Remembering Nation Brands

Abstract

While the pavilion experience is ephemeral, one’s impression of the pavilion and what it represents of the nation can be enduring. This chapter explores the longer-term impact of the Shanghai Expo by examining visi-tors’ recollections of their pavilion experiences and their memory of the nation brands as enacted through exhibition. As pointed out in earlier discussions, the World Expo is a “micro-version of international tourism,”² and the mega-event is to be not only experienced but also remembered. In their analysis of visitors’ recollections of the 1967 Montreal’s World’s Fair forty years later, David Anderson and Viviane Gosselin wrote, “[T]here is ample testimony of the continued life of the exhibition and of shared experiences long after the exhibition has come to an end. Moreover, understanding visitors’ long-term memories of exhibitions … months and years after the event helps to gain a more encompassing understanding of the exhibition’s contribution to its community.”³ Indeed, discovering visitors’ memories of their pavilion experience also helps to shed light on the pavilions’ ability to communicate their national image and culture. It demonstrates the extent to which the pavilions achieve representational and transformative impact.

My childhood was filled with stories of the 1939 World Fair in New York and a favorite dinner-table conversation of my grandparents. The Fair was a tipping point in terms of the technological achievements humanity could accomplish and a defining moment in my grandparents’ young lives. Their inability to forget the dazzling lights, exotic pavilions and electrifying performances their eyes saw 70 years ago, is something that has always amazed me and brought me to Shanghai to discover what makes Expos so unforgettable.

Mary Anne McElroy wrote for The China Daily during the Shanghai Expo¹