What's all the fuss about this expo anyway? All I see is a holiday visiting museums, lots and lots of museums. Is there something I'm missing?

It's an excuse for Beijing to make Mongering in China a real pain in the ass!

Holding an Expo is supposed to be the mark of an industrialised nation, back when the UK first industrialised and the empire was great back in 1851 they had an expo to show to the world what they had and to show their prowess to the rest of the world.

They would invite other countries in a dick waving/ measuring contest.

Back in the 1800s new steam engines, petrol engines etc were shown off which were technical marvels and really did improve productivity and quality of life.

However the China expo is completely and utterly pointless, namely as most of the technology in China isn't Chinese at all it is Russian/American/European/Japanese copied or built under licence. Currently china is STILL a low wage country.

For example:

The man in space, used a Russian rocket

Those Han class submarines are made in Komosolonsk Russia.

The new high speed harmony railway uses French, korea and Japanese technology,

The super high speed maglev is made by Germans.


Thus this is why it is so subdued and pointless, as there is nothing really note worth and wow factor of anything. They haven't made anything which they can truely claim to be their own.

The Chinese government never miss a chance to make themselves look good in the international arena.

This is just another manipulation of soft power at which they've become so adept.

I think its a giant propaganda marketing machine.  nothing more

It is really quite pointless. China wants to be in the news and it's more of a marketing exercise for Shanghai and to boost nationalism.

yeah World Expo's are very old fashioned. I think it's a big publicity stunt nothing more might be interesting to go, but don't get too excited

In the distant past it was, but in the last two decades, frankly not many in the world care about World Expo. Compare to Olympics and World Cup, it is nothing.

Those were my exact thoughts on that one. Any country with money can buy all those things. Which of course they have done.
Claiming credit for the above things is not hard. Think about it. If they put all of the achievements in the expo, people that come see it will automatically assume that it's china's accomplishment.

Actually, there was one that they said was their "accomplishment". Do you remember the train that is supposed to be the highest elevation train in the world? The one that goes to tibet? The Chinese Gov claimed credit for it as "a great achievement for China" and etc...
But China wasn't the one to build the tracks that had to be bolted down into ice, nor did they build the locomotive that would pull all of the cars that high. The locomotive was imported from the states.

I'm gonna be stopping over in shanghai in a few weeks and considering going to this expo. I've been trying to find some clips/videos of it just to get an idea what things are like and if it's worth going to, but all I can find are those official/promotional (propaganda) videos or ones from news bulletins. Has anyone seen any posted by regular people?

[ Last edited by  hummy at 6-6-2010 17:03 ]

it gives china a chance to show off its new found wealth as well as a chance to make more connections.

Friends just came back from there.  They told me its all hype & they will never go back again.  People there were nasty & very disorganized.

A friend of mine gave a similar report, some 5 hour waits in line...absolutely ridiculous.

Even during the soft launch the queues were 3 hours minimum and I refused to do that. Admittedly some of the designs are pretty spectacular but you are left with a feeling of whats the point. It's also going to get even busier. Because I'm a resident here I have been given free tickets plus free transport to and from. Now if they have done that for the other 18,000,000 residents it's going to be mad.

Did you know it has cost them twice as much to stage this as it dod for the Olympics? Can't help being left with the feeling it's a bit like who can piss up the wall the highest!

How much exactly? Did not know the Expo cost that much. At least with the Olympics the Govt received revenue from ticket sales, TV Broadcasters, advertisers and sale of Gold coin sets as well as souvenirs. This Expo then seems like a great waste of money. If my recollection serves me, New York City also had an Expo in the 1939, a big one that also lost lots of money.

[ Last edited by  geoduck at 7-6-2010 12:56 ]

True - at least that gave us a place to park a giant spaceship   - remember the movie Men in Black

I think its just a chance for China to show the world how much money they have and what they can do with it.  To build the expo, I heard thatthey had to tear down some residental homes in order to get the proper space.  

I had some friends go and check it out and their review was kinda the same as everyones.  Nothing too crazy but a long wait in line.

the expo was brutal, unfortunately chinese people from China do not understand the concept of a line-up...

not to mention, a number of ghetto pavillions, the popular ones are great. i think the one from nigeria had a pin-up hand-written english piece of paper and then said "leave below for chinese translation"

geoduck, here's a couple of links discussing the costs:

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/bff10556-5463-11df-b75d-00144feab49a,dwp_uuid=f6e7043e-6d68-11da-a4df-0000779e2340.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/ ... hai-2010-expo-party

Went to Shanghai Expo 2 days in a row, primarily because of visiting relatives who were here to see it, and also to take a look myself.

Queue 4 hours to get into Saudi Arabia pavilion to watch a 10 minute video display, which was pixellated despite the imax screen, because it was never meant to be watched like 2 meters away from the screen.

Anyways to sum it up, The Shanghai Expo is REALLY a Chinese national campaign to teach chinese mainlanders HOW TO QUEUEUP. Because so far out of all the people I've seen and encountered at the Expo, 90% of them are mainland chinese from other provinces, and 50% of them don't understand the concept of queuing up.

There you go.

The pavilions are actually quite pretty to look at from the outside, inside, only a few of them offer any value.