Last month we met our friend Saima in Shanghai and spent a nine-hour day walking around the Expo in some of the most unforgiving heat I’ve ever experienced. At one point Saima was approached by a random pollster asking what our expectations of the Expo were and whether they had been met or not. This got me thinking, what were my expectations? I mean other than food of course which I’ve already blogged about…just what was I expecting to see at an exposition of THE WORLD for a $25-entrance fee?
As a graduate student I’ve been reading about the World Exhibitions in Paris to Chicago since day one, and so the chance to actually experience one for myself (in the good company of two of my fellow urban scholars no less) sounded pretty fantastic.
Having been warned about the seven-hour long lines to get into some of the fancier European pavilions, we opted for a tour of the Middle Eastern pavilions instead. We predicted they would be far more interesting to us anyhow and also have much shorter lines and probably better food. We were mostly right.
And when we were wrong - the Saudi Arabia pavilion had a six-hour wait - we sweet talked our way in the VIP entrance using our somewhat rusty but nonetheless effective Arabic speaking skills.
Here are some choice photos from our long and adventurous day at the Expo to give you a sense of how the Middle East and some other countries are representing themselves to the Chinese public these days. You know, in case you were wondering.
View of the Expo from the Turkey pavilion.
The highlight of course was meeting the super animated Dondurman and eating that delicious dondurma!
All aboard! Sweden ended up on our Middle East/heritage tour only because I’m 1/8 Swedish and so it seemed appropriate. - Photo by JCC
Inside the Nigeria Pavilion.
The line to get into the Zaha Hadid-designed Egyptian pavilion was ridiculous and so we opted to sneak a peak from the backdoor instead.
Yikes. - Photo by JCC
Countries who build glass pavilions shouldn’t kill innocent people.
Getting into the VIP entrance of the Saudi pavilion: it’s all about wasta.
Inside the Saudi pavilion’s ginormous IMAX theatre.
The line at little Petra.
At the Babylon Gate entrance of the Iraq pavilion! I had high hopes!
A very strange interior world of Aladdin cartoons inside. Total disappointment :(
In lieu of Iraqi representatives hosting the pavilion I metthese friendly Chinese folks in silly jangling polyester costumes. When I told them that I’m an Iraqi they replied to me, “No, no, we are NOT Iraqi, we’re Chinese.” Sigh.
When I asked people in line for the UAE pavilion if they would ever want to travel to the Arabian Gulf they replied, “No. We can never afford it!”
You learn something new everyday.
This lady was very excited to meet Saima - a real live Pakistani woman - in the hall of famous Pakistani women :)
I’d say, all in all a great day at the Shanghai World Expo. But one was definitely enough.
