This week we took a trip to the Beijing Horticultural expo. The venue covers a whopping 6 hectares, displaying a variety of flowers, trees, and other greenery. It definitely lives up to its theme “Live Green, Live Better” It’s actually a pretty impressive event in its own right, an effort to increase China’s soft power, garnering the support and participation of over 70 countries and organizations. It’s also an embodiment of China’s promise to become a greener country.
With an expected 16,000,000 visitors, it’s definitely a worthwhile event to attend. Or it should be. More on that later. The venue has five main attractions, including the China Pavilion, the International Pavilion, and the Botanical Pavilion. I’ll be touching on these attractions individually, with pictures of course, and sharing my (mostly negative) feedback.
First things first, the International Pavilion. If you go to the official Horticulture Expo page you’ll be greeted with a strange description of the International Pavilion. Something about “adopt[ing] the multi-dimensional way of “object plus Multimedia plus interaction plus atmosphere” to describe the global horticultural culture stories.” Whatever that means. They may need a better translator to help with their descriptions. The Chinese version isn’t much clearer so maybe it isn’t the translation.
Basically, if I understand correctly, the exhibitions themselves, together with the environment and user interaction come together to tell a narrative. There are several exhibitions within the pavilion, each telling a different story, such as the belt and road initiative. I heard people complain about the lack of interesting things within, and I can definitely agree with this grievance.
The China Pavilion was similarly eh. Don’t bother reading the description for this Pavilion unless you want to understand less once you’re done. This Pavilion keeps the same pattern as other pavilions, the architecture is really impressive, beautiful, but the inside leaves much to be desired. The aerial views of this Pavilion really demonstrate its awe-inspiring beauty, but you can’t really appreciate it from the ground.
Inside, you are also greeted with varying exhibitions. Perhaps the most interesting is the flower arrangement exhibition. It split up into three parts, flower recognition, appreciation, and tasting. However, it’s difficult to appreciate for one big reason. But, I’ll discuss that reason in the below section.
