First Day at the World Expo

Whew! Done with my first day at the World Expo. I will do another day tomorrow. Today we visited the Africa Pavilion, Caribbean Pavilion (no Bermuda—sigh), DevNet Pavilion and China Pavilion. Our “contact” got us into a two-hour que at the China Pavilion—otherwise it would have been four hours!

The China building is amazing but I was disappointed in the content. Thanks to my client, Nancy Goshow of Goshow Architects in NYC, I have learned tons about sustainable design and practices. So on one hand I’m pleased to report that I really knew everything being presented and on the other hand—it was very disappointing that there was nothing “new” or truly “innovative” there. It seems like the other countries’ Pavilions are more for tourism outreach than following the theme of “Better City, Better Life.”

Tomorrow we will go to the USA Pavilion and I hope it is better than the disappointing reviews I’ve heard from other Americans who have attended. I also hope to go to Iceland and I will go back to DevNet again.

The DevNet Pavilion is in the United Nations area and it is where my two clients are exhibiting: JiuQiunJiu Wine, the Official Rice Wine, and HanSen Winery from Mongolia, the Official Red Wine of the Expo. Both are EXCELLENT wines. I meet with the President of DevNet tomorrow and hope I can make some significant changes (additions) to our displays.

The other impression of World Expo? Lines, lines everywhere. You may have noticed, or heard, before that Chinese do not really take well to lines. They have no problems “cutting” in line, pushing past, etc. I decided to be a bugger about this and they did not push past me! Although it is somewhat amusing because by pushing, they might move up 2-5 people and in a two-hour line—that means nothing time-wise. I was told that last week at the German Pavilion, when German workers were trying to stop the pushing and cutting, an all-out war-of-words broke out, with a lot of name-calling, and the Chinese suggesting a boycott of the German Pavilion. LOL German and Chinese cultures in that situation certainly would be clashing!

More to report after my visit again tomorrow!