EXPOsing Shanghai: 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.