Celadon Bowl Highlights Zhejiang

The 2010 Shanghai World Expo will be a world-class gala in China. What will Zhejiang, a cradle of ancient Chinese civilization, present to the world at the event never seen before in this part of the Yangtze River Delta?

With journalists of 50 media from 31 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities, I visited the Expo site still under construction. The coverage lasted four weeks starting in early December, 2009.

The Bureau of Shanghai World Expo Coordination launched a promotion a long time ago in Zhejiang. Although Shanghai will host China’s first world exposition, Zhejiang hosted China’s first modern exposition in 1929. The West Lake Expo was patterned after the world expo held in Philadelphia in USA in 1926. The West Lake Expo was resumed in 2000 and it has brought huge changes to Hangzhou. Keenly aware of great opportunities and potentialities to be opened up by the 2010 Shanghai World Expo, Zhejiang led the country in setting up an organization committee for the province to participate in the upcoming Expo. The provincial government agencies and regional governments are in the organization group to coordinate the final successful presentation of Zhejiang in the gala event.

More than 20 design organizations such as Zhejiang University, Zhejiang Normal University, China Academy of Art competed for the opportunity to design the Zhejiang Pavilion. Some strong competitors were from beyond the province.

The winner was a team from China Academy of Art, headed by Professor Yang Qirui, president of Public Arts College under the academy.

On December 27, 2009, I had the opportunity to take a look at the Zhejiang Pavilion on the spot in Shanghai. The pavilion measures 32.1 meters in length, 15.8 meters in width and 7 meters in height.

The structure will hold three halls. As the back hall is a two-story structure, the total pavilion has a 680-square-meter floor space. The main theme of Zhejiang Pavilion is “Happy Life in Urban and Rural Zhejiang and Beautiful Home.” The subtopic is interactions between cities and countryside.

How will Zhejiang present to the world its gorgeous and poetic scenery, long history and profound culture, social and economic progress, and quality life? At present, all I can find is merely verbal. Insiders have signed contracts to keep them from showing their works to the public.

The front façade of the pavilion will double as a silver screen upon which authentic images of Zhejiang’s legendary mountains, waters, clouds, silk and bamboo groves can be projected. This is designed to create the first graphic impression: a prosperous and scenic province in the southern side of the Yangtze River Delta.

A 16mx4m video screen inside the front hall continues to deliver more images: preeminent cultural personages of Zhejiang origin will appear there. Through the transparent floor, visitors can watch the Qiantang River―the mother river of the province―and the porcelain tradition of Zhejiang that goes back to 8,000 years ago. This is an ingenious design to make the most of the limited space.

Inside the central hall is a huge celadon bowl, the very centerpiece of the Zhejiang Pavilion.

Professor Yang Qirui explained to me that the celadon bowl is the best symbol of Zhejiang for this exposition. Yue Kilns started the tradition of celadon millennia ago. Archaeological findings indicate that first traces of primitive celadon produced in Zhejiang go back to the Shang (1700-1027BC) and the Zhou (1046-256) dynasties. Longquan in southern Zhejiang has been the major powerhouse of celadon production.

The giant celadon bowl will also serve as a screen to display ten scenes of Zhejiang in ten minutes and visitors will be able to peep into the province’s past and present: Hemudu Culture, Liangzhu Culture, the West Lake, silk production, poetry and painting, Qiantang River tides, province-wide modernization, and tea. At the end, the whole central hall will show scenes of lotus flowers in full bloom.

The two-storied back hall will showcase the successes of 11 prefecture-level cities in Zhejiang in promoting modernization and urbanization. The lives of six families from Zhejiang will be displayed in this hall, each occupying a 2m2 space.

Professor Yang said that a visitor will be expected to spend 25 minutes in Zhejiang Pavilion. In order to attract visitors to stay and watch, the 680-m2 space should be best utilized.

Details in Zhejiang Pavilion are designed to tell the province’s story over 8,000 years. The zigzagging river under the transparent glass floor in the front hall is partly based on a timeless essay written by Wang Xizhi (303-361), the father of China’s calligraphy. The essay describes a gathering of literary men who passed a cup of drink on a flowing stream to each other and composed poems on a spring day. Behind the Huzhou silk is Zhejiang’s tie with the first world exposition held in London in 1851. That year, Xu Rong, a silk businessman from Huzhou, shipped 12 bundles of best silk to the world exposition. The silk won the only gold medal for crafts. Zhejiang is a miracle of the past 30 years. A small province with extremely limited resources (which can be testified by a long series of data), the province has grown into an economic powerhouse and has staged the fastest growth rate in the country (which can also be testified by a long series of data).

People working on the Zhejiang Pavilion are both ambitious and modest. Their dream is the pavilion will be a success if visitors remember the bowl and they know there will be many other pavilions at the world expo to compete for attention.