The coronavirus pandemic has pushed back Expo 2020 by a year and could affect how many people visit the UAE. But the six-month-long exhibition still provides an important opportunity for Dubai to showcase its unique East-meets-West appeal as a place where everyone is welcome to do business.
Not long ago, the site of the 1,080-acre (438 ha) expo was a barren desert. Now, it’s an enigmatic futuristic landscape with robots giving automated commands to dance and bark at masked visitors, a new subway station, multimillion-dollar pavilions and so-called districts with names like “Stability” and “Opportunity.” – All built, as in most parts of the Gulf, by low-wage migrant workers.
More than 190 countries are using their pavilions to highlight their biggest tourist attractions, discoveries and ambitions. The US pavilion, paid for by the UAE after US struggling for funding, boasts a replica of the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and takes visitors on a conveyor belt past multimedia infomercials for American inventions. It also displays a Quran that belongs to the country’s third president, Thomas Jefferson, an example of how freedom of religion is “woven into the fabric of American society.”
China’s massive, lantern-shaped pavilion focuses on the country’s space ambitions and future invention plans, with a transformer-like car that SAIC Motor hopes to one day serve as a submarine and helicopter as well.
Atop the Italian pavilion is a 70-kilometre (40-mile) rope made from two million plastic bottles. The main attraction, however, is a 3-D replica of Michelangelo’s biblical hero David, made of marble dust. The 5.2 m (17 ft) high naked mammoth is not easily accessible – visitors must enter the individual floors of a building to see it at eye level or look up from its feet. Public nudity is outlawed in the United Arab Emirates, where traditional Muslim norms largely prevail.
The UAE’s falcon-shaped pavilion, the largest ever built, takes visitors on a two-hour-long experience through surreal orange sand dunes and footage of the country’s 50-year history.
Other attractions include an African food hall, a royal Egyptian mummy, concerts and performances from around the world, and the option to dine on a $500 three-course meal with glow-in-the-dark cuisine.
Isabel Fu, 50, said she flew all the way from Beijing to the expo, “the kind of changes we’ll see in the future, the technology that makes us look forward to the next era.” Upon her return to China, she faces a 21-day quarantine.
Since first making a splash in London in 1851, World’s Fairs have long been an opportunity for nations to meet, exchange ideas, display inventions, promote culture, and build business relationships.
For more than a century, these global exhibitions have captured the imagination and showcased some of humanity’s most important innovations. The first World’s Fair held in the United States in 1876 saw the introduction of Alexander Graham Bell’s telephone, typewriter, a mechanical calculator, and Heinz ketchup. One of its main buildings, the Memorial Hall, is now a museum.
Other fairs showcased inventions such as the sewing machine, elevator, carbonated soda, the Ferris wheel, and in 1939 the television in New York.
This year’s expo is taking place in the midst of a global pandemic, when untold numbers are still working and studying remotely – and virtually connecting with the world. It is unclear how many visitors Dubai could attract, and how much the expo will stimulate its tourism-driven economy – especially in the heat of early autumn, which sparked anger on Friday, leaving some visitors unconscious and Most people had to sweat through their shirts. .
“We are dying! Humans cannot stand this weather,” said 35-year-old Varda Abadi from Saudi Arabia, as she grazed her lame mother in the shade.
To enter the expo site, visitors must show a negative PCR test or proof of COVID-19 vaccination.
The Ruler of Dubai and the force behind the transformation of the Emirate, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, says that Expo 2020 is an opportunity to showcase the best of human excellence.
“It provides a platform to make a joint worldwide effort to build a more sustainable and prosperous future for all mankind,” he told the guests at the expo’s opening ceremony.
Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince and de facto ruler of Abu Dhabi, the UAE’s seat of power, emphasized the “ethos of this land” as a meeting point for cultures and tolerance.
Whether it is Iran or Israel, every country is welcome at the Dubai Expo. The space marked on the maps for the Afghanistan Pavilion, however, appeared empty weeks after the Taliban’s takeover of Kabul.
Isa Nuaimi, a 25-year-old government pilot from the Emirati city of Al Ain, said: “It gives me great pride to see for the first time so many different types of cultures, countries and traditions in my country.”
However, Human Rights Watch said the UAE’s efforts to promote itself as an “open and tolerant country” are accompanied by human rights abuses, including suppression of peaceful criticism, jailing activists and widespread surveillance.
“The UAE has begun a decades-long attempt to whitewash its reputation on the international stage,” the rights group said.
The expo site will nonetheless attempt to dazzle visitors with a centerpiece dome, which is marketed as the world’s largest 360-degree projection screen.
Some of the world’s fairest structures remain iconic markers of human travel and our industrial development. None other than the Eiffel Tower, built in Paris, not only to be the tallest structure in the world at the time, but to serve as the entrance to the 1889 World’s Fair.
The Space Needle in Seattle, Washington, built for the 1962 World’s Fair, is another structure with continued prominence and fascination.
While most fairs were held in Europe and the United States, none have been held in the Middle East until now.
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