World Expo Highlights Cultural Exchanges

The world expo Shanghai 2010 is a huge platform for global cultural exchanges. For six months， hundreds of exhibitors interact with millions of visitors. Though the global event was the child of industrialization and has kept changing its contents and form， culture has been a constant hallmark of this international gathering. This is easy to understand: high-tech is always a means to an end at the world expo. Culture is the substance， for culture is universal and its diversity is universal， too. Culture points to the future of human civilization.

The 5.28-square-kilometer site of the World Expo Shanghai 2010 is home to than 200 pavilions of countries， cities and organizations. For these exhibitors， the World Expo is a great opportunity to promote their distinct cultures. Altogether more than 20，000 events are scheduled to take place through the six-month event. National pavilions take turns in holding a national pavilion day. Cultural artifacts and artists from all over the world come to the expo and celebrate their distinct cultures. Hundreds of precious world-class artifacts are on display in the world expo 2010.

The France Pavilion displays seven national treasures as well as its national symbols such as fashion， perfume， luxuries and ancient French architecture. The Golden Lady in front of Luxemburg attracts a lot of attention. The Mermaid from Denmark reminds people of Anderson’s fairytales. In Czech Pavilion， you can hear the Fourth Movement of the Ninth Symphony by Antonin Dvorák. When you hear the melody of the “Waves of Danube”， you know the Romania Pavilion is in the vicinity. At Poland Pavilion you see walls covered with paper-cutting artifacts and hear the melodies of Chopin. Austria Pavilion hosts small concerts in honor of various musical genres and styles.

A survey indicates that more than 70% of Chinese visitors took great interest in diverse cultures. Music and dance are quite popular in the expo garden， for they transcend language and national boundaries and touch the hearts of people.

On May 10， 2010， more than 500 artists from 23 European nations jointly staged a parade through the expo garden to mark the European Day. The parade attracted huge crowds. At three o’clock in the afternoon， the procession reached a place near the European Union Pavilion. More than ten thousands of spectators soon gathered along the thoroughfare， cheering and clapping their hands. Some visitors even jumped in the procession and danced and sang with European artists.

The World Expo Shanghai is also a great opportunity for China to promote and explain its culture and history to the world. Cultural events and activities at the expo garden play the most important part in accomplishing this task.

“Riverside Scene on the Qingming Festival”， a classical painting by Zhang Zeduan (1085-1145) of the Northern Song Dynasty (960-1127)， is made into an animation at China Pavilion. An 832-m2 digital screen on the wall in China Pavilion shows 1，068 residents in the painting. They move and they do things just as they are in the painting.

Artists from Zhejiang are quite active in events of cultural exchanges. Zhejiang Week was an event at the World Expo starting on June 18. During the week， Zhejiang Pavilion received 15，000 visitors. And artists from Zhejiang staged more than 40 shows during the five-day event. Craftsmen demonstrated their arts of making artifacts. These shows give audiences an opportunity to see the wonders of the provincial folk arts and crafts and cultural traditions and heritages. Zhejiang artists also staged a parade through the expo garden. Their imagination and performance wowed visitors.

The world expo is also a platform for people from all over the world to meet. Youth Week kicked off on July 5th. About 2，000 students from 30 plus prestigious universities celebrated the world expo at an evening gathering. In soft breeze， student musicians and dancers staged their shows， portraying distinctive cultures of the regions and countries where they came from. At the opening ceremony of the Youth Week at the expo， the student choir of Yale University chanted with the audience a slogan in Chinese: Youthful World Expo， Force of the Future.

The World Expo in Shanghai is a gathering of humans who explore all possibilities for their children.

Xu Jiang， president of Hangzhou-based China Academy of Art and producer for Urban Life Pavilion of the World Expo Shanghai 2010， comments that more and more high tech applications to art mean progress of art itself. In his eye， the World Expo is a test ground for brand-new visual arts. In the modern world， arts are closely associated with advanced technology. □