Raffaello Pantucci

My latest in the series I have been doing for the Lowy Institute’s Interpreter blog, this time in their home Australian pavilion. At least another of these coming, and I remain open to commissions if anyone has a particular pavilion they would like to see more of. Use the contact page to get in touch.

Around the Shanghai Expo: Australia Pavilion

By Raffaello Pantucci – 4 August 2010 11:42AM

Raffaello Pantucci is a Visiting Scholar at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences. His previous posts, by pavilion: Britain, Iran, Afghanistan, DPRK, Pakistan.

And so onto the Australian Pavilion, which I was told the Chinese were not impressed by, as its dull brown color made it look old. (Photo below courtesy of the Australian Expo site; others by the author.)

I only heard this after I had visited, but on the day I went, it had a substantial queue, and the Chinese I met inside seemed excited.

One couple of girls I talked to had come from Chongqing to see the Expo and, once they got over the fact I spoke some bad mandarin, said they wanted to see Australia specifically because they had heard lots about it and friends lived there. At the same time, they confided, they preferred the Taiwan pavilion because they gave them stuff (a Taiwan bag comes with a fan, instant noodles and a tea cup).

Nevertheless, the Australian pavilion was attracting the same sorts of numbers as the British one – on the day I went, the Australians had had about 36,000 visitors and overall more than 2 million; a day or so before, I received an email from the British pavilion telling me they had crossed the 2 million threshold.

Inside, there is a series of rooms introducing Aboriginal history, wall paintings highlighting the comparative differences between Australia and China (China’s population density is a lot greater, while more Australians proportionally live near the sea. Not sure I see the value in the comparison). There is then a large diorama showing the nation’s history, which concludes in a picture of former PM Rudd (I went before he had been ousted) with some plastic journalist figures brandishing microphones and cameras in front of him.

The centerpiece, however, is a 10-minute movie about three children, a dark (I assume Aboriginal) child, a Caucasian child and an Asiatic child. They talk about how great Australia is, etc. Shown in a theatre on a large circular screen which rotates and occasionally lowers to reveal some sort of physical object relevant to whatever the children is talking about, the film was not a huge success. People were leaving moments after it had started, much to the dismay of the eager young mandarin-speaking hosts.

As one of the chaps at the entrance told me (confirming an experience I have mentioned elsewhere) the overriding Chinese visitor priority is to get the Expo passport visa stamp.

A wannabe Australian.