SHANGHAI - China is changing. China is becoming more and more present in international life. Big cities such as Beijing and Shanghai are now world cities, open to foreign cultural and commercial exchanges. In the same way that Beijing rose to world prominence for the Olympics in 2008, now it's Shanghai's turn to shine on the world stage for Expo 2010.
The Shanghai that greeted the world on the night of June 30 in a spectacular opening ceremony and fireworks display was one transformed by years of planning and upgrading of infrastructure.
And Shanghai has really been upgraded in many ways in the past few years. We could even say that the whole city has been dramatically transformed since the 1990s. The Pudong new area was countryside at this time, where now we marvel at some of the tallest buildings in the world. When you walk in many parts of the city today, you can barely imagine you are in China. Of course Shanghai is still China, but the lifestyle and the city itself are now not that different from those of a western city. And in several cases often even more modern.
When you walk in Shanghai you can feel all these influences: Nanjing Road is definitely China, with characteristic neon signs all around; then there is Pudong, which is what we could now call the "Manhattan of the Orient"; and there are also other residential areas, such as the "French Concession", with the ambiance and neighborhood life of European cities; and of course the fabulously restored Bund with it's colonial buildings and beautiful walkway along the Huangpu River.
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There is so much going on all day every day at the Expo that it is almost impossible to take in everything. In fact you could almost say that there is too much going on at the Expo as each of the participating countries vies for the attention of visitors.
As far as we Europeans are concerned, we have seen thousands of visitors to all 27 member countries of the European Union over the past weeks. Many of the EU country pavilions are among the most recognizable and popular at the Expo: Spain, Germany, the UK. And I think many lucky visitors to the Expo on May 9 were very pleased with our Europe Day parade which despite the rain brightened up the day with a colorful display of traditional culture from all over Europe.
Mrs Viviane Reding, Vice-President of the European Commission sounded a ceremonial gong to mark the start of the Europe Day parade, and musicians and performance artists from 23 EU countries began the march along Bo Cheng Road.
There were saxophonists from Luxembourg, face-painted performers on stilts from Germany, dancers from Portugal, bag pipers from Ireland, marching in formation.
"We're used to celebrating Europe Day only on our continent, but [at the 2010 Shanghai World Expo] we're all together in one spot, and we're joining forces for cultural diversity and to show how wonderful it is to celebrate with you," said Reding during a press conference the previous day. "All countries celebrate Europe Day, and 500 million people in Europe will be celebrating along with the Expo."
Indeed, the success of this event and the positive reaction of the Expo visitors mean that we are now planning an even bigger activity for September to delight all our Chinese friends. We are sure that they will really enjoy it!
The author William Fingleton is head of Press & Information Section, Delegation of the European Union to China & Mongolia
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