Expo'ed

That's right, ladies and gentlemen: on a rainy Sunday recently, I visited the World Expo in Shanghai.

First, what or who is the "Expo"?  What is its mission? More importantly, what *is* it? An outfit like the International Olympic Committee, raking in a cushy living in the form of bribes? A cynical organization that takes elementary school exhibitions and science projects to a global scale, laughing at it all, us all? Perhaps a Masonic outfit or some other secret society which forms grist for the mill of conspiracy theorists? Which raises the questions: "What the heck is grist?" and "Can someone please medicate the conspiracy theorists?" We all saw what happened to Mel Gibson - don't tell me Conspiracy Theory had nothing to do with that.

Ok, no more digression. Thanks to some powerful string-pulling, a bunch of us, mostly foreigners, sashayed past the teeming masses lined up in front of the various pavilions. Equality, Made in China.

First, the Taiwan pavilion. It involved getting on a glass platform *inside* a dome on which were projected various images. It was billed as a 4D experience, and I am still not sure what the fourth D was. Then we went to stare at the *outside* of a dome on which we launched "virtual lamps", which, at the press of a button, rose to the heavens carrying with one of 12 pre-selected wishes spanning the inane to the sublime: Succeed in Examinations, A Soaring Economy, Cross Straits Peace and Prosperity, Peace and Happiness. I looked for a plug to pull, but alas found none. The pavilion visit ended in an cozy little room constructed I believe from bamboo or thatch, in which they served us excellent Chinese tea, and they let us take home the cup to boot. I demand that we recognize Taiwan immediately. They are too nice.

Next, again sneakily, we went into the Chinese pavilion. It was less a pavilion and more like the mother of all stadiums. There was a truly spectacular blow up of an ancient 11-meter scroll, except this painting was *animated* and spanned what must be 50 meters of wall. I felt slightly agoraphobic - it was crowded like crazy. We then went into various other parts of this pavilion of which I understood nothing: a children's section with posters of cartoons and comicss, a section with clean technology devices, what seemed like a green house, a themepark-like ride etc.

We then walked by the India pavilion which looked exceptionally retarded: there was an arched entrance of some sort made of thatched material. Seriously, Mr. Seventy-year-old-bureaucrat - that endearing, halcyon Malgudi image just doesn't cut it any longer. There was a large hemisphere of some sort, which had vegegation - multicolored vegetation - growing on it in weird patterns. It looked like a dinosaur testicle which had been creatively shaved or perhaps been overrun by intelligent-design fungus.

Finally, we went to the Saudi Arabia pavilion, which as you know cost $100 million. I am not kidding. We walked up several flights of spiral ramps, showcasing the first thing about the Holy Kingdom - a whole lot of nothing to do but wandering. Then there was a song and light show that put the Taiwanese one to shame, but frankly there was nothing substantial to it. Islamic motifs, the king scaring the crap out of everyone in his hand-raised-like-a-jedi pose sporting jet-black facial hair (not sure which is weirder), and - shockingly - two or three women shown veil-less. They also had a rooftop "oasis", which today remained rained out. I was not sure if the date palms were real. I mean, they made milk out of melamine in the host country, so anything could be possible.

I thoroughly shamed myself by taking plenty of pictures on my phone. My fucking phone!