Letter to friends: Shanghai and the World Expo
Hello, guys
I have been in Shanghai for about 73 hours (equivalent to 3 full days), from Oct 19th, 4pm to Oct 22nd, 5pm. This is my first trip to Shanghai, to China, and to the World Expo. The main purpose is for business, so it may not be a real fix for my inner China.
Real trip or not, I have come to Shanghai, taken her Meglev, riden her taxi, used her subway, "talked" and rubbed shoulder to her people, eaten her food, breathed her air (and often second-handedly cigarette smoke), felt the breeze of her autumn, been frightened by her local driving, peed in her many public restrooms (ce suo), been thrilled by her futuristic look at the Bund (Wei tan), been awed by her large crowd, and charmed by her daughters's beauties.
Shanghai, as I see, is well deserved a title of a world mega city with Tokyo-quality subway system, impressive modern highrises, and other aspects, including public restroom that has relieved my (little) worry of coming to China.
However, a city could not be a city without its people. Three days may be too short to say anything about Shanghainese. What I see is that they are hurry all the time. Wherever I see them, whatever they do, they are hurry. It's always a rush in Shanghai. It's common to see people pushing their way, cutting a line, and eating while walking.
That's all I can say about Shanghai and her people. About the World Expo, as you may have heard it's grand. It's crowded. Here's my perspective. First, it's a fair of showcases, sort of show-offs of many countries. It might have been a place to show off the latest technologies in the past. Well, it's still has that, but, with the internet, don't expect to come to the expo to surprise yourself with something never heard of.
I feel that the Expo is much like a much larger version of an amusement park, like Epcot. Well, Epcot is actually a theme park modeled after the World Expo. It's a theme park for future and cutting-edge technologies as well as for cultural diversity. Disney wants it to be a permanent site of sorta Expo like theme park.
Another aspect about the expo is a chance to learn about other culture. Frankly, I don't know how to put it. It may provide a chance to meet people from other culture, but with large crowd and the rush atmosphere I wonder if this is really a good chance to learn other culture. It may not be too bad, since at least the Expo will bring the awareness of world cultural diversity to China.
Regarding to the theme of the expo: "Better city, better life.", Shanghai, a new blooming husting busting mega city, is definitely a good place to host this theme. Besides, since good living has strongly associates with environmental issues, the expo may have at least brought the issues into local awareness and hopefully there will be consistent drive to bring the environmental issues into the mainstream Chinese mind. (To this regard, everyone including us should be into the environmental issues and choose our daily action responsibly.)
I, myself, have a chance to visit one of the theme pavilion the Urban Planet. The pavilion started with addressing the problems: growing population, expanding urban areas, waste-polluted environment, limited natural minerals, resources, and energy supplies, increasing carbon dioxide, climate change, traffic and urban related issues. Later, the solutions are proposed. Also, pioneer projects and success stories from around the world are provided.
For a universal theme, like living and environment, I think it would not be complete without the most crucial question: what can we do? I confessed that I did not realize this important question then, when I was seeing the expo. It just came to me now. So, I don't really know if the exhibition has provided an answer for this question. Well, how about you? What do you think what you, me, or, other regular people can do?
P.S. I notice that (1) Chinese served plain water warm, not cold and (2) a post office in China is painted green, not red.
| Create Date : 31 ตุลาคม 2553 |
| Last Update : 18 พฤศจิกายน 2559 10:29:08 น. |
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