上海世界博览会:
Beijing — That’s an awful lot of ducks and dumplings. The largest ever World’s Fair blasts off tonight with a massive fireworks display over Shanghai. china expects about 400,000 daily visitors to consume 547 tons of food each day, from buns at 70 cents for three, to more pricey Beijing roast ducks — for the next six months.
The World expo 2010 Shanghai, dubbed the “Economic Olympics” by Chinese officials, is a record-breaker in multiple ways. This gathering of 189 nations, including debutantes such as reclusive North Korea, aims to draw 70 million visitors from May to October this year.
From food supply to bathroom places, China’s financial powerhouse is shattering World’s Fair records, according to Chinese media feasting on the logistics of the nation’s next march onto the global stage after the successful 2008 Beijing Olympics.
The centerpiece of the giant outdoor site, straddling Shanghai’s Huangpu river, is China’s “Oriental Crown” Pavilion, which dwarfs the other exhibits. Local media have estimated the total cost at $58 billion, including citywide infrastructure projects. That is far more than the $42 billion cost of the Olympics.
For China watchers, the scale of the preparations comes as no surprise.
“Everything in China is always the biggest, combined with an incredible ability for mobilization and organization,” said David Zweig, a China politics expert at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. The nation bears a “sense of greatness and enormity.”
No detail appears too small. To leave the right impression, Shanghai authorities have cajoled their sharp-elbowed citizens to line up better, spit less and stop wearing pajamas in public. The 3,500 police who will patrol the Expo site have been forbidden to eat garlic or other noxious foodstuffs.
Like the Beijing Games, security is tight before an opening ceremony to be attended by foreign leaders including French President Nicolas Sarkozy. Officials “have detained, placed under surveillance or threatened activists, dissidents and petitioners,” reported the lobbying group China Human Rights Defenders.
China “doesn’t want people talking about human rights and other negative aspects,” Zweig said.
“The spin is that this is a China that is a modern nation state,” he said. “If foreigners think well of China, it gives China enormous face, especially to demonstrate to the domestic audience.”
About 95% of the visitors will be mainland Chinese, organizers say. Events such as the Olympics and the Expo “can increase Chinese people’s confidence and publicize China’s achievements,” said Liu Weixin, vice chairman of the China Society of Urban Economy.
“The costs in time and money are all worthwhile, as we can show a new image to the world,” he said.
The effort is exemplified by the Expo theme, “Better City, Better Life,” which focuses on urban environment, green technology and low-carbon initiatives. Yet the image does not always depict reality.
Although China invests in alternative energy, it relies heavily on coal to power its industrial revolution. Unlike the USA, China uses tremendous amounts of low-grade “soft” coal that produces high levels of sulfur emissions, according to a report by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. That has made many cities a miasma of smog. China is the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases.
Then there are the benign portrayals of North Korea and Iran, both of which have been described by the U.S. State Department in its 2010 Human Rights Report as serial abusers of individual freedoms.
Inside the North Korea pavilion, visitors can watch video footage of U.S. planes bombing its capital, Pyongyang, during the Korean War. Next door, Iran offers “Blending of Diverse Cultures in the City” as its theme. “City and Peace” is the theme of war-torn Sudan, whose president was recently indicted by the International Criminal Court on charges of crimes against humanity for allegedly orchestrating the murder of thousands of people in Darfur.
The placement of the pavilions is being labeled by Shanghai blogger Adam Minter and others as “Axis of Evil” square.
“China wants to be friends with everyone and make no judgments,” said Kerry Brown, a senior fellow in the Asia Program at the London-based think tank Chatham House. “The big tent approach is a physical embodiment of China’s diplomatic views.”
North Korea, attending an Expo for the first time, was probably emboldened by the knowledge that China would prevent the kind of protests Pyongyang could expect in a Western city, Brown said. North Korea’s theme, “Paradise for the People,” shows that fantasy is well-embedded in Shanghai.
The majority of nations lavished public money on their displays. U.S. rules forced organizers of the American pavilion to get money from private sponsors, said José H. Villarreal, commissioner general for the USA Pavilion. At the 11th hour, U.S. organizers secured $61 million for the pavilion.
Thursday, Chinese leader Hu Jintao toured the pavilion and watched a video of President Obama welcoming visitors.
The U.S. design is not as “fanciful or whimsical” as some pavilions, Villarreal said, but surveys suggest it will prove among the most popular.
Unlike many pavilions destined for demolition come October, the U.S. pavilion is likely to be reassembled elsewhere after the event, he said.
Chinese visitors, who will test the pavilion’s 35,000 daily capacity, will gain a glimpse of the USA and “a sense of who Americans really are,” he said.
Though “Expo fatigue” has been a problem at some events in recent decades, “the timing was perfect for China as it is emerging as a powerful nation,” Villarreal said. “Some Expos matter more than others, and this one matters a lot.”
By Calum MacLeod, USA TODAY
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30 Apr 2010
China Travel 2.0/新概念旅游 1,136 views