Now fluent with chopsticks

The world expo in Shanghai

Every five years years or so a World Expo is held in a deginated int'l host city, and lasts around six months. This round it's in Shanghai and I went and checked it out. Each nation creates a pavillion to glorify itself and all it offers the world. This year there were heavy environmental themes.

The American pavillion (which the American volunteers said was underfunded and sucked, so I did not go in)

The hustle and bustle inside the Italian pavillion.


Outside England's pavillian

The expo would have been excellent, except for the Chinese people. All of us were thuroughly discusted at how rude and ill-mannered they are in crowds. They push and they fight, and will do anything else to squeeze ahead in line. They have almost no sense of personal space and will breathe down your neck, even if there's room to spread out. The Chinese military was out in force to simply act as line-keepers. We literally had to form a human wall to keep them at bay and hold our ground, all day. The lines were long and the population, representative of China as a whole was 99% Hahn Chinese ethnicity. We were very worn and irritated by the end of the day-- all in all the experience was a wash, I'd say.