The World Expo 2010

As I sit here in one of the twenty or so of Nanjing Xi Lu's Starbuck's, (like the 72nd Ave of New York) I can't help but feel a massive cloud above my head. Maybe I am over dramatizing this, but I feel as if I have been given a death sentence in a way. I am leaving China in a week. I am leaving this place that I have been obsessed with since my first pair of silk jammies with their Chinese bird embroidered on the front at the age of 5. I am leaving this place that has, over the last three years, allowed me to grow into the adult I've always wanted to be: adventurous, bold, thoughtful and caring.
All I can think as I walk through the hutongs, watch the old people do tai chi in the parks, and bargain with the storekeepers at the night market is "Wow, I love this - crap I'm leaving - this place - my home."
 
I mean, where else can you buy de-feathered whole chickens for sale on the street at 7am?
I really am being too dramatic about the whole thing. Aren't I?  After all, I am leaving for something EVEN BETTER! So I guess not as much as it is a death sentence for me. Let's say it is more like I've been told someone close to me who has been sick for sometime only has a week left to live. Like, I know it is for the best. I know... but somehow that logic is overridden by emotion. What I am saying is I feel more heart break than excitement in this moment. Yeah, that is me trying to see the positive in it.





My second last week in China was spent in Shanghai. Albeit not on my own accord but left to the fates (and as is everything - it was a blessing in disguise) of Chinese Trains. After blowing China away with awesomeness, the two crazy McGrew sisters were separated again - and thus, I again became just one crazy McGrew gal, lost in this even crazier country.  But, as to be expected, I made due. Even better, I made history.

I went to The World Expo for a day. It was HUGE. And I could easily have come back for the following three days and still not seen everything. And I'm sure all of you out there have hear great and wonderful things about it. But have you actually HEARD about it? (thanks, Alex, for the following pics)


I had returned to Shanghai from the depths of both poverty and natural beauty in China's South West. And to me at first Shanghai seemed so modern - clean and new even - and, dare I say, sophisticated?!
But...then I ran 20 minutes out of town - "Helloooo!",  "Laowai!",  honking, squatting, a boy peeing in the middle of an intersection, people yelling into their phones on every corner; the smoking in the stores; split pants;  general oblivion for privacy or there being other humans around - it all smacked me in the face.... 5km from the city centre. Twenty five minute into my run, I was reminded, as China likes to do to me without an ounce of sympathy (as we might recall, there was a blog post Title Oh, yeah, This is China almost 3 years ago) - that, Oh yeah, I was in China.


Regardless of what they show themselves to the world to be, the Chinese are still Chinese - and they always will be. One of many traits that encompasses their "Chineseness" is the stunning ability to create a façade; a veil of which everyone sees only the outter surface . But I'll be honest with you, I, my friends, have lifted that veil - and it ain't pretty! (nor does it sound or smell good). Ignorance is oh so blissful.

Getting back to the World Expo - Expo 2010. Alex, Erik and I basically did a Pub Crawl of the Pavillions that had booze and no lines...and Erik's GuanXi got us in the back door of both the US and the Finnish Pavillions - which we otherwise would have had to wait two hours in line to see, and, in other words, would not have seen as they would not have fulfilled are booze and no line strict standards.

Erik is trying really hard here to be excited about the Canada pavillion. he's doing a pretty good job for an American, I think. Apparently it had the Cirque du Soleil. Which brought with it a three hour line up. Pass! But not without a picture first....now onto the cheap drinks and no waiting.

The lines were another matter and a good example of Chinese logic and desire to learn about the world. They stand in line for 2+ hours just to get a stamp on their passports. The longer the line for the pavilion, the more desirable of a stamp it is. And so it goes, umbrellas in one hand, passports in the other, chatting and spitting sunflower seeds all to enter and leave within a few minutes. But they can tell their friends about it. I guess it is a blessing we are all different.

Needless to say, based on our strict boozin-no-waitin guidelines, we didn't go in any of the good ones. I didn't get to see the the robot exhibit in the Japanese Pavillion, and the  ...uh....  But I did get to drink a few Mojitos at the Cuba pavilion, a 'true' Budweiser at the Czech Paviliion...and the rest is a bit fuzzy.


Regardless of the fuzziness. I felt quite a part of history there. And was particularly happy to see all the Chinese people being properly educated. In fact, I knew full well less than1% of the people I saw that day would ever leave China. Which makes something like the Expo all the more important in Countries like China....even if they are there just to get their passports stamped, I am sure they learned a thing or two - if nothing else that white people can speak chinese - which Erik and I were sure to try to educate the masses about.

Speaking of this, I also got to meet some really cool China geeks while stranded in Shanghai (who knew we could be found outside of Beijing?) and see some great China geek stuff and talk some great China geek talk. Erik took me to a museum in some rogues basement of Communist Party propaganda from the last 70 years with slogans like "strike down the  American imperialists" and "Kill them Japs". Yep, I bought all the anti-American sentiment stuff I could find...under the furrowed brown of my American companion. But we made up when I told him I love Budweiser later in the evening (he actually believed me!).

 






So I arrive back in Beijing today. I take a train that goes 328km/hr. And then I am here for one more week. One last week with what became the love of my life. One last week to close this chapter and allow for the transition into the next. Yeah, it's exciting. But it's scary too.

Oddly enough, much scarier than arriving to this unknown land is leaving it.
What did I come here searching for?
Will I leave having found it?
Will I remember all that this place has taught me?
Will I be able to move on?