Expo Blog - June: The Expo Settles In

To Let In or Not to Let In                                                           June 18, 2010
By BENJAMIN HAYFORD - Brigham Young University

Senior Citizens

The first few weeks of the USA Pavilion, in accordance with Chinese custom, our fast access (or “green lane”) allowed entrance to senior citizens age seventy and older. Ah, those were the days. Hectic days, really, before we had military assistance regulating the line. I've come to love those officers in green, with their blue-suited police counterparts that assist in the permanent-stanchioned outer queue. Because we allowed seniors into the green lane, we had to check ID. Yes, I felt a bit like a bouncer. I still do sometimes – especially when people duck under stanchions in futile attempts to cut the line. Read more of Ben's post...

Around the World in 12 Hours!!                                                 June 5, 2010
By BOBBY IRVEN - Rutgers University

So I have been lucky enough to have the past week off to explore the city but more importantly, I finally had the chance to go around the Expo and actually explore the other pavilions which has been something I have been looking forward to! After all, this is the World’s Fair! I did not obviously get to all of them because that would of taken about 5 whole days, but I got to see a fair number. Luckily because I work at a pavilion, all the other countries allow me to skip the line and go right in, so that cut about 2-4 hours off of each pavilion. For this blog’s sake, I will simply talk about every pavilion I visited, so I can bring the World’s Fair (which is 8000+ miles from most of you) into your own homes! As I mentioned in one of my first blogs, China and most other countries have spent massive amounts on their buildings, and it truly shows. The outside architecture of many of them alone is impressive, let alone the wonders they hold inside. Here we go…. Read more of Bobby's post...

Defining Experience                                                                     June 1, 2010
By TREVOR WELTMAN - University of Michigan

Boom: (noun) a loud, deep, resonant sound; (verb, intrans.) to make a loud, deep, resonant sound: thunder boomed in the sky. See fireworks.

And we didn’t. Or at least I (alongside a small group of others) didn’t get the chance to.
 
On April 30th, as is customary of all World Fairs of the Modern Era, the Shanghai 2010 Expo Bureau opened what has been predicted to become the largest event in human history the night before with, well, a boom. Thousands of pounds of boom to be precise––boom enough to not only set the sky above the Pu River alight for thirty minutes, but also the hearts and eyes and minds of those looking on indefinitely, the thousands standing before the European relics of the past on river west and soaring towers of the present on river east––and even those, Shanghai outside, still had the opportunity to witness the ceremony streamed vast across the country’s beloved CCTV, most modern amenities without, but within, the knowledge that good things are on the horizon, a bright future, Modern China unfolding before them in the form of a million fiery promises, dazzling, again and again and again and again. Read more of Trevor's post...