Brisbane '88 was my first World Expo. We drove 3,000 Kms to get there from Melbourne and I remember only standing on a square plate, putting twenty cents in a slot and then trying to stay on while the plate vibrated fiercely. I thought that a technology like that would surely take off, as it had almost made me take off, but I've hardly seen it since, except in Korean gyms.
The Shanghai 2010 expo was fantastic for people watching, especially if it is the back's of their heads that is your thing. All I can remember about that were the queues: To buy a ticket, to give that ticket to somebody and get inside, to buy some horrible food, took queuing. You were in a constant state of waiting for something to happen. And it never did.
I should have learnt my lesson but as they say, all good things come in threes and I went to the Yeosu 2012 Expo. There were heaps of people, most of whom were occupied in taking photos and that helped keep the queue pool down a bit. There was a neat water and light show at night, which concluded with a question that seemed too profound for the situation, "Which future do you want to choose?" About a quarter of the people were recording the show on their smartphones. Im not sure why. If you posted it on youtube you would be happy with a dozen hits. I suppose they were sports fans, used to watching delayed telecasts of their favorite events, and just wanted to watch an event live on TV. Just once.
Most of all I wanted to understand what the Expos are all about. Why were people even there? People like the man who came up to say hello, proudly stating that he had come all the way from Queensland just to see it. Oh but you must be doing other things besides, right? No, just flying in for the expo. If he wasn't from Queensland I would not have believed that.
The theme of the expo was "living ocean and coast," so all the nations and corporations had set up their pavilions based on that idea. A lot of them brought the environment into it, and incidentally their own proud record in looking after it. They used catch phrases like, future generations, sustainability and the like.
Others put very little effort into it. The Australian pavilion took about ten seconds to walk through, and that included stopping to look at the interesting stuff. At the end you got corralled into their shop, which was selling the Australian version of snake oil, Lamb placenta cream. The French had an artistic installation like you would see at a chic gallery while the Italians showed you how the Panama Canal worked. Others still showed you nothing. You got to their stall, and it said, "Cultural shop."
All of them were geared toward selling you something in one way or another. It might have been the only way to entice people of different Nationalities down there for three months: "Tell you what, you man your nation's stall for three months, and you can sell whatever you like there. We'll supply the crowd."
Street performances were neat. A harpist and a belly dancer alternated, to give each other a break. A magician kept you guessing. Some strongmen gave a strong performance.
And I never did work out why people came in droves. Or why I did either.
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