America, brought to you by Corporate America

There were a couple of aspects of the World Expo that were super strange to us.  The American pavilion and the Chinese pavilion are about as far away from one another as possible within the grounds.  Also, the American pavilion is in the back corner of the area, making it a bit remote.  We're pretty sure this wasn't accidental.

The magic begins when we step inside and the introduction room is plastered with logos of Corporate sponsors.  An introductory film is played in which folks on the street in DC are filmed trying to say "Welcome to China" in Mandarin.  It doesn't go that well. 

As we pass into the next giant movie theater, Pfizer thanks us for not smoking. Then we watch a film where kids teach us how to save the earth (make a cloud plane that doesn't use gasoline!) and CMOs from the sponsoring firms (Chevron, GE, PepsiCo) emote; the children are our future, the environment is a critical issue.  Then cameos by such American celebrities as Tony Hawk and Marlee Matlin (she's deaf! we're diverse!), interspersed with academic interviews from professors at the University of Washington (sponsor).

We're herded into a third theater where we watch a film about a kid who dreams of turning a cement lot in her ghetto neighborhood into an urban garden and paints a picture of her vision.  She shops this around and makes some progress.  Her luck turns.  At one point it seems that a thunderstorm, flaky neighbors, and bullies will sabotage the whole project.  But when our protagonist, in desperation and pouring rain, holds her painting overhead and looks skyward over dramatic guitar music, the garden is saved.  She awakes to find it fully planted, vandals spray-painting a rainbow mural on the wall.  I think we're to assume that a higher power is responsible...

Now, imagine you're Chinese.  You don't speak English and your government isn't letting you pop over to the USA for a visit anytime soon.  Your internet access is highly censored and western TV & movies aren't broadcast.  What you see at the world expo might inform your opinion of the US disproportionately.  And what you might take away from your visit is that Americans really like sitting in dark theaters, can't and won't try to speak Chinese, and don't flush a toilet that isn't paid for by a major corporation. 

Also, the building looks like an airport terminal.  Citibank thanks you for visiting.  That is all.