Once upon a time in Shanghai

Six zealous Norwegian hostNesses decided it was time to take a break from the Expo and see another part of China. Their chosen destination was Tsingtao(Qingdao), a beautiful seaside "town" (population 7-8 million..) in northeastern China, once occupied by Germans. Another minor, yet joyous detail is that Tsingtao is the home of China´s most infamous beer. And as it were, the six girls´chosen vacation days happened to coincide with the Tsingtao Beer Festival (What an amazing coincidence).

The six girls were naturally divided into two groups. Three of them were typical backpackers, staying in dormrooms at Youth Hostels and drinking beer from plastic bags:

The other three preferred to glam it up a bit, and their choice of residence was a (beautiful?) seaside hotel, which also happened to be a bank

So what to do in this picturesque seaside town? The first activity the girls attended to was a visit to the Tsingtao Beer Museum. They figured it was a smart idea to learn the theory before testing out the goods. A yellow-clad, english-speaking, award-winning guide was hired, and off they went.

After a very informative tour, the highlight of the museum turned out to be "the drunken house", where one could experience the sensation of being intoxicated. The backpackers trying it out on the picture below.

Coming out of the museum, the girls followed the green sign below

and the evening ended with a magnificent KTV session, where the girls were thrilled to find Norways beloved Alexander Rybak with his hit single Fairytale

Beermuseum and beerstreet, check! Now the next day was devoted to the Beerfestival

The backpackers ended up making some new best friends, having a dance performance on stage, and drawing funny tattoos on each other. All but one picture have been purposely left out. The glamourous girls eventually made a secret escape from the festival to go to an exclusive, more quiet venue downtown to drink WINE.

The final day of the retreat included a splendid photo shoot on the beach with the girls bearing their new matching Tsingtao t-shirts

And later on in the evening, just before departure to the airport, the unthinkable happened: A moment´s carelessness left the backpackers without their luggage and passports, as their cabdriver drove off with their suitcases still in the trunk!!! Luckily, with some quick investigation, the girls got to ride in a policecar down to the station where they found their luggage safe and sound. Exuberantly relieved, they posed for a picture with the heroes of the hour: The cabdriver and the police officer

The three girls were astonishingly calm about the whole ordeal, and they were very happy that it happened to them and not the glamourous girls, as they were sure it would have totally freaked them out (as if). Nonetheless, it was a happy ending to the trip, celebrated with food and some

Tsingtao beer!

Revival of the blog

Patience, Pictures and Chinglish

You know it has been a long time when you can´t even remember the password of your blog! Luckily my mac possesses other word processing facilities for when I am feeling inspired to write, so I can post this later when I have gotten the password from my buddy.

I am sad and sorry to say this blog has been a bit of a dissappointment.. Guide of the week was abolished almost the second we started it, probably because we made the first feature too long and then never bothered to do a similar follow-up. As for the pavilion visits which were the main intent of this blog.. well let´s just say, when we have time off work we have very little urge to stay at the expo site at all! Like Trine expressed in her last post, there are A LOT of people. Way back in June some of us dedicated an entire evening to expo sightseeing, and I recall several getting very irritated when having to wait in line at the Thailand Pavilion for FOUR MINUTES!! Yes, we know patience is a virtue and that the people waiting next to us at that point had most likely queued for over an hour. But spending most of your time at the expo site, with an average of just under half a million people swarming around everyday, can really push your limits!

But you know what I miss writing/reading about? The funny stories from China and expo that can sometimes make us laugh untill we cry. Especially involving Chinglish. (No offense to the Chinese visitors, it is great that they try to speak English, and for the most part they do manage to get their point across.. but it is still so so funny) The process leading up to the picture-taking for example, is still quite a source of amusement. Seeing people fiddling nervously with their cameras and practicing their stuttering English can sometimes be priceless. Here a select few phrases that have been used by Chinese to ask us foreigners for a picture:

"Shall we take photo with us?"

"Excuse me, would you like to take a picture with you?"

"Let´s have a shot!"

"Can we make a picture with us?"

"Can we make phone together?"

"Let´s invite you to have a picture with her?"

"Would you like to take a picture with me?" ("No I wouldn´t like to, but it looks like YOU want to take one with me?!")

Please add the ones that I haven´t thought of..

P.S. Even if wearing a bright orange mustache for no apparent reason, people will still want to have their picture taken with you. Also, if you dress up like a dwarf with a mustache, you will be immensely popular. (Someone please send me the picture of Tine so I can post it).

ToRi

People People People

We have just closed the door for the 62nd night at Expo. So far the amount of visitors has been surpassing expectations, and we have just recently rounded 20,000,000 people. That is an enormous amount of people. The Norwegian pavilion was expecting to have about 15,000 visitors per day, but we have managed to add 5,000 people to that, averaging 20,000 visitors per day.

For a little Norwegian girl like myself born in Oslo (500,000 people) and bread in Waterloo, Belgium (the countryside), meeting so many people every day has proven to be a challenge. My job is to welcome each individual to a little piece of the far-away land Norway. This demands an enormous amount of patience and sanity (something which is slowly slipping away). Most people are very friendly and polite, but unfortunately you also have those visitors who are rude and unpleasant. Some of the visitors are meeting the "world" for the first time, and possibly even the big city, and this may be overwhelming for them, reducing their tolerance and patience. Just like meeting 20,000 people per day for the guides is tiring, meeting the world is exhausting for the visitors. Put two tired beings together and in addition two different cultures, and unfortunately a clash may occur. Sometimes it is the visitors fault and sometimes it is our fault, but most often it is a combination of the two. In any case, handling conflict is something we learn every day and after this I am quite certain the guides of any given pavilion will be able to sort out the conflict in the middle east.

I have always known that China has a population that is so enormous, it can be compared to the amount of sand grains on a beach, but I had not given the enormity of this amount a second thought before coming here. Our work situation is an extreme event which is not every day China, but for a handful of an international cocktail of people, this is our "every day". For us, it is almost relaxing walking down Nanjing Xi Lu (the main shopping street in Shanghai) because once in a while there is a pocket of air, something you do not encounter very often at the Expo site. I have in the past couple of months philosophised about the Expo Bureaus idea of what full capacity is and what I would call full capacity. I think this differs with about 300,000 people. When the line at the German pavilion exceeds five hours I would like to think the expo site may have encountered full capacity, but apparently not. Nine hours at the Saudi pavilion is still not full capacity either. So I really really wonder where the line is drawn...?
Going to meet and greet 10,000 people now, so I must dash.
Trine:)

The Expo Taxi's 10 Commandments

As the temperature of the Expo-fever has been raising in the last year, Shanghai needed a little icing on top of the already amply creamed cake. Riding taxis in Shanghai is not always a pleasurable affair, and I suppose the city had some self-realization on this point and decided that the city's traffic needed a little "pick-me-up". Apparently they chose the best drivers in the city and gave them a brand new car to drive as a reward. There is definitely a difference in the quality of the expo-drivers (sometimes... unless they decided that you are in a hurry, without your prior knowledge of this fact) and the "regular" drivers. On my last taxi trip I decided that they must have been given 10 holy commandments that they had to follow.

1. Thou shalt try to speak English, even if all you can meekly stutter is incomprehensible "chinglish".
2. Thou shalt listen closely to your passengers when they scream with indisputable urgency that they are scared for their life to the extent that at least two of the passengers are crying.
3. Thou shalt smile. Or draw your lips upwards towards your eyes so that it at least possibly resembles a smile.
4. Thou shalt not make your passengers deaf by playing Peking Opera so loudly that the singing only dogs can hear will burst ear drums.
5. Thou shalt use AC, because lets face it, white people cannot handle the hardcore Shanghai heat and humidity. They are not goldfish.
6. Thou shalt speak as much as possible with your passengers, even if they give no sign of understanding what you are saying.
7. Thou shalt not yell at a passenger who does not know the exact intersecting road they may want to go to. Not everyone knows Shanghais over one million streets as intimately as the Shanghai taxi driver.
8. Thou shalt keep your taxi clean. No paper, trash, smelly pillows, food residue, dirt or faeces.
9. Thou shalt take a shower at least once a week to reduce the potential smell of human bodily odors that make the passengers sick, or dog-like when they ride with their head out the window to survive the horrors of smells that should never have to be smelled.
10. Thou shalt not drive before all people and all limbs are inside the car. All passengers must be unharmed when leaving the vehicle.

Enjoy your Expo-taxi ride, they even have seat belts in the back seat!!
Trine:)

Climbing the Everest of the Expo: China Pavilion!

Last Monday, seeing as it was her last day ever at Expo, Kjersti and I (Tori) decided to climb new heights: We would attempt to enter China´s country pavilion, the "Everest of the Expo". I have nicknamed it this firstly because of it´s enormous size and grandeur, and secondly because ever since the expo opened it has been almost impossible to enter this pavilion due to the tremendous queues-- in the beginning spectators were lining up outside of the expo site at early dawn, and thereby running inside after the gates open at 9.30, to queue again outside the China pavilion. To solve this problem, the Expo centre issued a ticket system: A fixed amount of tickets to the pavilion are given out at every entrance gate of Expo in the mornings untill they are out, and visitors must show these tickets to enter. As you can probably imagine, this still means that many many early-birds line up outside around 4-5 am... But at least it prevents people from standing in queue all day, as the ticket gives you a fixed time slot.

The China Pavilion from a nearby skywalk, contemplating on how to get in..

When finally reaching the entrance, we found that excellent persuasive skills (and blonde hair?) can in fact make you exempt from the ticket rule. A surprisingly small amount of sweet-talk with a guard, and we were through the gates and ready to visit the Crown of the East.

First some facts: China Pavilion's design was chosen from 344 entries submitted from all over the world. The final design is made by a joint team from South China University of Technology and Tsinghua University.The budget of the pavilion is about 1.5 billion yuan (US$203 million), The design of China Pavilion expresses that Chinese ideals of "Oriental Crown, Splendid China, Ample Barn, Rich People", the desire for plenty and wealth, hallmarks of the Chinese culture. The long history of China from ancient to modern times, and its evolution from a rural economy to an urban society are also showcased through multimedia exhibits.(read more at http://en.expo2010.cn/c/en_gj_tpl_85.htm)

My first impression from the outside was that the pavilion is HUGE.. and so beautiful. I love the red structure in its´ traditional Chinese dougong style , yet with a simplistic modern touch. We rode an escalator up to the first pavilion patio to a new queue that we again managed to skip, and then took an elevator up to the exhibition inside the crown.

A group of professors from Guangzhou resting in the queue

View from escalator on our way up

The first part featured a 10-minute imax movie showing China´s development after the reform, through shots of various Chinese people in their (more or less) everyday lives. This film was actually one of my favourite parts of the exhibition, although it paints a rather perfectioned picture, that I am quite sure not every 1,4 billion Chinese can relate to. (But then every country wants to display itself at its´best and might at times stretch some truths.. at Norway Pavilion we have video-shots of people fishing in Akerselva and sunbathing from the Oslo Opera..)

Next we saw a copy of a very famous Ming Dynasty painting that is several meters long, but with a new twist: The people in the painting were moving around! The painting was truly spectacular. It really reminded me of Harry Potter´s marauders map:)

Part of the modern Ming painting

Moving on we walked through an avatar-like forest, experienced various advanced movie effects and witnessed a small flute soloist concert. Finally we walked through an exhibition of Chinese childrens´art work, which really blew my mind! (See pictures below). By this time we had been inside for over half an hour, and had apparently just finished the first part!

Kjersti in front of the "lightsticks-forest"

Our favourite work of "little kid art"... age 8!

The following section featured a short amusementpark-like ride(but without the bumps and loops.. like Disneyland´s "It´s a small world.."), which took us through several rooms showing art displays of the building blocks of cities(bridges, beams etc). It was amusing to sit down and do something different, but honestly this ride was not super-interesting or informative.

wuuuhuu, yes azz!

The third section featured a more regular exhibition, the hightlight for me being a waterfall, which drops water in the shape of HaiBao (the expo maskot). Finally we were led out to the patio beneath the main struture, were we got to see a fantastic view of the entire expo site. This was also one of the highlights in my opinion. Here there was also a spot where one could line up for stamps, for those that are interested (personally I have abandoned my Expo passport because of the stamp craze). Finally it was time to take the escalator back down again.

But of course I made sure to attain the most important souvenir: A picture with one of the employees in his uniform!!

Bumped into co-worker Lars, here he is on the patio with a night view of the Expo

Riding the escalator down to earth again

Overall I give the pavilion top rating, and recommend everyone who has the chance, to try to visit it!

Tori

One guide down:(

It is with tremendous regret I have to write a post saying bye to one of our most patient, kind and blond guides - Kjersti. She is returning to Norway after a short stint at the Expo to teach children in Norway math and Norwegian and important stuff like that. Before doing this she will be enjoying a Norwegian summer and chilling out with her friends, family and boyfriend. She really deserves this break as she has been one of the most patient guides at the Norwegian pavilion. Although she doesn't speak much Chinese, she communicates with the visitors by allowing over half the Chinese population to take pictures with her, and she actually smiles in all pictures. It should be noted that many of the other guides have now forgotten how to smile in pictures and are making something of a grimace instead. We will really miss Kjersti at the pavilion, but we wish her all the best in the future!

The Zealand that is New

For the first time in over a month both Tori and I were done working for the day before we were so tired that we only just managed to lag our sad little bodies back to our beds while cursing heavily towards anything expo-related. This new-found energy also comes from the lack of stamps at our pavilion and a better queuing system. To celebrate this we decided to hit up a few pavilions. We began at Portugal which will not be covered lengthily as it was a bit of a disappointment, besides the delicious egg/vanilla/butter dough snacks they served. Following this we went to Australia which will be covered at length, but not in this post. Then we visited Thailand where we had to queue for about five minutes which gives them a big minus (that's right, I don't queue!). The last one visited by me was New Zealand which I have been curious to take a closer look at because of its alluring roof-top garden. A proper green lung. With mosquitos.

pitstop at Portugal pavillion, this was the highlight!

Lets start up with a few facts and figures before I brainwash you with my opinions about this particular pavilion. New Zealands theme at the expo is "Cities of Nature: Living between Land and Sky". Does this mean that the kiwi population is in constantly air borne? No. This is not a literal statement contrary to what some of you may think. It illustrates the close connection between people and nature. Very nice. The pavilion is situated in zone B close to the Australian, Singaporean and the Indonesian monster pavilion. It stretches out over a 2000 square meter piece of land and is architecturally quite beautiful. In the words of the Kiwi voices they proudly proclaim on their website that, "The dream team of New Zealand’s award-winning visitor experience designers comprises Story Inc, creator of The Lord of the Rings international touring exhibition, Plan 9, music composer for The Lord of the Rings trilogy, and Kim Jarrett, greens master for King Kong.". I mean, all of this in one sentence can only make for a great pavilion! With a budget of 20mill USD they have certainly managed to get a lot out of their cash.

I would like to tell you now what I learnt about NZ while visiting their oasis. They have sheep, they go to school, they have cities, they have plants and they have wind energy. Also I believe it is quite a "cute" country. By walking through their pavilion I got the feeling that city and nature intertwine quite closely, and that nature is a high priority for New Zealanders. There was however a lack of information as there seems to be in all pavilions at expo, and I was unable to learn as much as I would have liked. This may also be because of the lack of guides present throughout the pavilion. I saw one, but the poor guy was stamping his ass off... Stupid stamps.... Who decided this stamp thing was a good idea?? REALLY?? Hmm.. ok enough of the digression. One very strong plus for the Kiwi pavilion was their use of flora on the roof. I felt like I was back in nature doing a very crowded hike especially popular with the Chinese. They had a little luxurious-looking pool in the midst of it all, and me and the girls are fervently trying to figure out how we can smuggle ourselves, bathing suits and a big bottle of champagne into the pavilion after hours.

This pavilion is definitely worth a visit. I would recommend kidnapping one of the guides so that you can get a proper tour of the pavilion. This way I am sure all the clever details that the "dream team" have come up with will be a little clearer, and you will leave with a much stronger impression of what they are trying to tell the rest of the world.
Huan ying nin lai xin xilan guan!! check out the pictures below!
Trine:)

walking in the garden (roof of pavillion). cheese!

Outside of New Zealand

and finally: illustration of a stemp desk situation (Portugal)

Hello Kitty- eat your heart out!

and move over for this guy! For those of you who have set foot anywhere near Shanghai or even China the last few years, you must have been blind not to notice this little blue fellow. He is the Expo mascot, making Hello Kitty and other local favourite Xiyangyang shiver in their boots, as his image is everywhere to be seen(and not the least, bought!).

Though mistakenly similar to a figure you might see in a toothpaste ad, this guy has an intricate story. He was produced by Taiwanese designer Wu Yong jian, and was selected out of 26,655 entries as part of an international competition. His name is HaiBao, translated to Jewel of the Sea, thus his blue colour. He is shaped like the Chinese character 人（ pronounced; rén) meaning person or people. Haibao is a happy little fellow, ready to embrace friends from all over the world, with his outstretched arms.

You can read more about the little guy at http://en.expo2010.cn/documents/hqjxw.htm. "The image of mascot should well express the theme of Shanghai Expo "Better City, Better Life" by using innovative ideas, impressive appearance and motions to state its concept and characters." says the official Expo website. Whether or not he succeeds in this, he has become extremely popular. Statues of him in different costumes and postures can be seen all over Shanghai. The so-called authorized souvenir shops at Expo are packed with different versions of him; The obvious teddybear-form can be obtained in at least a dozen different sizes, in addition to key chains, mobile devices, posters, T-shirts, sweaters, caps++ A Haibao cuddlyblanket has also recently come out, and has become a popular garnment among the tourists during the cool Shanghai nights.

Perhaps not suprisingly; the second you set one foot out of the expo gates, you´ll have plenty of people approaching you to sell you not-so-authorized versions of HaiBao. These are probably a lot cheaper, and frankly look exactly the same.. The little guys´ design is not exactly super-hard to copy!

I have personally grown to love the wee fellow, and I suspect some of my colleagues have as well. ZhaoBing recently pulled out a cute little teddybear HaiBao in the ladies lockerroom, that had been given to her by her boyfriend and Expo colleague Lars. She also reported that AiQi has the cuddly-blanket version, of which I am very jealous(am planning to buy it as soon as we get our next salary). In addition to being cute and smiley, HaiBao is a great conversation starter when talking to most visitors at our pavillion. "I see you´re wearing Haibao on your shirt, how nice!" "Is that your new HaiBao little kid? what a cool toy!" etc etc.

If any of you fellow hosts and hostNesses have any good HaiBao pictures, please send them to trineogtori@hotmail.no. I really wanted to post some pictures of him in real life, but sadly saw that I had none on my camera- update- took a few today! see below..

Soon to come on exposingshanghai.blogspot.com: Actual encounters from the different countries´ pavillions! (Trine, remember our initial plan to visit like 10 pavillions a week and write about them?! hehe)

Tori

Drawing of HaiBao in traditional Chinese gear, at the China Pavilion. Drawn by an eight-year-old or something..

Tori with a blow-up HaiBao, outside an authorized souvenir shop

Hangin with the Crown to the Prince of Nor to the Way

17th of May is a huge deal in Norway. It is a day where you eat as many ice creams as possible before you bulimically throw up, pretend you are in an eating contest where the food of choice is hot dogs, you parade around hailing your country with song, dance and a series of commercially driven toys in red, white and blue without seeming too nationalistic, and you wave to the King and Queen and whoever else shows up on the Royal Balcony. All this, just to celebrate the Norwegian constitutional day.

At expo we decided to mimic this day on May 28th as this is the day the expo center had handed us as our pavilion day. We had the great honor of hosting a series of even throughout the day, and the Norwegian Crown Prince was so lucky to have the chance to personally meet me. I even allowed him to shake my hand and relay my name in a slightly clumsy way halfway grinning and halfway staring in disbelief at this surprisingly good-looking man. All I could think was that I should pull out one of my very successful (or perhaps not SO successful) pickup lines along the lines of, "you must be exhausted cause you have been running through my dreams for quite some time". Then I remembered that he was married, with kids and a monarchy to reign over at some point in the future, and I decided to focus my attention elsewhere.

In all seriousness, it was a very successful day. We had the minister of trade and industry, Trond Giske graced us with his very noticable presence (he is much taller than I expected) and the Minister of Oil and Energy Terje Riis-Johansen also decided to pop by and have some important oil people in China. It is all about guanxi here in China, and I am sure they did a great job at creating good and sustainable contact with them. And if they didn't at least they got some good food from our very tasty restaurant.

At the end of a veeeeery long day at work we were very lucky to come by some tickets to an impressive concert that hosted the very young, talented and beautiful violinist Hemsing who played the violin like some sort of crazy angel. It was very beautiful, but very long and after a long and tiresome day at work I have to admit that she lulled me to sleep.. This concert was played with a couple of symphony orchestras and conducted by the cutest conductor I have ever seen in my life. He swayed and bopped and jumped and swirled and gave a very passionate speech that I am sure I would have greatly appreciated if I had been fully conscious. After this we had performances by Sissel Kyrkjebø who unfortunately had some problems with her voice but still sounded completely perfect in my very critical ears, Secret Garden with their newest version of Powered by Nature which was a perfect blend of beautiful and cheesy and will undoubtably be a hit in the Middle World. We also had a dance off between Norwegian "Frikare" and a chinese Kungfu group which was potentially great, but could perhaps use a little more coordination and flow. That is just one girls opinion though...

All this is one day makes for a pretty amazing day. Well done to everyone involved, and especially Maren who has been in charge of getting this whole day together. I would like to end with a: HIPP HIPP HURRRRRAAAAAAAAA!!!!
Trine:)

Walking in the Forest

Righty-o!
Upon request I will share with you the latest "news" at expo. Every day there is such incredible amounts of strange things that happen, that I am not entirely sure where to start. I gave you a little teaser in yesterdays post, so I suppose I will start there.

We had an interesting visitor two days ago at work. One of China's biggest movie stars, Maggie Chan, decided to pop by and check out our pavilion. I have to admit that I had no idea who she was but I still managed to become completely starstruck as I very unintelligently pranced and danced in front of her (note to self: when in presence of movie star, DO NOT DANCE). Thankfully I was not the only one. Team leader Øystein had taken upon the task of guiding her (I have a slight suspicion that he may have thrown a tantrum or paid someone so that he could be in charge of this task). The day before he came up to a couple of us and proclaimed, "do you guys realize who is coming tomorrow?? Do you know how much I loved this woman when I was younger?? Man... I think I need some chocolate". All in all, a good day at work. Oh yea, and the Austrian Prime Minister decided to show up unannounced but the Austrian security system attached itself to our speaker system making it sound like we were under attack or the pavilion roof was partially ripping at its seams. Needless to say we had to divert the PMs attention to another pavilion.

I know we talk about stamping an unusually large amount, but it is such a big part of our day, and a subject that causes so much aggression in our life that I just have to grind it into a powder that is so fine, hopefully I won't see it anymore. As I have already explained we have founded a 3 stamps/person rule. This for our visitors only means that they have to be creative. Two days ago there was a man dawdling outside our safety exit door where there is a very small opening underneath the door. Jeanette asked one of our chinese speaking guides to ask him what he was doing, and the diligent guide could after a few minutes of conversation report that he was waiting for his friend because he was going to pass about a hundred passports under the door...

In our private life we also encounter interesting and challenging situations. Cecilie from Bergen is a beautiful, cheerful and wonderful girl who went to get a manicure the other day. As she sat there she thought she was getting an abnormal amount of attention from the manicurists. She got extra pillows, a stool for her feet and a lot of pointing towards her abdomen area. After a while the two very excited ladies in the shop stuttered in perfect chinglish, "boy oh guhhr?". Confused and completely perplex her face twisted into a grimace that in Europe could only say "what the hell are you asking me? Are you calling me fat???", but in China this expression apparently translates into, "I'm not that far along yet, so I don't know". They followed with, "Husband Norwegian?" whereby Cecilie now nearly in tears could only reply, "yes". The final question before she decided to pretend to be on the phone for the rest of the torturous time was, "youh baby how many moths", "four" she replied without hesitation but with massive amounts of bitterness.

Why is it that when one person pees in the pavilion two more people just have to do something very similar. That's right. We've had our first experience with bodily fluids being dumped on our pavilion. One peeing incident in the fjord, one right outside the exit door, and an even more appropriate dumping of feces in the coastal area. I suppose the architects will be quite pleased when they hear this though. I don't believe I have fully explained our pavilion, but it is built up much like a forest with 15 trees as its pillars. The guests must have understood this and were simply respecting the architects wishes (perhaps not the cleaners wishes though...or the guides...).

On a final note Jeanette and I are also making great headway in making ourselves well-known at the expo site. We have become "this months customers" at Starbucks. Sad.
That's it for tonight folks!
Trine:D

A little quickie!

Dear readers, it has been a few days since my last confession, and in that time many a sin has been committed. Not by me though, but rather the many crazy visitors. However, I will keep these stories to myself just a little longer so you will have to wait in suspense!

The other day I was reading the description of our blog as it was intended, and realized that we have yet to blog and review one single pavilion. By now we have been through a huge chunk of the world, and we have so many opinions gathered by the two T's, but also opinions gathered by the many visitors, guides and organizers we meet on a daily basis. So in the spirit of doing what we promised we would do, Tori and I have decided that we need to blog about a few of the pavilions in the upcoming weeks. Along with this we will post the guide of the week for the past week, so if anyone has any suggestions, please send them my way! I will try to post this tomorrow If I can find an appropriate picture and manage to interview the lucky host or hostNess.

At this point in time I will give you a little teaser of what we have been going through in the past few days, key words being: China's biggest movie star popped by, creative Chinese in the stamping line (rules are there to be overcome...), a pregnancy and some unexpected attention at Starbucks for two of the Norwegian guides.
Peace out,
T -R- I-N-E

A Dinner Revealed

Team Leader and chocolate lover Øystein and Pavilion casanova Lars

Yesterday and the day before the guides were so lucky to be invited to dinner at the jovial General Commissioners penthouse apartment to recharge our batteries and of course celebrate the ever so slightly jingoistic annual Norwegian constitutional day. This day entails eating, drinking, eating, parading, eating, Norwegian flags, eating, drinking and singing. After a couple of glasses of wine, a few pizzas, some tempura shrimp, and then a couple more glasses of wine, people were ready to talk. For the first time since we began work we sat down together and talked about all the funny and strange stories that have emerged recently.

Lars, one half of the Norwegian super-couple looks like he should be in a Norwegian WWII film. He is tall, blond, blue eyed and melts all the little Chinese chickies hearts. Recently he was taking care of some VIPs that decided to grace us with their presence and he was briefed that the diva visiting was a supermodel fra LA - pretty impressive! Or so he thought. Waiting for the visitors he stopped an average looking Chinese woman trying to enter the pavilion, but realized just before it was too late that this in fact was the "super model". She eyed him up and down, and seemed to be pleased with the guide she had been presented. The "Supermodel" spent a looooong time in our lovely, but perhaps not so large pavilion - a suspiciously long time... As she left she asked for Lars' business card and presented her very own card entitled "Jane Doe - International Supermodel" embossed with a cute picture of herself crowned with a very nice princess tiara (as we all know, ALL international supermodels wear tiaras...or do they?). As she left she moved in alarmingly close to Lars and whispered with sex in her voice "we'll stay in touch"..... Watch out Bing is all I have to say!

Everyday we are put through our paces and asked questions about Norway only a rocket scientist (or perhaps pavilion smartie-pants Lars) could answer or mind-numbingly stupid questions a seal could answer by flipping its flippers. A few of these include (forgive me if I mentioned any of these before): "is your hair blond", "is there a real polar bear here", "Iceland is the caiptal of Norway, right?" (this one is particularly interesting as the Icelandic pavilion is our neighbouring pavilion), "Is the water in the water machine all from Norway", "Are you Norwegain?" (no I am italian...cuz that makes sense ya dufus!), Asked to one of the blondies:"Where in China are you from?", "Do you ONLY speak Mandarin?"(I am sorry I don't speak your particular branch of obscure dialect wich is incomprehensible to anyone besides your 2,000,000 person-village), "exactly how long is the Norwegain coastline?", "What is the scientific cause for the Northern lights, please answer in Chinese". Oh the questions! They do make life fun though!
Hipp hipp Hurra for dagen som var,
Trine:)

A Test of Patience

This weekend we welcomed over 300,000 people at the Expo-site that stretches from one side of the river to the other. We were busy. Very busy.

When I said "yes please" to this job, I did not realize that I was saying "yes please" to an advanced degree in patience-building. I have never considered myself very a very patient person in my private life (friends, family do you perhaps agree?), but having served diligently in the service industry for many years now, I have always considered myself balanced and patient when dealing with difficult or challenging situations. I just haven't realized that the situations that have been handed to be by a butler on a silver platter whilst sitting in a massage chair in my previous jobs have just been breezy summer days in comparison to the untimely black clouded hail storms that are hurled at us poor guides on a daily basis here in China. Yesterday the pavilion was stormed after the visitors decided to tear down our queuing system (we punished them like naughty children by not letting anyone in until they had calmed down and learned their lesson... it felt good...), several people had to be man handled out of the pavilion after refusing to leave because they wanted more stamps (am currently cursing whoever had the not-so-thought-through-idea of the problematic passport), and we spent almost the whole day telling people that "you have to stand in line", "no you are not allowed to sneak in", and "no you may not go into the area that says no entrance"... I say no more.

On a happier note. Hmmm... I really enjoyed the music in the pavilion today. Secret Garden. Again. For the umpteenth time. Very nice.

So I guess what I want to say with this very negatively-charged post is that it is not always easy to work at the Expo, but I am so impressed with my colleagues that come to work every day, even after they have faced many difficult situations, with a big smile and a wonderful attitude. They lift me up, and I am sure they lift the pavilion up to new heights. If you ever see a Norwegian Pavilion guide - give them a pat on the back. They really deserve it!
Signing off now to get some well-deserved sleep,
Trine/Truls/T-bag

Finally revealed: Guides of the past 2 weeks!!

Tori and Trine! (omg it´s us!! So surprised and truly honoured!!)

(just kidding..)

With help and suggestions from many fellow guides, we have decided who the guides of the week(s) are. Two weeks have passed already, and everyone has done an amazing job, in the words of our dear boss Øystein. But we feel that the following people have really STOOD OUT:

Drumroll....!!!

Lars Devold

Dixie Zhang

Tine Venås

Fredrik Karlsen

Will write more about them later, just figured everyone in the group was anxious to know! The illustration picture here does not really go with this post, but since I didn´t have pictures of all the honourable above mentioned people, I thought I would post this lovely picture of the two Ts comparing the size of their hands with the footprint of a polar bear(one of the most popular attractions in the Norway Pavilion)("You can touch it, it´s icy!").

Good night!

Everyone who was at work today must be pretty exhausted, as the stamp situation really escalated to new heights. Visitors have started to use manipulative and aggressive methods in order to get the previously mentioned Expo passport stamps. Today people attempted to make a run for the stamp desk through the exit, tried to bribe guards and guides to get stamps, snuck in through the restaurant pretending to have a meal and then run for the stamp desk! And of course, still handing out to- and collecting passports from other visitors, in order to avoid the "3 stamps per person" rule. To think that at the last expo in Europe, these passports were merely a fun little activity for kids!

ToRi

The "rumor mill" #2

So as Expo finally gets up and going rumours continue to swirl around the pavilions. Working as a guide at the pavilion is a little bit like spending your summer holidays at a camp with lots of other international kids, and so some of the rumours are accordingly. So as not to bore you too much, I will keep the bullet points short but sweet, but I will mention them in order to give you an insight as to how we spend our days... apparently...
Rumour Number:
1) Pretty much all the Norwegian girls are dating the Danish boys.... Good for us I guess, as they are quite a handsome bunch of guys... Just a shame we are unsure of who exactly is dating whom...
2) Kevin (a Norwegian guide) has at least one girlfriend in building nr three (OK, so we know Esten put out this rumour, but lets just pretend he didn't)..
3) There has been two broken limbs at the Danish pavilion as the Chinese are not used to back-breaks on bicycles (they are now installing hand breaks)...
4) We have our very own resident famous couple Bing and Lars who are being thrown around in the Chinese media because of their intercultural love.. sigh... (reminder to self: am always happy when others are happy...)
5) Five people have quit at the Columbian pavilion, and they want the Norwegians to cheer them up (maybe we should bring a bottle of aquavit and start the cheering up?)...
6) A woman lost control of her bicycle and ended up in the water at the Danish pavilion...HAHAHA! (OK,OK I know that is mean of me, but can you imagine????)
7) Fellow blogger Tori gave out too many business cards and has been called up by many, many Chinese men declaring their undying love for her and telling her in wonderfully romantic chinglish that "it has been missing her long time"...What exactly is "it"?
I hope you enjoyed some of the rumours, I will hunt for more in the upcoming week.
Trine:)

Where can I get a stamp?

On the Opening Day of the Expo, one of the first questions I got was from a woman waving a passport in my face, asking me where she could get a Norwegian visa stamp. Confused, I replied that she would need to go to the Norwegian Consulate´s Office on the Bund in order to do this, and explained to her that this was not a process that was done in an instant. The woman just starred quizzically back at me, and pointed to the front of the passport. Ah, it was not a regular passport, but a special EXPO version, that looks mistakenly similar to a real one. And sure enough, when I went to ask my colleagues about it, they were already setting up a desk by the exit, with ink and stamps showing the Norway Expo logo.

I immediately loved the idea of these passports. Many Chinese never have the chance to travel out of the country, and so Expo is a really unique oppurtunity for them to see the world. The passports assist in making this feel like a true travel experience. And besides, it is no secret to myself or anyone else who has been to China or even just a Chinese embassy at least once: The Chinese LOVE stamps. No document is complete without at least one blotch of ink at the end, preferably many, and with different colours.

So no surprise: These passports have become a real hit. From what I hear, they are the biggest source of income at the Expo after the actual entrance tickets. So the stamp desk at our pavilion is constantly employed by at least two of us hosts, doing our best to stamp to the visitors´requests ("No, I wanted a blue one!!" "It should be exactly in line with the page number here, but not too close" "I also need your autograph and a message in Norwegian underneath the stamp, and could I maybe have the stamp in two colours, and could you also stamp one on my arm and on my hat and shirt, and in this book which is a present to my friend?").

As the days have progressed, we noticed that more and more people were coming with many passports, mostly around five or seven, and most recently (yesterday): a bag of over 100! Many of these people come late at night, and are security guards or cleaning personnel that have special access to the Expo. Yes, they are making business out of this, and there are rumours that a passport with stamps from all the pavillions sell for around 6000 RMB! I don´t know if I really believe the figure is that high, but for sure people are making a lot of money from this. So as of yesterday, we made a new rule: "Only three passport stamps per person". This caused some seriously angry reactions, and we saw several instances of people handing out passports to other random visitors in the pavilion so they could have them stamped for them, and then collecting them again once outside.

Still: the passports are mostly just fun!! Yesterday I got my very own expo passport! I am so excited to use it. I haven´t planned on buying any more to sell, but now I know of a potential extra source of income, should my salary run out:D

Gotta run to work!

Tori, aka T-bag aka Torkel

Tales of the unexpected

Once upon a time there were a bunch of Norwegians who decided to move to China for the soul purpose of promoting their very own mystical land of fish, fjords, coast and arctic. They expected to be met by curious and awe-stricken eyes, questions concerning the cold and dark and fascination about polar bears, blond hair and white skin. For the most part their expectations were met, however on their little journey out to the far East they soon realized there were certain situations they were a little less than prepared for.

Jeanette (to some of us known as Jean-Luc) is one of the many gorgeous guides working in our little sail-covered forest. She spends day in and day out smiling, taking pictures and welcoming our most valued guests. The other day she was standing in the smokey mist at the entrance part of the queue doing her thing - smiling, nodding, "huanying nin", "ni hao", "yes you may take a picture", smile, nod, welcome etc etc etc.... As guest nr 3,856 entered the pavilion Jeanette once again prepared her welcome speech but was suddenly stopped as a somewhat overly-enthusiastic little (20yrs old perhaps) Chinese girl stopped and pointed at her face. As she fervently pointed at Jeanette's figure she jumped wildly up and down and at the same time spinning in place and shouting at the top of her voice "PIAOLIANG PIAOLIANG PIAOLIANG!!" ("beautiful"). As this was not a situation we had been briefed on in our very thorough cultural communication session, she politely smiled and ushered her new-found groupie through the mist and into the coast where she could sail on through the pavilion.

The very same day Jeanette also had an incident as she guided some of our VIPs through the "secret" tunnel to the beginning of the pavilion. Half way through the corridor she was stopped by what can only be described as a very unexpected sight: a Chinese lady in her underwear. Turns out the apperally-challenged woman was sick of wearing her lovely pink cocktail dress and had decided that a skirt and a top was much more suitable for her day out at the expo (go figure....DUH!). Jeanette was faced with the challenge of how to culturally appropriately ask the lady to please put her clothes on and get the hell out of there. Three words were used (as Jeanette is not completely fluent in chinese....yet...), "xi shou jian???" (bathroom???).

Before the opening date we had many sessions brainstorming potential questions. We must admit though that some of the questions we are faced with on a daily basis makes those sessions look like we might have been served better had we just had coffee and talked about "Sex in the City".. My favourite questions include "why is your hair not yellow?", "is there snow in Norway?", "How much does a polar bear weigh?", "is there a real polar bear in the pavilion?" (whereby Kristina replied, "yes, but it only comes out at night"), and "how can the Norwegian economy be so strong when you hardly ever work?". It is always a challenge not laughing when answering these questions, but then again, Norway is pretty far away, so I suppose they are all valid questions.

That's it for tonight folks! Behave, don't do anything I wouldn't do, and watch out for hungry polar bears!

Trine:)

Guides of the week (last week)

Good afternoon blog-readers!

Last week we named two people from our group, Esten and Forrest, Guide of the Week. Here comes a delayed post dedicated to them. From now on we plan to have a weekly post announcing the guide(s) of the week, including a video or written statement from them. We have thought about putting a suggestion box in the lunch room, so that fellow guides/staff can give us tips on guides that they feel have stood out, as well as advice or other input to this blog. What do you think about that?

Anyway, here is introducing the guides!

FORREST KONG

This guide of the week has been a true inspiration to his peers. Born, raised and working as a school teacher in Ningxia, Western China, he is not the average guide in our group. During our training period, Forrest held a moving powerpoint presentation to all of us, showing how he by chance got to know some Norwegians through his school in Ningxia, and thereby has contributed a lot of time and energy to his friendships and Sino-Norwegian relations. Forrest´s unique dedication to Norway and Norwegians has really enhanced everyones motivation to be proud of- and promote Norway to our visitors. Forrest is also a really hard-working guy, who happily shows up to work voluntarily on his days off(!!). In short, his overall enthusiasm is a true source of inspiration for all of us.

ESTEN ALEKSANDER EDNA

This guy is full of energy, and always has a big smile on his face. His signature yell "Juhuu yes azz" is a popular "energizer" among us guides. We feel that his bright spirit is immensely contagious and really contributes to the atmosphere of the group.

He is also an excellent hugger, he has even managed to make most of the Chinese guides addicted to his hugs (Generally speaking, Chinese are not as accustomed to close body contact as us Norwegians). And if that wasn´t enough, we have recently discovered that he is also an amazing cook! This guy, together with assistant Dixie, spent his whole day off work cooking dinner and baking, and invited all the guides over to his apartment for a soirée of excellent food and a showing of ultimate romantic chick-flick "The Notebook"! This happened after last week´s "Guide of the Week" prize, so we can´t say that he is totally out of the running this week either. Most of the girls have recently attempted to propose to him, but with little luck:/

Esten´s statement:

First of all I want to say it's a great honour for me to receive this price and I'm very happy about it. I feel that we the guides, are are a very interesting gang with a wide variety of backgrounds, culture and unique skills. It's as we're turning into this big family in which everyone are looking out for each other and where words as commitment, positivity and caring set out as core values. When I look at our team, all I see is inspired friends ready to do their best for Norway. So I know that anyone of us can be the guide of the week.

My hope for the Expo is that we will cooperate and find a common team spirit, which will turn out to be the STRONGEST of all the pavillions at the Expo. A spirit that each and everyone of us constantly are willing to fight for. My belief is that you can build the biggest, most advanced, most innovative or the most outstanding pavillion. But again that is only a building. What people will remember, is in what way the pavillion is presented to them, and the people they interact with in doing so. In that simple way I think we can obtain the biggest success of all, the success of human relations. When expo is over, That is what I really think people will remember. The success is easily within our reach. It's just up to all of us. Thank you!!!

Juhuu! Yes Azz!

That´s it for today! I will try to post some of my first expo experiences soon, am currently enjoying a few days away from the limelight.

On behalf of the two Ts,

Tori

Personal reflections

Kristina in the "Mist. Powered by Daniel"
Where there is a stage there's a way!
Trine. Powered by the Anorak.
Expo-girlies with our bad ass guard!


Greetings good people!
My high school career was enjoyed at a multicultural international school in Europe's capital, Brussels (or more precisely right smack bang in the middle of Napoleon's battlefields in Waterloo). Every year we would have what we called "International Day" which gave each country the opportunity to present their country in their very own biased and very subjective way. Brasil would dance like no others and bribe the public with their amazing food and infectiously good tempers, Pakistan would fatten us up with their deliciously crunchy and spicy samosas, Belgium would seduce us with chocolate and finish us off with irresponsible amounts of mouth-watering beer and Norway would parade around in their folk dress, make waffles and try to pull of a dance show (with worse and worse result as the years passed because of the infamous "norwegian stiffness", meaning that Norwegian and dance is like Indians and skiing - not a great success).

As I walked to the bus yesterday I had a sudden bout of deja vu. As people trickled onto the bus, I realized that my new place of work is like working at a very, very long "International Day". The bus was filled up with people in traditional Saudi Arabian robes, white as the new fallen snow, voluptuous African women draped in colors as vibrant as a peacock's feathers, Danes looking cool with their bohemian attitude, white skin and blond hair, Chinese looking...well, Chinese and last but not least the East European gang looking like they were on their way to a, "hey-you!-the-bad-taste-party-from-the-eighties-called-and-wants-their-clothes-back!"-party... (and I say that in the kindest possible way as I am sure they would not chose to wear those uniforms if they had a choice...). Our little gang of tomatoes also add some spice to this concoction of randomly placed people as I have to admit our uniforms makes us stand out just a teency weency bit.. It is quite amazing to be in a place like Expo and have the opportunity to learn so much about different countries, and experience so much culture each day. As the days pass by I really understand the importance of this event, and I really hope that people who come to see this event can fully appreciate the uniqueness of it.

I can also report that there are several first reports of slight cultural mis-communication all over Expo. Some of the main problems seem to be food delivery, problems in customs and general communication between Chinese staff and non-Chinese staff due to the lack of language skills either way. People seem to be handling it quite well non the less, and I am quite amazed that everyone (at least on the surface) has the happy-go-lucky-attitude that this is just how it is, and things will be fine in the end (even if simple tasks take four hours instead of 5mins...). I must admit that I reached a point today where my patience cup was filled to the brim and unfortunately flowed over the edge for just a moment until I was able to control my temper and plaster a fake smile and count to 10. A woman snuck into the pavilion, made a scene when I politely asked her to stand in line and then proceeded to force me into a picture with her while she tried to force my head onto her shoulder so that I would look upon her lovingly. That did not happen... As I calmly asked her not to touch my head and wished her a lovely trip through our pavilion I counted to 10, had a sip of water and reminded myself that situations like this is what I am here to handle. I felt like the most zen and perfectly balanced person for handling the situation in this manner. Props to Tiny-T! (Expo-gang, if you have any similar stories feel free to share them, I am sure all of us will have at least one funny story in the next short while). Having told you this one story, I would also like to inform you that most people are very lovely, curious and fun to interact with, and that the crazy-head lady is by no means representative of the visitors.

Tomorrow is a new day with new opportunities, so I should rest up before I face a new day at EXPO 2010!