Shanghai getting ready for World Expo

There are many obvious reminders of the World Expo about to officially open on May 1, such as numerous outdoors signs claiming its motto of “Better city, better life”, the new taxi fleet specially introduced to service the 20 million expected visitors, the beautiful lightening of trees in the streets, newspapers headlines. But China has also once again proven its efficiency and ability to deliver quick results as regards infrastructure by making the Pudong International Airport fit to get 80 million passengers a year or by opening up brand new metro lines. But not only infrastructure: the Shanghainese people have received instructions to be polite to the city’s visitors (even though considering the way I was treated by the lady taxi driver that took me from the Maglev train station to my hotel I might think there is some work to be done) and the special World expo taxi drivers have undergone English training to be more helpful to foreigners.

The China pavilion is the tallest and largest of all. I do not know how much money they spent on it, and one could in general terms certainly question the relevancy of the spending by all the participating nations for just a few months. But more than the period of the World Expo itself, what is striking is the symbolic value of China hosting it at a time when it is showing so much strength in terms of growth while many countries in the world are still only slowly recovering from the financial crisis. The Expo is open to anyone willing to visit it (and stand in the queue) but will also attract an extraordinary concentration of prominent people from all over the world, may they be scientists, officials, artists, representatives or large corporations or experts of any sort. Some already predict that the Shanghai World Expo is the new great leap for China, as it will give the opportunity for the country to showcase its position on the global stage and give more concrete evidence of its potential for the future.