As the Shanghai Expo welcomes the world to the sprawling plains of Pudong and Puxi, the two vis-a-vis banks of Huangpu River (黃浦江), which just a decade earlier were farm lands, the world is awed by the modernity transformed not merely in the vicinity of the Expo, but by its immediate environs and yes, beyond too.
While I have not personally attended the Expo, currently bound by my teaching responsibilities, I have gained some valuable and rather oxymoronic insights of the Expo through research, in preparation of my eventual visitation in September this year; I'm keeping my fingers crossed for not being thronged by China's potent human impetus.
Expo originates from 'Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations' or her more widely and affectionately known alias, 'The Great Exhibition', a brainchild of the then Prince Albert , husband of the famous Queen Victoria, of the United Kingdom, which original intent was to showcase manufactured products from the colonies of the past seemingly omnipotent United Kingdom in 1851.
Such was the history of Expo which had then evolved through its inaugural massive success, that akin to Olympics, it has enshrined into an unbroken tradition of not just her first host, but a tradition of the world. Never would Prince Albert envision the legacy he left for not merely United Kingdom, but for the world. He left a legacy of hope for aspiring developing countries to one day be able to stand alongside their bigger and richer counterparts, showcasing much sought-after and futuristic autochthonous works, in the same piece of estate.
(To be continued...)
South Korea Pavilion
North Korea Pavilion
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