Walking down the streets of Shanghai is a constant battle for me. As I’m forced to awkwardly bound across the gaping potholes and wet cement sidewalks every morning on my way to school, I silently curse the Shanghai government for their decision to host the 2010 World Expo. I wish I could tell you just exactly what the World Expo is — but to be honest I haven’t quite figured that out yet. All I know is that it involves the importing of ridiculously weird buildings, a weird Gumby look-a-like mascot named Haibao, and an obscenely obnoxious amount of traffic construction. It literally takes me hours to walk anywhere as I have to renavigate my walking route to bypass road work.
But recently the construction has been stepped up a notch for the impending celebration of the 60th Anniversary of the Founding of the Communist Party this Thursday. This is a super big deal in China. Imagine if the Fourth of July was turned into a week-long, ultra-patriotic, MSG-heavy, American Idol-esque, military-style block party that over 1 billion people participated in. And there were no restrictions on fireworks. That’s the best way I can think of to describe how insane the National Holiday is here. Chinese people love China. And to protect the Chinese people who do love China from the Chinese people who don’t love China, the police force will be expanded and pretty much all foreign Internet will be blocked. Don’t expect to hear from me for the next week or so.
In the mean time, I will be traveling to Chengdu – capital of spicy food and pandas. We’re planning on seeing the largest stone Buddha in the world as well as hiking a famous Buddhist mountain complete with awe-inspiring Chinese peaks and kleptomaniac monkeys.
If you’re interested in seeing some pictures of National Holiday preparations, this website has a pretty good photo-montage of the madness. Oh China, you so crazy…
