China Watch Blog

China Watch Blog has learnt that ‘The Voice of China’, the hottest show this summer which just finished on Sunday at the Shanghai Stadium, raking in advertisement prices of up to 1.16 million yuan for each 15 seconds slot, is now facing punishment for the organisers’ greed.

The two and a half hour show dragged on for more than four hours because of the huge amount of advertising, which the audience and residents living nearby could hardly bear. Someone called the police, and the show is now facing punishment for going over-time and
disturbing residents late at night.

And apparently the show has earned more than 100 million yuan up to now in ad income only, according to a Shanghai Daily report.

The report said the organizers’ bliss was audiences’ melancholy. In the final live show on Sunday, about 14 rounds of advertisements were aired, each of which came at a crucial result-announcing moment.

Frequently interrupted by advertisements, some live audience members complained that the show wasn’t worth its ticket prices of 180 to 1680 yuan.

Chinw Watch Blog has learnt that Shanghai has converted its China Pavilion for Expo 2010 into the China Art Museum (中華藝術宮),making it a new art landmark in the city from October 1.

China Pavilion

The China Art Museum covers 166,000 square meters with 64,000 square meters of display space. Speaking of the size, China Art Museum is the largest art museum in China or even Asia. It aspires to become a world-class art museum on par with the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and Musee d’Orsay in Paris.

One of the highlights of the expo pavilion was a digital rendering of Qingming Shang He Tu, or Along the River During Qingming Festival, an ancient scroll painting, which will also be on display at the China Art Palace in the near future.

The China Art Museum is not the only art event in Shanghai. The Shanghai Biennale also kicked off at the Shanghai Museum of Contemporary Art, which is a 15-minute drive from China Art Museum.

China Watch Blog has learnt that the World Expo site is gearing up for a possible “super peak” of up to 1.2 million visitors a day this weekend – the last opportunity for ordinary ticket holders to attend the event, and visitors have been assured that they will still be able to get to the site and enjoy a meal once they arrive.

Transport links, restaurants and security on the Expo site have made preparations to receive 1.2 million visitors both yesterday and today, Huang Jianzhi, deputy director general of the Bureau of Shanghai World Expo Coordination, said.

All pavilions have been told to prepare for the super peak and asked not to close before the stipulated 10:30pm, Shanghai Daily reported.

“Despite being fully prepared, we’ve still felt uncertain about how many people would visit in the final weekend,” Huang said.

He said organizers had expected to receive 750,000 last Saturday but more than 1 million came in the end.

More than 800,000 visitors flocked to the site yesterday, the second highest number at the Shanghai Expo. The highest attendance figure, so far, was last Saturday.

China Watch Blog has learnt that more than 20 events and programmes will be held in and outside the Shanghai Expo Park during Hong Kong Week to climax Hong Kong’s expo activities.

Director of Information Services Michael Wong said the week will see 60 events by 1,000 performers and staff of 12 organisations. Chief Executive Donald Tsang will officiate at the opening ceremony at the park’s Baosteel Stage on October 18.

The Hong Kong Pop Up parade will be held daily inside the park and the centrepiece of the parade will be a giant pop-up book.

The Hong Kong Sinfonietta will close the programme by performing Stravinsky’s A Soldier’s Story.

RTHK and the Shanghai Media Group will broadcast the opening and closing ceremonies in Hong Kong and on the Mainland.

The opening will be webcast live on RTHK’s website and broadcast on RTHK Putonghua Channel on October 18 from 11am. The closing performance at the Shanghai Oriental Art Centre will be broadcast live on RTHK Radio Four and Shanghai Radio FM947 on October 22 from 7.30pm.

A 90-minute Hong Kong Week Special is scheduled to be broadcast at 7pm on October 23 on ATV Home Channel and will also be available on RTHK’s website.

China Watch Blog has learnt that the ongoing Shanghai World Expo 2010 had received more than 60 million visitors as of this noon, according to the Expo Coordination Bureau.

Also by 11am today, the Expo Park had received 240,000 visitors for the day.

The event saw a record high of 630,000 visitors on September 23, the second day of the three-day Mid-Autumn Festival holiday.

During the week-long National Day holiday that ended yesterday, the Expo Park received 2.47 million visitors, with the number of daily visitors averaging about 400,000 from October 3 to October 5, the most popular time during the holiday to visit.

The event, held in China for the first time, opened on May 1, and will last until October 31.

China Watch Blog has learnt that the Hong Kong Sinfonietta will present Igor Stravinsky’s masterpiece “A Soldier’s Story” in a dazzling crossover production that will bring down the curtain on Hong Kong Week for Expo 2010 Shanghai China (Shanghai Expo).

Apart from being the closing programme for Hong Kong Week at Expo, the production will also be the closing performance of the Hong Kong Cultural Week of the 12th China Shanghai International Arts Festival.

The presentation will combine music, dance and drama and feature leading performing arts talents from around the region.

“‘A Soldier’s Story’ is based on a Russian folk tale of a soldier trading his fiddle to the devil for a book of fortune,” said Hong Kong Sinfonietta Music Director, Ms Yip Wing-sie. “In addition to its intricate counter point and rhythmically variable work, ‘A Soldier’s Story’ is also a moral tale of greed and punishment.”

The orchestra performed its debut of “A Soldier’s Story” in 2005, receiving critical acclaim for the interpretation of this 20th Century masterpiece. It also won a Hong Kong Dance Award in 2008.

Narrated in Putonghua, “A Soldier’s Story” will be presented on October 22 in the Oriental Concert Hall, Shanghai Oriental Art Center.

To complete the programme, the Hong Kong Sinfonietta will also perform two other master works by Stravinsky chosen for the context, “Three Pieces for Clarinet” featuring Principal Clarinet Johnny Fong and “Jeu de Cartes”.

Check out: www.hkexpo2010.gov.hk.

“A Soldier’s Story”
Date: October 22, 2010
Time: 7.30pm
Venue: Oriental Concert Hall, Shanghai Oriental Art Center
Length: Approx 2 hours
Narration in Putonghua
Ticket price: RMB 580(VIP), 380, 280, 180, 100
Online Booking: www.festivalclub.org
Programme enquiries:
Hong Kong Sinfonietta (852) 2836 3336
The Center for China Shanghai International Arts Festival
(86 21) 6272 0440

China Watch Blog has learnt that Expo organizers are to stop selling standard-day and multi-day tickets from Wednesday, Sept 1,  2010, to control visitor numbers over the event’s final two months.

More than 520,000 visitors crowded the Expo site on Saturday,  Aug 28, 2010, making it the second busiest day since the Shanghai Expo opened on May 1.  Among the visitors, more than 110,000 visitors had complimentary tickets issued by the Shanghai government. On Aug 21, 2010,  more than 560,000 visitors poured into the park, a record high.

A Shanghai Daily report quoted the Ticketing Center of the Expo as saying that only intraday tickets (including night tickets available from 4pm) and peak-day tickets for the National Day holiday (October 1 to 7) and last week of the Expo (October 25 to 31) would be available from Wednesday, Sept 1, 2010.

The move is aimed at ensuring the smooth operation of the Expo over the last two months and make visitors more comfortable, said Zhao Lei, deputy director of the center. Huge numbers of visitors are expected at the Expo site in the final months according to the experience of previous World Expos.

People tended to flock to the Expo in the last two months as closing time drew near and foreign pavilions began to offer discounts on their products, Chen Xianjin, deputy director general of the Expo bureau said.

Zhao said the organizers had reached its target on sales of standard-day tickets that cost 160 yuan (US$23.52) each, but declined to say what that number was. She said many visitors with standard-day tickets had yet to visit the Expo and there were worries they might all come at the same time.

Sales of the three-day (400 yuan) and seven-day (900 yuan) tickets have stopped as they had all sold out. Multi-day tickets have been popular since selling began in January because of their lower prices for each day compared to the standard-day ticket, officials said.

People can buy intraday tickets at the Expo entrances. Zhao said the supply would be sufficient.

By 9pm yesterday, more than 46.5 million people had visited the Expo.

China Watch Blog points out that those who had read my earlier blog that some people were bringing old or handicapped people with wheel chairs to avoid the long queues to get into the pavilions at Shanghai World Expo faster can just forget this trick, if they are contemplating on trying it.

Most of the pavilions have gotten wise to this trick and have stop giving people in wheel chairs special preferences. They have to join the long queues as well.

But mind you there is always innovation.

Some westerners have noted that there are some Chinese visitors who enter the pavilions after producing some pieces of paper, using the workers’ entrance. So, they raised this issue to no avail.

Who knows whether these people who are entering the workers’ entrance at the pavilions are really workers or visitors. But the point is the westerners say these people are too well dressed and carrying expensive looking handbags to be workers at the pavilions.

Sources say that the top Chinese officials and their families are not likely to queue up at the pavilions, so tthey probably are given special passes to enter the pavilions at the Expo. Of the more than 45 million visitors who have already visited the Expo till last week, it is more than likely these special passes will continue to be dished out VIPs so that they will not have to queue up. That is the China system.

Latest report  show that visitors to the Hong Kong Pavilion and Hong Kong’s exhibition at the Urban Best Practices Area (UBPA) at World Expo 2010 Shanghai China (Shanghai Expo) reached the two million mark yesterday (August 17).

The Commissioner of the HKSAR Expo Affairs Office, Patrick Chan, said he and his colleagues were pleased and encouraged by the high number of visitors. “The figure testifies to the popularity of Hong Kong’s two pavilions,”  Chan said.

The overall popularity of Shanghai Expo was also evident with total admissions exceeding 40 million on August 14. “Since the operation of the two pavilions is running smoothly, our top priority now is to keep up the spirit of our team and continue to maintain a high level of service to our visitors so that they will have a pleasant and memorable experience.

“Looking forward, I think the highlight or the most exciting event to be staged by Hong Kong will have to be the five-day Hong Kong Week that will kick off at the Baosteel Stage in the Shanghai Expo Park on October 18.  There will be an amazing array of performances by famous singers and performing groups, as well as other cultural events, especially during the opening ceremony on the morning of October 18.”

China Watch Blog received a report from a lady whom we shall call as Mrs Chen, who came from Shenzhen last week to visit Shanghai Expo 2010  being held in Pudong.

The lady had joined a travel package that included accommodation in Shanghai, and she thought she had a “bargain”.

Too bad, she did not bargain for the hotel to be in some remote corner of Shanghai, very far away from the Shanghai Expo site. It cost her about 200 yuan for a one way taxi ride to the Shanghai Expo site.

Luckily, she ran into a Hong Kong friend working and living in Shanghai, who offered her a place to stay and to go to the Expo from her place. Although the friend’s place is in Puxi side, it only cost Mrs Chen about 30-odd yuan to get to the Expo.

So a word of advice to those who want to buy the travel and accommodation package. Make sure you know where the accommodation is, and how much it will cost you to get to the Expo.