I know I bought a fake Haibao, but I don’t care, it’s just a souvenir and is much cheaper,” a tourist surnamed Wang from China’s Sichuan Province said. She just paid 15 yuan (US$2.19) to buy a 30-centimeter-tall Haibao doll, the mascot of the World Expo 2010 Shanghai, in a store in the city’s Yuyuan Garden for her son. An authentic Haibao doll of thesame size is 95 yuan in the official Expo souvenir shops and the price is the same across the country. The woman’s five year old son held the big doll with a smile on his face. He shouted “Haibao, Haibao,” but he might not know that it’s not really the Expo 2010 mascot. It is a lighter blue in color and fatter than the real mascot.
More people, especially children, have come to recognize the mascot and tourists buy Haibao toys as souvenirs. But an increasingly number of stores are selling counterfeit Haibao dolls. On Nanjing Road Pedestr ian Mall, one of the most crowded commercial areas of the city, street peddlers brazenly lay out their stalls selling fake Haibao toys in front of the largest licensed Expo souvenir flagship store of the city. In People’s Square, peddlers divide their fake Expo products into two parts and tell passers by seriously. “The five-yuan Haibao doll is fake, don’t buy them , but the 15 yuan one is absolut elyauthentic. ”Yuyuan Garden area, a tourist destination as well as one of the largest small commodity whole saling markets in the city, has the largest number of stores selling fake Haibao toys.
Almost one in every two stores displays Haibao dolls hanging in the shop fronts. The fake Haibao dolls are quite popular. About 1,000 dolls can be sold on average every day, a store keeper near the garden said proudly. But when being asked where the dolls come from, she became cautious and refused to answer. Her store is only 10 square meters but within three minutes, she solda 15-yuan Haibao doll and a thre eyuan Haibao key ring.
But the licensed stores in the same area can only sell no more than 100 Haibao dolls every day, said Zhang Mingyi, manager of a licensed Expo souvenir shop in the garden. The fake item stores have great Business brisk for sellers of fake Haibaos and souvenirs Expopedia Expopedia impact on the business of the licensed shops. Zhang said his store opened in May and was the first store selling Expo products in the Yuyuan Garden area. The sales volume was about 10,000 yuan every day at that time, but dropped dramatically to only 3,000 yuan as more and more fake Haibao stores showed up. A sales woman surnamed Shi in Expo’s Nanjing Road flagship store said sales had decreased by more than 30 percent because of the peddlers in front of their store. “The city’s departments should crack down on these stores, not only to protect us but also to avoid buyers being fooled,” Zhang said. Continue reading

When people see thei conic China Pavilion draped in red cloth and formed in the ancient Chinese dougong architectural style at the Shanghai World Expo site, most will be curious about what will be exhibited inside the huge and fancy structure. The pavilion is at first glance a very obviously Chinese structure. When the Chinese red veil is lifted, it will reveal a complex structure that celebrates a diverse range of traditional Chinese elements, including architecture, calligraphy, gardening and urban planning. However, the inside will be full of modern elements. Visitors will be able to ride in a cable car, watch a movie directed by young Chinese director Lu Chuan and view a multimedia display of a top national treasure painting. The exhibition will tell a Chinese story about a “city” and a “search.” The theme will be the “Search ofthe East” looking for the wisdom that the ancient Chinese used to tackle urban problems, the design team for the inner exhibition of the pavilion revealed when it unveiled the exhibition plan in Shanghai last Thursday. The three story China Pavilion will have a “Footprint of the East” main section on the top story, a “Journey of Wisdom” area on the second story and a “Blossoming City” area on the ground. The main exhibition area will be its upper section. Visitors will first be taken to the 8,500 squaremeter section on top of the pavilion by lifts
From the beaches of the Zhoushan Archipelago in the East China Sea, people can view mountains draped in clouds and mist, listen to the voice of the sea and enjoy a bounty of seafood. Now they can also get a glimpse of Shanghai World Expo from about 250 kilometers away. It’s all in the sand. The annual Sand Sculpture Festival is underway on Zhujiajian, an island southeast of Zhoushan Island in Zhejiang Province. Until it closes on November 30, local people and visitors will be able to marvel at sand replicas of many of the Expo pavilions and exhibits that are on display at the Shanghai Expo Exhibition Hall on Huaihai Road M.
What’s your impression of Shanghai’s Metro?Brighter than Paris’ and cleaner than Beijing’s? Regardless of other comparisons, it shares one thing withmost other subway systems in major cities around theworld: It is extremely crowded during rush hours. Millions of people in Shanghai take the Metro to work. After a long tiring day in the office, the stuffy crowded metro carriages can be depressing. Imagine if you could hear birds singing, read beautiful poems and look at colorful pictures would that brighten the trip?
Twelve countries and two international organizations from Oceania will build an 8,100 square meter joint pavilion at World Expo 2010. The South Pacific Tourism Organization (SPTO) signed a participation contract with Expo organizers last Tuesday on behalf of the Pacific blockin Suva, the capital of Fiji. A total of 42 countries and international organization shave signed participationcontracts.The Oceania Pavilion willshowcase the beauty of thePacific Ocean nations, their unique culture and sustainable lifestyle through the theme “Pacific Ocean —Spring of Inspiration.”The island nations of Vanuatu, Papua New Guinea, Palau, Tonga, Micronesia, Samoa, Fiji, Cook Islands, Kiribati, Solomon Islands, Tuvalu and the Marshall Islands, as well as the Pacific Islands Forum, authorized the SPTO to organize and coordinate their Expo 2010 participation.
The Expo organizerhas one sloganfor Expo volunteers that reads“My Will, My Help, MyPleasure.”Can you understand it? Foreigners might bepuzzled when they seethis slogan on volunteers’uniforms, pointed out LuGusun, a senior Chinese linguist with Fudan University. Lu enjoys a great reputationin the academic circle andedited the Chinese-EnglishDictionary, first in the1980s. “The phrase ‘My Will’sounds like a last testament and foreigners willwonder what the volunteeris supposed to do. ” Hesaid it would be better tochange the word “will” into“determination.

Tomoko Tanaka is the Shanghai correspondent for TV Asahi, one of the five largest TV stations in Japan. Every month, she sends news reports about Shanghai to Japan. When she is not working, Tomoko strolls along the streets looking for interesting titbits or just learning about the place. But now she has a new place where she can go to either relax or get news. The World Expo 2010 Shanghai organizer, together with the Information Office and Foreign Affairs Office of the Shanghai government, has set up a foreign correspondents’ center with the assistance of Shanghai Daily to keep journalists up-to-date on Expo preparations.