Sunday, September 25, 2005

Global Common 6 (Oceania & Southeast Asia)

The Global Common 6 zone offered shows and exhibits from the Oceania and Southeast Asia countries such as Australia, New Zealand, the Pacific Islands, Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao Republic, Malaysia, Singapore, Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam.
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The theme of the Malaysia Pavilion is 'Truly Natural'. The pavilion was divided into some four corners (bad floor plan and space design). The organizer should have put up more space for the crowd and we were all seemed cramped inside the compact room. The first encounters inside the pavilion were some landscape of rainforest and images of coral reefs (not impressive and overall the lighting was a little too dark, or was it a cave they were trying to show ?!?).
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There was a section that showcased the booming effort of the country in promoting biotechnology. The malay dance performance was lively and entertaining ... but I wasn't able to take any good pictures because of the front crowd.
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I must give credit to the two staff members of the 'Malaysia Boleh' restaurant. The making of roti canai (flat bread dipped with curry) was highly entertaining - the flipping and tossing of the dough in the air requires great skill. Both of them were like in some sort of a competition - the higher one tossed and flipped, the crowd cheered on for more. However, Malaysia is supposed to be characterized as multiracial and multicultural country. But all I saw was malay people, malay dance, malay food (Am I being too critical ?) Why isn't there any wanton mee ? Oh I miss wanton mee (sigh). I know it is not possible to sell bak kut teh but at least yong tau foo has no pork.
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Cambodia's Angkor Wat is one of the most treasured archaeological sites in the world and is considered one of the wonders of the oriental.
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A replica of the famous Angkor Wat temple - high classical style of Khmer architecture.
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The enigmatic carved stone face (that represents the serene faces of the Jayarvaman VII that lie inside the Bayon Temple). Since the 1990s Angkor Wat has seen a resumption of conservation efforts and a massive increase in tourism. Visiting Angkor Wat has always been a dream of mine. Hopefully I could see the mystical temple next April.
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Cambodia has a long tradition of hand weaving silk (tremendous cultural significance). Traditional silk production was one of the aspects affected by the political and social instability occurring in Cambodia during the last quarter century.
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Also enchanted with the stone carvings demonstration - techniques that were used to build and carve the Angkor Wat temples some 1,000 years ago.

A visit to the 2005 Aichi World Exposition was truly entertaining and highly informative. It was like a travel-around-the-world in 8 hours. Worth the experience but totally exhausted.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

As you said, tiring but highly entertaining. Malaysia still has a long way to go in terms of biotech though. Yes, Angkor Wat...!
AL

zbjernak said...

multicultural...yah we are...

putrajaya is a city for all malaysian..a showcased city...
but you see everywhere are those onions.... where is our dragon?
or the other cultures design?

no where....sigh

Patrick Leong said...

ailing : yea. i think so too. i do think that the government's major effort in promoting and sustaining the biotech ambition falls a little short. more effort is needed, more collaborative projects with foreign investors and more grants should have taken place. for malaysia, it is a high-risk biotech gamble ! still a long way to go when compared to giant biotech nations like US and japan. with public debates around biotechnology and genetic engineering, this could be well another ten or twenty years of struggle.

amanda : yes. i think i do travel alot. i have seen much of japan. if i have more money and more time, i like to see many other places too - cambodia, tibet, india, egypt, south america and etc etc. just can't fling all my savings for traveling (although i have that sort of tendency).

zbjernak : yea. you have a very valid comment. very sad case. not that i wanted to debate about politics. this is a travel blog. but the special malay rights and privileges is not up for discussion it seems. free speech is not really free. one can just watch or one can challenge. where do you stand ?

obachan said...

Thank you soooooooooo much for posting about Aichi World Expo. I had absolutely no time, no chance and no money to be there, but thanks to you, I was able to enjoy so many pavilions as I sit in front of my laptop (drinking ice cold beer). I owe you a lot.

Acrix said...

"Malaysia Pavilion
Exterior looked like a club. It was about nature and how they had the world's best sea. It had fake jungles, default fonts, and default Adobe Photograph gradations (picture) = bad." quoted from http://www.kissui.net/mt/archives/001131.html

Anonymous said...

well...not only beach,cave,mountain,river malaysia has but also onion dragon cow n etc ya!! anyway singapore really did very well!i like their show(dancing)!can really c d different between singapore n malaysia thoroughly!!understand why ppl will know where is malaysia located when i tell them malaysia is near singapore!malaysia still needs time in promoting itself clearly n impartially!
FU

Patrick Leong said...

obachan : thank you for your nice comment. do you come visit kyoto again ? please do contact me when you are around in the city. autumn is pretty here. you should visit again.

acrix : overall, i like the bhutan pavilion the best.

ah fu : yea. i think singapore did a good job too. although i did not see the singapore pavilion, but i overheard several japanese saying that they would like to visit singapore.

Melissa said...

The outside of the Malaysian pavillion does kind of look like a club!

Cambodia...I hope you can go! Im still slightly overwhelmed by the experience...I cant intelligently articulate it yet! Still recovering and going through withdrawl. Im definately going back ASAP!