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I had a chance to visit the China Pavilion this past Tuesday. I left the Expo that night with mixed feelings about how China is trying to represent itself to the world. The China Pavilion of the Shanghai Expo should have been a unrivaled testament to China's growing economic power and gloriously long history. Instead, it is if not one of the most laughable pavilions at the Expo, but also a surprisingly good metaphor for what China is doing wrong with all this new found wealth.
The pavilion is not without it's good parts. The film in the beginning does a good job of summarizing what has happened in China in the past fifty or so years. The drastic change, the key historical points, and an especially emotional section on the recent earthquake disaster all contribute to an amazing presentation of China. What follows does disappoint, but I will get onto that later. The other amazing moment comes at the very end, where a circular wall of water surrounds the exit escalators. The streams of water are timed to display patterns, images, and even Chinese characters. Not only is it cool to look at, it also treads into several interesting architectural concepts. This itself would have made a great pavilion, instead, it plays a loud finale to an otherwise lackluster score.
The pavilion is separated into three sections, each representing, the past, the present, and the future. The idea is pretty cute, but the execution is just horrible. Nowhere in the pavilion do you ever feel the time being represented. Instead you see a hodge podge of random exhibits. The "thing to see" at the China Pavilion, the giant animated wall of classic Chinese painting, does not command a place and presence. Instead, the worst part, a Disney like tram ride about different types of bridges, forces you to sit and suffer through not only mysterious odors, but build quality so bad that it transcends reality. Being on that ride is like being force fed a bucket of LSD and then kidnapped and strapped onto a tram and taken into some negative budget horror house build by a gang of toddlers.
Despite all its good and bads, seeing the China Pavilion is a necessity. China is the host of the Expo, and what China did with the Chinese Pavilion speaks volumes about what the nation is going through right now, and why there is some serious work that needs to be done internally, before China can step onto the world stage and command the presence it wants to.
The pavilion is not without it's good parts. The film in the beginning does a good job of summarizing what has happened in China in the past fifty or so years. The drastic change, the key historical points, and an especially emotional section on the recent earthquake disaster all contribute to an amazing presentation of China. What follows does disappoint, but I will get onto that later. The other amazing moment comes at the very end, where a circular wall of water surrounds the exit escalators. The streams of water are timed to display patterns, images, and even Chinese characters. Not only is it cool to look at, it also treads into several interesting architectural concepts. This itself would have made a great pavilion, instead, it plays a loud finale to an otherwise lackluster score.
The pavilion is separated into three sections, each representing, the past, the present, and the future. The idea is pretty cute, but the execution is just horrible. Nowhere in the pavilion do you ever feel the time being represented. Instead you see a hodge podge of random exhibits. The "thing to see" at the China Pavilion, the giant animated wall of classic Chinese painting, does not command a place and presence. Instead, the worst part, a Disney like tram ride about different types of bridges, forces you to sit and suffer through not only mysterious odors, but build quality so bad that it transcends reality. Being on that ride is like being force fed a bucket of LSD and then kidnapped and strapped onto a tram and taken into some negative budget horror house build by a gang of toddlers.
Despite all its good and bads, seeing the China Pavilion is a necessity. China is the host of the Expo, and what China did with the Chinese Pavilion speaks volumes about what the nation is going through right now, and why there is some serious work that needs to be done internally, before China can step onto the world stage and command the presence it wants to.
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