Travelogue, day three
To say that I'm tired would be an understatement along the lines of saying that the Expo has some people in it, although some of that might have to do with being stuffed full of criminally cheap Chinese food.
An ambling day today, less suited to deep contemplation and more to anecdotes (such as the moment where the Glee version of Bad Romance started playing in the criminally cheap Chinese place, sending my cultural studies neurons into convulsions). Left the Expo early because my camera was stolen on the subway yesterday - I do believe I hadn't even mentioned that; no, I can not comprehend the depth of my own Zen either - and I couldn't bring myself to tour the place without a camera. My conquests today therefore extended only to three shows and a general look around the Americas square, where the size and noise of the USA pavilion help it not at all against the beautiful, clever designs of the Brazil and Canada ones. The Canada pavilion, especially, excels in its striking appearance of a reed hut built by hyperactive madmen apparently instructed to fortify a position for a glorious last stand.
The title for this entry is taken from a note (thanks, Gills!) made on exiting the first show, the World Youth Innovation Tour, where I learned the hard way that the only thing more frustrating than a bad display is a great display written only in Chinese. There are, apparently, great things to come in our technological future, if you can only learn 5,000 characters. For the second show, however, I was attached to an adorable personal translator (interpreter in Chinese) and was actually able to gawk along with the rest of them as three audience volunteers manipulated a console by waving their arms around in a highly futuristic fashion, no sarcasm there. The true lesson of the second show is that the technology is not just available, it is simple. The limitations are only in the trickling down. There is no reasonable explanation, other than I suppose money, for why we don't all have screens built into our kitchens that can browse a library of recipes. China's attitude toward the future can only be described as communist: it's in them that you see how very different it is from the West. Whether or not they believe in their own propaganda, they produce it with a hungry, bright-eyed relish. Their attitude toward the Expo can only be described as the bastard love child of Soviet Russia and Victorian England, and whether or not that child has a black, black heart, it also has beautiful eyes.
The third show, Windows to the City, had its most gripping moment when upon entering the concert hall, we were greeted by a crew of girls wearing one-foot heels, skintight pajamas decorated with staring red eyeballs, and helmets made of fishbowls, lined from the inside with tiny LEDs and decorated top and bottom with silver-colored carbon cutouts of the Shanghai skyline. The overall effect was explosively hilarious, though I suspect some young Chinese children will be suffering nightmares for the next few months. Of the show itself, the less said, the better: it left the impression of a high school production that was suddenly handed an obscene amount of money along with explicit orders to not spend a coin of it creatively.
Lines to the Japan and South Korea pavilions continue to exceed five hours. Monday morning: wake up call at 6 AM.
The rest of the day, once I exited the park and finished being Lost in Shanghai (protip: "head for the big street" is not an advice that works in a city of twenty million people), it was all adventures in camera-buying, or failure thereof. The only highlight was wandering inadvertently into one of those underground malls where you can get Armani suits out of a cardboard box at the price of a bazooka gum. I would not buy a kidney in China: chances are it's a cheap knockoff. I did, however, chance across and buy something that I consider a competitor for Best Thing Ever. I'll show you once I have a camera.
A new friend joins our travels today: this is Expo-tan. He (she?) is the perfect example of the vast chasm of difference between Chinese and Japanese cultures; a Japanese designer would have disemboweled himself on the spot upon learning that he was responsible for such an abortion of cute. You may want to get used to him, though, as I am this side of bringing back keychains with him for pretty much everyone I know.
Sing it, everyone: We can change the world to~ge~theeeer...