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:)
