Expo 2010

Everyday in Shanghai we see so many things happening and everywhere places are changing or getting a facelift in time for the upcoming World Expo in 2010.



The city government has been steadily beautifying a lot of areas in the city adding a lot of greenery. Yesterday morning, on Huai Hai Road, a major thoroughfare, we saw these women working on adding shrubs bit by bit to this shape of the mascot - Hai Bao. When I passed by late that afternoon, they were still finishing this up.



On top of these beautification projects, the government is also trying to educate pedestrians on observing the rules. On a lot of major intersections, you can now see installed this kiosk where they've used Legos to show the right places to cross and when to cross. On top of this are 2 small posts where you have to put these circular discs to rate your satisfaction on the traffic helpers' service(s); red for satisfied and blue if not satisfied.

What is interesting is the usage of colour and which colour is used to associate 'satisfied' and 'not satisfied' feedback. In the West, red would typically mean negative and blue or green would mean positive. In China it's the other way around... I suppose because red is an auspicious colour here.

Anyway, about these new improvement measures, I'm a bit in doubt whether the government will be able to change the mentally of people. Everyday we walk around in Shanghai, you see both pedestrians and people driving cars, riding bicycles or motorcycles blatantly ignoring traffic rules. We sometimes even see people trying to get across in spite of these traffic assistants shouting at the top of their lungs to head back to the sidewalk. What I feel is that everyone thinks they have the right of way. This is regardless if it was a pedestrian trying to cross the street when it's not safe yet. Or motorcyclists or bicyclists who feels you should get out of their way. Or car drivers and bus drivers who feel they are 'bigger' than you because they have a car and you should get out of the way. This is something we encounter almost everyday esp. when we walk the kids to school.

I'm really in doubt people's mentality can be switched around until the World Expo begins... I sure hope so. I keep remembering this conversation I had with a taxi driver in HK when I went for a business trip a few years ago. He was comparing China to a computer. In terms of hardware which is the infrastructure, China is already advanced but in terms of software, which he associates to people, is still some ways behind.