanization and how we can all cope with it in the future. There are demonsrations of non-electric cooling, a slew of alternative energies, water treatment technologies — everything geared to reducing environmental footprint and increasing efficiency — addressing the fears that China's growing affluence would make them as wasteful as North Americans. At the moment, the average Chinese uses about one third of the resources an average Canadian consumes, so the mass adoption of green technology should allow us to meet somewhere in the middle.

Electric shuttles carry people on short loops, buses do the length of the site, and a special 3 station subway line (to be incorporated into the Metro system later) was built to take people across the two sites straddling the Huangpu River. Above the bustling ground level are wide elevated promenades lined with attractive sunshades that allow you to walk long distances without bumping into a crowd, kind of like a pedestrian freeway. The place is massive, and at the end of the day I doubt I covered a quarter of it. I left at 9 pm, my feet aching and my back hurting from being upright all day. I might give it another go in a few weeks when I come back to Shanghai to catch the plane home.