Taiwan Pavilion Attracts Crowds at World Expo Shanghai

Taiwan Pavilion is one of the hottest attractions at World Expo Shanghai 2010. Crowds of visitors flock to the pavilion every day. The pavilion organizers have adopted many measures to divert enthusiastic visitors and create opportunities for more visitors to come in and take a look around, but unfortunately some have to content themselves by promising themselves that they will come to see it next time or by taking some photographs with the pavilion as the background.

In order to figure out the popularity of Taiwan Pavilion, I decided to visit the pavilion the other day.

The pavilion looks like a lantern in the appearance. Many visitors notice it from afar. And many visitors admire the pavilion from the vantage spot on the high footbridge in the garden or from the Expo Axis.

The pavilion opens its door to long queues at 10 in the morning. I inch forward with the crowd. But the movement soon stops and I hear an explanation: the LED globe, the core of the pavilion, can contain 40 people only each time for the sake of safety. Ten minutes later I am admitted. Television screens of various sizes are embedded on the wall on the ground floor, displaying images of Taiwan celebrities. After a short stay on the ground floor, I take the elevator to the fifth floor and get into the globe to watch a four-minute film about Taiwan’s culture and scenery. The globe doubles as an all-round screen to show the island’s landscapes. While watching the film, I see raindrops splattering from the ceiling and smell aroma of flowers. Wu Ju, director of science, informs me that the film is a 4D creation featuring a total of 126,000 scenes in four minutes, that is, 360 scenes a second. In other words, the film is more visually dazzling than Avatar.

Then we go to the second floor to fly simulated lanterns. The lantern is at the bottom of the LED globe. Each audience member can choose a blessing at the control panel before the simulated lantern is launched and flies away into the simulated sky. Flying the sky lantern is a Chinese tradition. Amid warm applause, the virtual lantern flies into the virtual sky with background changing all the time.

I run into a couple at the pavilion. Other fellows look around, but the two in their 60s sit on the camp stools they carry with them and chat casually. I strike up a conversation with them. The couple comes from Wencheng, a rural county in southern Zhejiang Province. They now stay in Shanghai with their son and daughter-in-law, who run a business in the metropolis. It is the couple’s third visit to the expo. The couple plans to see the Taiwan Pavilion as their first stop of the third journey. The grandpa surnamed Jing says that he grew up in Wencheng and many of his playmates in childhood years went to Taiwan. He used to ask his parents where they had gone. The answer was the other side of the sea. Jing has longed to see the other side of the sea for decades. That is exactly why he and his wife plan to visit Taiwan. And by coming to the Taiwan Pavilion, JIng hopes against hope that he might run into one or two of his former playmates from the same village after all these decades.

Most in the crowds waiting to enter the Taiwan Pavilion are mainlanders from four corners of China. The long political separation has made Taiwan an endearing topic among the people on the mainland. Though many on the mainland can now go to Taiwan for a visit, most are unable to go for various reasons. So the pavilion in Shanghai is the most direct and nearest projection the people on the mainland can see about the Treasure Island. For most visitors, a visit to the Taiwan Pavilion symbolizes the longing for reunification, the wish to know more about the island province. Long queues outside the pavilion in the 184 days of the expo are a loud and moving expression of this longing and wish.

The last section in Taiwan Pavilion is called Urban Sitting Room, where every visitor is invited to have a cup of tea under a huge tree woven with bamboo strips. The tree was made by more than 10 craftsmen in Taiwan over a period of two months. The huge tree conveys a sense of harmony and a sense of home. The Taiwan Pavilion distributes souvenirs to every visitor: a small tea cup in a small cloth bag, a large reusable shopping bag with instant noodle, a paper fan, and a bag of paper towel. I hear a granny say how considerate and generous the Taiwan people across the straits are. Every 100,000th visitor receives a big gift from the pavilion. The first 100,000th visitor is 63-year-old Liu Yunxiang from Hunan. He received a 52 inch liquid crystal television set worth 12,000 yuan.

According to a narrator on the spot, the Taiwan pavilion highlights elements of Chinese culture. The theme is Mountain, Water, Heart and Lantern, designed with the conception of Five Elements, which go back to the immemorial past of Chinese civilization. The steel structure of the sky lantern represents metal; the blessing platform is made of wood; the dazzling LED lantern stands for fire; the ground tiles on the platform embody earth; the water in the two pools come from Sun-Moon Pool in Taiwan and the Pacific Ocean. The huge sky lantern is an improved version of the ancient Kongming Lantern used in China for centuries. Flying the sky lantern is a popular expression for good luck and blessing during celebrations and festivals in Taiwan.

Taipei World Trade Center was in charge of designing and building the pavilion. The construction kicked off on August 17, 2009. It took only 199 days for the pavilion to get built and decorated and get all the exhibits ready. The 1,400-m2 pavilion is by no means large in size, but its architecture is charming. Wang Zhigang, president of Taipei World Trade Center, comments, “The pavilion is diminutive and refined and abounds with humanistic concern. That’s why visitors appreciate the pavilion so much.”