World Expo promises hi-tech bells, whistles and tired feet
For those of you who don't have the time or money to travel around the world this year, I have a DM 69 alternative, the World Expo 2000 in Hanover.
Of course, the expo can't possibly compete with the thrills and spills of an actual journey around the globe, mainly because most exhibitors were unable to decide whether to treat their visitors to a taste of their country's top tourist attractions or to overwhelm them with technology and grandiose pavilion architecture.
Despite the intentions of the expo's hosts, who claimed that this year's event would not be a hi-tech carnival, too many national exhibitors could do nothing more interesting than overload their pavilions with dozens of slick computers. Electronic hosts, which in many cases replaced their human counterparts and were the only source of information about a country, seemed to discourage and bore visitors rather than keep them hanging around. Computer technology is practically all you see at the Israeli booth. The only thing that tempted me to linger a little longer was a wonderfully edited movie about Pope John Paul II's visit to the Holy Land. But in general, watching electronic postcards on a computer screen is not worth the ticket price, considering most visitors already have daily internet access and would rather experience something they can touch or smell.
Surprisingly, that's what can be found at the Polish pavilion. I couldn't believe the buzz there. Crowds of people were clamoring in excited voices. While waiting to see the Bialowieza exhibition, where you can smell real pine trees and see a film about the change of seasons in one the few European forests that have been preserved in their original state, I saw visitors playing a grand piano situated on a mock marketplace in the very center of the pavilion. Visitors also crowded into a wooden hut containing a model of the Wieliczka salt mine and a rustic-style restaurant serving handmade pierogi. I realized that the success of the Polish pavilion, despite criticism at home that it's too rural, stems from the fact that a fair number of expo visitors are looking for a place that is quiet, beautiful and inspiring.
According to statistics compiled by the event's hosts, the average visitor spends no more than four minutes at any one pavilion and 20 minutes at the Polish one.
Some countries use special tactics to prolong visitor interest. The Croats keep their visitors enclosed within their pavilion while running a movie about the country, but leave them no time to look around afterward because the next group is already waiting outside.
Waiting is a kind of leitmotiv of the exposition. I saw people waiting for ages to get into the so-called Planet M media exhibition, which turned out to be a simplistic history lesson intended for primary school dropouts.
Actually, it's almost a rule in Hanover that the more time you spend in a queue before entering a pavilion, the less time you spend inside. After visiting the first five pavilions, I avoided any marked by long lines, with the exception of the Japanese exposition. According to a German students' survey, the Japanese pavilion is this year's best. While this one was of the very few that actually realized the hosts' dream to demonstrate how man can use technology to reach harmony with nature, I left the Japanese pavilion disappointed. Its light and clean construction made of recycled paper was impressive, but the pavilion's guests didn't seem to have enough patience to sit through film presentations on how the Japanese are working to limit global warming.
Although the line for the Japanese exposition, one of the expo's longest, moved faster than I expected, by this point in the day I was already too tired to see the Latin-American pavilions, which could have been a nice variation from mostly sterile interiors at the expo. The prospect of trekking through 160 hectares of exhibit space would have been too much, even for this seasoned traveler. While the lightweight metal scooters used by expo guests could help you get to the furthest points of the exhibit area, there's no chance that a visitor can see all 177 national expositions in one day.
At midnight, when I returned to my hotel completely dazed, I asked myself what the point of organizing these fairs so often was. Isn't it a waste of money? German media statistics seem to support my thoughts. The fear is that the expo won't attract the hoped-for 40 million visitors, thus leaving the hosts with a o820 million budget gap.
