I eventually made it to the Oriental Crown

Unfortunately, I was not the only one reasoning this way - or shall I blame the rainy weather that kept Shanghainese away from the parks on Saturday? -  and the crowd was definitely there. Actually the Pavilion management is very good at organizing waiting lines. Instead of a visitor-discouraging endless line, there were numerous waiting sections where smaller groups were gathered and moved forward in impeccable order, always giving hope that it will go fast. But inside the sections unfortunately there was less diligence to be expected from fellow visitors, lot of push from all sides, and one needed to be very alert, for his or her position not to be taken over by people of any age.

After two hours of queue we could eventually access the pavilion and it was well worth the wait. First the almost 70 meter high building itself has become a new landmark of Shanghai thanks to its size and spectacular architecture. It was by far the largest and most visible of all the pavilions, and no other country was allowed to build a higher one. It was also rumored to be the most expensive one, with an estimate cost of 220 million USD. Part of the construction cost is explained by the use of sustainable materials and practices, there is for instance a solar energy system on the rooftop and thermal panels.

The pavilion presents different themes regrouped in three main sections called “the Footprints”, “the Dialogue”, “the Vision” - well in line with the “better city better life” Expo overall theme. Everything inside was very impressive and some of it truly innovative and futuristic, besides a good mix of national treasures and true stories from ordinary Chinese people or children’s drawings.

At the same time it was interesting to observe what perspective Chinese people have on their own development or at least which perspectives the people in charge of designing the pavilion want the public to get. Part of the exhibition focuses on (sic) “60 years of prosperity” and “the unparalleled pace of growth over the past three decades”. No mention of some of the difficult times during these sixty years, that I am not sure all Chinese would agree were “of prosperity”….

One short thematic movie, “the road to our Beautiful Life”, directed by Lu Chuan, was particularly intriguing for me: it shows with deafening musical background the story of three or four generations from the green and clean steppes where one ancestor lived all the way to a little boy walking in the fancy and busy streets of Shanghai. Between the two ends, lots of things happen such as the quick industrialization which, to a foreigner looked in the movie actually quite destructive, but I think looked good to a Chinese (they even managed a romantic scene in the middle of construction site) and the Sichuan earthquake of 2008 where all the clocks stopped and some dramatic scenes were shown. This undeniably was very sad, and did bring up the usual melancholy often said to be a feature of the Chinese soul.