Hong Kong Young Writers Anthologies Fiction Group 3 - 2017 | Page 503

In 1993, the Chinese government decided to make Pudong, whose name translates to “East Bank”, a special economic zone.
China is a communist country, so special economic zones in China are where capitalism is used. After that, Pudong began
developing rapidly. That didn’t affect Puxi's place as the urban center of Shanghai, though. Despite efforts to make Pudong more
known in recent years, Puxi was older and so, more famous. Also, some parts of Pudong were developing too quickly and even if
there were housing estates in those newly developed areas, the prices were not what a normal Chinese citizen could afford. For
example, the 9 European cities in the suburbs of Pudong, which are basically copies of European architecture and have been on
the news recently because they raised controversy. These were originally created to make people move away from urban
Shanghai and live there instead but except for Little Sweden (which only isn’t empty because , those cities are now completely
empty, except for the occasional couple that goes there to take their wedding photos.
When I visited in 2010, the World Expo was held in Pudong, Shanghai. There were 189 countries participating in the expo. The
expo was really large, it actually had 5 zones! I only got to visit 3 of them, even though I actually went to the expo for around 5
days. The pavilion I remember the most about is the Slovenian pavilion. When I walked in, I remember entering a room that
wasn’t too well lit. On the walls, I could see some patterns of books. I remember walking along a lifted walkway that was built
along the walls of a rectangular-shaped building and not really seeing what was under the walkway. I also remember passing an
olm exhibit. The olm was white. Its eyes looked kind of weird but the exhibit explained that that was because it lived in a cave
and practically didn’t have to see. So, it was blind. The pavilion was memorable to me because it had a theme that was related to
books and I liked books (still do). Also, how could I forget the Kong Kong pavilion and how disappointing it was? It only
included a replica of the Hong kong Wetland Park and that was it. I was expecting more!
One of the pavilions I visited was the Chinese Pavilion, which had a red exterior because red is a traditional Chinese lucky color.
It was separated into four main parts. Those were ‘Exploring the Oriental Footprint’, involving Chinese urban practises, ‘The
Experience Trip’, involving a train ride, ‘Focus on a Lower Carbon Future’, which focuses on how to reduce the usage of fossil
fuels
and the individual province pavilions. Out of all of these, I only remember going on the train in ‘The Experience Trip’. I
remember that the train I was on also contained a Chinese tour group and that at one point, we were passing through a
simulation of a peach blossom forest. I also remember standing in the middle of all the individual province pavilions, unable to
decide which one to go to since they all seemed quite similar. After the Expo, I was happy to hear that, like the Eiffel Tower after
the 1889 Expo, the China Pavilion had been left standing and was reopened as the China Art Museum in 2012.
Another was the Canadian pavilion, which was almost entirely made out of wood. I have some very brief memories of walking
along a wooden plank and trying on a moose hat at the pavilion shop. I don’t remember seeing any exhibits (there probably were
some) or going to the pavilion restaurant.
I also remember going to the Spanish pavilion but I only remember getting creeped out by the big baby, which was actually a
robot and built to represent the future of Spain, in the end. The Pacific Pavilion was also… unmemorable, at best. It only