News bites

Hot fun

As the "san fu" season, the hottest period of the year, kicks in, lining up to get into pavilions in the Expo Garden has become more demanding for visitors. Thankfully, some pavilions are introducing schemes to make the wait less painful. Cirque du Soleil, the well-known Canadian circus troupe, will be outside the Canada Pavilion spreading some fun with tricks involving half-empty bottles of Coca-Cola, straws and rubbish bins. Visitors will be guaranteed a fun time so their wait to enter the pavilion will not seem as long.

The USA Pavilion has also got into the act of helping kill time for people waiting to enter its pavilion. The pavilion's student ambassadors sing the classical Chinese nursery rhyme, Two Tigers, or talk to visitors in the Shanghai dialect. Most of the American students have been studying in China, while some are American-born Chinese.

All talk

An Expo Cup university debate competition organized by the Bureau of Shanghai World Expo Coordination and China Education TV is down to the finalists. Peking University, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Southwest University of Political Science and Law and the Chinese University of Hong Kong will compete in the final in late August.

The competition began in March and attracted about 100 universities from all over China, including those in Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan. Based on the Expo theme "Better City, Better Life", the contestants held debates on topics including: Is the urban low-carbon life more dependant on technology advancement or change of living philosophy?

Stamp of approval

About 20 volunteers whose job is to stamps visitors' Expo passports are now in the Israel Pavilion and the Korea Pavilion. The Norway Pavilion and the France Pavilion also resumed stamping Expo passports. It is expected that about 200 volunteers will eventually help pavilions with the stamping of Expo passports. Many pavilions had earlier stopped issuing stamps because of the overwork it was creating for staff.

Expo lottery

Expo-themed welfare lottery tickets, authorized by the China Welfare Lottery Company and the Bureau of Shanghai World Expo Coordination, are being sold in the Expo Garden up until the Expo closes on Oct 31. Tickets cost 5, 10 and 20 yuan, with the highest prize of 500,000 yuan.

SMS help

A text message service catering to Expo volunteers started operation recently. Students majoring in applied psychology at Shanghai Normal University send text messages to volunteers according to their emotional fluctuations. The service categorizes volunteers based on their duties and writes messages accordingly. A telephone number has been opened to allow for more interaction between the volunteers and students.

China Daily

(China Daily 07/23/2010 page35)