Open Letter to the Expo visitor

Dear Expo visitor,

Visiting a world exposition is a worthwile experience, I know. I worked at the previous Expo2000 Hannover, Germany, five years ago, and I really liked it. I even loved it so much that I wanted to experience the same this year, therefore quitting my "normal" job in Belgium and moving to Japan for more than six months.

World expo's are truely amazing. Please don't listen to yuppie-speak that says that those mega events are 'not from this time anymore'. It's not true. In our internet dominated society of e-learning, e-commerce and tele-working, we should crave to meet more often people from other cultural, linguistic and political background in person. On a less personal level, during world expo's countries get opportunities to achieve promotion and relationships they normally could only built up after years of economical and diplomatic efforts.

So please visit this world expo. Come. And visit in the first place the country pavilions. Not Toyota. Not Hitachi. Not JR Central Pavilion. Not Mountain of Dreams. The real value of a world expo lays not in high-tech. Not in those fancy robots. It's the people, stupid. Differences, similarities, exchange of ideas...between people. Try to talk as much as possible with foreigners, even if it's difficult.

But before you decide to come, be careful. The expo could kill you. Really. For different reasons. It has been said before, transportation to the expo sucks. But that's nothing compared to the queues. Queuing is looong. Not only to enter the expo, to visit the pavilions, to have a waffle, or to relax inside a restaurant.
Even to go to the toilet you have to queue. Yes, also when it's urgent! Too many people for not enough expo space. That's obvious. And now with the start of the summer, there is also 'the heat'. The heat is mercyless. It kills slowly. In the meantime there might also be a terrorist threat in Japan. Not only in Tokyo, or for people using the Shinkansen, apparently also for the expo. No panic needed, certainly not, just think about it. So, if you decide for yourself that all those arguments are strong enough to not visit this expo, then stay home. You don't have to do it to please the Expo Association. They are on track to easily achieve their targetted 15 million visitors. So, no need to help them with the numbers.

And if you stay at home, realise that Japanese television and the net is there to show you what you missed. NHK Radio, for instance, has a weekly program about the expo. And more and more people are putting online little videos or their opinion on "an exciting visit to Aichi expo". Citizen journalism. Watch. Video snippet inside the Korean pavilion. Video Snippet of the day time parade. Video snippet of the Earth tower kaleidoscope. Be sure to first download Google's video viewer to watch all that videomaterial.

It's up to you, dear visitor. You're always welcome. Be smart.

Greetings,

:)

Christophe