Kids have field day as pavilions go full throttle on C-Day
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| An Irish jester entertains children with bubble tricks at the Expo Garden on Tuesday. |
Spoiled "Little Emperors" went on treasure hunts and shopping sprees as the Expo Garden celebrated the International Children's Day on Tuesday with a raft of activities, while under-privileged children from China's earthquake-ravaged western regions were happy just to see their hometown still on the map.
"The best part of the day so far was seeing the image of the three rivers beneath the China Pavilion, because it reminded me of my home," said 10-year-old Bai Ma Suo Na, a primary school student from Yushu in Qinghai province.
He was referring to the Qinghai section of the China Regional Pavilion, a building that skirts around the China Pavilion.
When Yushu was flattened by a 7.1-magnitude quake on April 14 and threatened to remove parts of the prefecture from the map forever, Bai Ma was in one of the bathrooms at his school.
"I was lucky," he said. "When I came out I saw some of my classmates stuck under the rubble. Some of them didn't get out."
Bai Ma and 99 other children from his hometown were a long way from the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau on Tuesday, as domestic tour organizer Ctrip invited them to the Expo to rediscover the magic of childhood and forget some of their recent misfortune.
The ploy seemed to be working by mid-afternoon, as all the kids at the Expo found they had one thing in common.
"I like the Haibao toys in the shop," said Bai Ma, referring to the official mascot and undisputed cash cow of the Shanghai Expo. His supervisor promised him they would go on a shopping spree after seeing the China Meteorological Pavilion and a Shaolin Monk kungfu show.
Qatar followed a similar charitable theme by inviting 23 children with autism and other development and social handicaps from Shanghai Silent Angel Kindergarten to express themselves in painting, singing and dancing.
"It's not easy for them to come to the Expo because there are problems concerning legal responsibility, so it took us two days of wrangling to make it happen," said Mohammed Saeed Al-Blouchi, the pavilion's director.
He closed the pavilion until lunchtime to give the shy children some privacy. He handed out gifts to all kids in the afternoon.
"They were very happy, dancing and laughing, so it was good. Islam tells us to be kind to all types of people."
Others were more fortunate still, especially those born to well-to-do Shanghai parents, notorious for spoiling their children.
"Oh I don't know if that's true," said Andrew Lu, whose 7-year-old daughter Caroline was dressed in a stunning pink qipao and wraparound shades.
"Maybe some do but not all. We aren't going to buy anything for our daughter today because we got her a bike yesterday. And the qipao is also new."
She wore it because she was invited to a cultural exchange event at the Spain Pavilion, he said.
Lu said he was one of a newly emerging group of Chinese: parents who visit the Expo to please their offspring and end up liking it even more.
"It's better than I thought," he said. "I wasn't an Expo fan before. I just came here for my daughter. But I'm quite impressed."
The Expo welcomed its 8 millionth visitor on May 31 after setting a new attendance level of 503,600 on May 29. The one-day attendance record in World Expo history is believed to have fallen on the third day of Montreal 1967, when 569,000 people showed up.
Tuesday saw scores of cultural activities focusing on young people, including treasure hunts at the Denmark Pavilion, graffiti painting at the Sweden Pavilion and prize giveaways at the Africa Joint Pavilion by local celebrity Lulu.
One striking cultural clash came at the same pavilion's main stage in the afternoon when a male dancer from Ethiopia whisked a toddler from the crowd and shimmied to a backdrop of pounding African drumbeats. "We often pull kids onto the stage. We don't need a special day or occasion to do this," said one of the female Ethiopian dancers.
Nearby, 8-year-old Wu Yuehao from Zhejiang province was pounding on a set of bongo drums with staff from the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Meanwhile life at the Russia Pavilion, which looks like a castle from the outside and a fantastic forest on the inside, continued like a never-ending scene from Alice in Wonderland.
"It seems like we always get a lot of children in here," said Elena Moskalenko, one of the organizer's of the day's events. "They always say 'wow', 'amazing', 'This flower is bigger than me.' It's like a fairytale all around them."
One of the pavilion's events saw middle school children from Shanghai and Moscow paint canvasses together and engage in paint-flicking fights. The results will be displayed around the pavilion later.
Thirteen-year-old Hu Beili wiped some of the face paint off her cheek and said a few words before being summoned by TV news reporters. "This is so much fun. Last year on Children's Day I went shopping with my mom. It was boring."
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