[Watermoon]

Here news report it everyday. I am interested in UK Pavilion. It is so cute. I wanna hug it at once. I plan to visit it after summer. Recently a lot of people come to Shanghai, very crowded.
http://www.ukshanghaiexpo.com/en/home.php

[Igor Antunov]

Awww I made this thread in the minor news section. Anyway, I saw the opening show and it's impressive.

[Watermoon]

okay, I will go there and read it. Last night many of us wanted to see the fireworks, we waited and waited, soon more and more people arrived there, the subway was shut down, and buses couldnot move in the crowd at all. Finally I walked around 1 hour and took a cab to get home.

[Igor Antunov]

Well if you missed it then here it is:

[youtube]f4_nvO4f9wM[/youtube]

Biggest fireworks display in history.

[Tailz]

Looks fantastic, but it is sad in a way. The cage has its golden cover now... makes me think of a BBC reporter commenting after the Oylmpics. China put on a wonderful show, but China, is still China. I'd like to think, China will become China.

[MistyTiger]

Very nice opening! I didn't get to watch it.

I want to visit Shanghai someday.

[Igor Antunov]

Looks fantastic, but it is sad in a way. The cage has its golden cover now... makes me think of a BBC reporter commenting after the Oylmpics. China put on a wonderful show, but China, is still China. I'd like to think, China will become China.

That's silly, more Chinese are able to leave their country permanently or just to visit overseas destinations than indians can leave india. Economic mobility is far ahead in China, freedom comes with the ability to afford things we take for granted, like overseas holidays and legal emigration to other nations.

[Tailz]

That's silly, more Chinese are able to leave their country permanently or just to visit overseas destinations than indians can leave india. Economic mobility is far ahead in China, freedom comes with the ability to afford things we take for granted, like overseas holidays and legal emigration to other nations.

Well I already know you have a hardon for China Igor, considering your anti-western anti-American stance, I understand that, and in some instances I agree. But I don't know many Chinese who have left China who don't discredit the place for its politics. Holding China up to the yard stick of India is like comparing apples and oranges, there are some similarities, and there are huge differences. The Indians are politically empowered, but the bulk of the population is destitute, so it is no wonder the Chinese, with vast government subsidised companies and an economy underpinned to make manufacturing the lowest in the world by a pegged currency, it is no wonder China is booming as compared to India which is the chaos of democracy and free market at work.

But even given my criticism of China, I still like China. Thus why I think the situation is sad, because China's success is a thin vaneier that has dulled the minds of the masses who are happy because they now have access to consumer goods which under the previous flavour of communism, they didn't have, be the old communism is still there, under the surface.

[Igor Antunov]

India is a much sadder case. It has democracy and political freedom on the outside, yet the majority of people are too poverty stricken to participate in anything other than the quest of putting food on the table. The caste system still prevails, making democracy, liberty and political mobility only effective on paper for the majority of the indian population. India is a democratic paper Tiger.

a thin vaneier that has dulled the minds of the masses who are happy because they now have access to consumer goods

Literacy rate has increased greatly. As for this dulling you speak of, we are victims of it ourselves. Addicts of mere luxuries that cannot last.

[Tailz]

India is a much sadder case. It has democracy and political freedom on the outside, yet the majority of people are too poverty stricken to participate in anything other than the quest of putting food on the table. The caste system still prevails, making democracy, liberty and political mobility only effective on paper for the majority of the indian population. India is a democratic paper Tiger.

Where in India the people worked hard to achieve development and advancement themselves (the government has certainly not helped them), in China development has been hefted upon the people by the state. This leads to two totally different mass psychological outlooks on development and success. The people of India take pride in their development, because by-enlarge, that development comes from their own initiative, where in china the development is the initiative of the government ruling class and not the initiative of the people - the people themselves do not have the psychological ownership of that development and success, it's not their success, its communist China's success. Thus apart from the pride in their achievements from a Chinese nationalist perspective, the pride in their development only goes so far as the direct benefit. Lose that direct benefit... and well....

Literacy rate has increased greatly.

So? If you could cross reference this with an increase in the amount of literary works being published, books being translated (as is often a marker of development in middle-eastern states), or an increase in writers publishing books, then yes, increased Literacy is a boon.

As for this dulling you speak of, we are victims of it ourselves. Addicts of mere luxuries that cannot last.

No disagreement from me about our addiction to material goods. But China is our modern day crack dealer, and you know what they say about dealers who are also addicts.

[Igor Antunov]

Where in India the people worked hard to achieve development and advancement themselves (the government has certainly not helped them), in China development has been hefted upon the people by the state. This leads to two totally different mass psychological outlooks on development and success. The people of India take pride in their development, because by-enlarge, that development comes from their own initiative, where in china the development is the initiative of the government ruling class and not the initiative of the people - the people themselves do not have the psychological ownership of that development and success, it's not their success, its communist China's success. Thus apart from the pride in their achievements from a Chinese nationalist perspective, the pride in their development only goes so far as the direct benefit. Lose that direct benefit... and well....

I think you grossly oversimplify the situation in China. One can run private business there, one can work hard for oneself and achieve material goods, very little is handed to them by the government, but for the basic necessities such as infrastructure, healthcare, education, soemthing of far higher standard than what you'd find in India. In fact the Chinese ethos is to work hard for material goods, they make fine cappies, they certainly derive pleasure from personal achievement, don't you worry.

[HoniSoit]

Where in India the people worked hard to achieve development and advancement themselves (the government has certainly not helped them), in China development has been hefted upon the people by the state.

Like Igor points out, this is not exactly right. If you are talking about state-led development, there is certainly a strong element of state intervention in the economy, like in many similar developing countries. But the 'South China Miracle' as it was called, just to take one big example, was built on people working really hard, often too hard for their liking; but it is nevertheless the fruit of their labor that has made the prosperity, as unequal as it is and as little as they themselves benefited from it, possible.

This leads to two totally different mass psychological outlooks on development and success.

I don't know how exactly you can arrive at this knowledge of the mass psychology of 2 billion people in these two countries. I certainly wouldn't make that big an assumption.

[Serinous]

I went there for 2 days... there were way too many people. I went to the Pavilions of the following countries: China (provincial, not national), USA, UK, North Korea (lol), Cuba, Venezuela, Russia, Pakistan, New Zealand, and Iran.

Other popular onces like South Korea, Japan, UAE, India, Saudi Arabia, and some European countries have too much people on queue, so i gave up.

I got to see REAL North Korean people in their pavilion, which is probably a once of a life time opportunity HAHA.

[Bramlow]

I'm in Shanghai this weekend, but I don't intend to go to the Expo.

It's just too busy. I know a guy who went on Monday. He got there an hour before opening, queue-jumped many pavillions pretending to be a native of the respective countries (he speaks 4 languages), and still didn't get to see a lot. I'll be going on a Saturday, during Chinese vacation season, and it's likely to rammed.

It's a shame to miss, but I've got plenty of other things to see in Shanghai.

[Spion1]

I'm afraid i have to mirror what everyone has been saying. For me the Shanghai Expo was terrible (when i went anyway, which by the way was a weekday). Everything was well organised of course, but there was just too many damn people!!! I seriously think that they should have limited the number of tickets they sell each day because it makes a mockery of the day when you have to fight to see more than 4 pavilions. I've never been to one of these things before, please someone tell me is it the same everywhere?

[Teen Politican]

I've visited Expo for three times, and, I want more.


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