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China: the Red Cross and Red Crescent pavilion touched 1 million hearts at Expo 2010 in Shanghai
25-11-2010 Feature
Shanghai native Fang Zengfu pointed his camera at a “great wall” of 186 portraits inside the International Red Cross and Red Crescent pavilion at the 2010 World Expo. A student explained that the portraits depicted volunteers from each of the Red Cross and Red Crescent societies worldwide, and Fang nodded approvingly.
“The Red Cross has been really helpful to our country, especially when we’ve suffered natural disasters,” he said. “Now we know how we can help the Red Cross.”
From 1 May to 31 October, 73 million visitors flocked to the Shanghai World Expo, visiting showy national and corporate pavilions designed by some of the world’s top architects. The International Red Cross and Red Crescent pavilion, designed to resemble a relief tent, was a sharp contrast, but no less successful. Over the course of the Expo’s six-month run, it attracted just over 1 million visitors (a daily average of 5,800), distributed tens of thousands of volunteer cards, and made a deep and lasting connection to volunteers and staff—many of whom have vowed to continue working with the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement in the future.
“We don’t have high-tech in our pavilion like the others,” explained Qiu Hailing, the pavilion's deputy director, and head of the international organization division of the Red Cross Society of China (RCSC). “We just touch people’s hearts. Our focus is humanity.”
The pavilion was designed, and built by the RCSC with the help of Chinese designers, filmmakers, and even sound technicians. They worked with the International Committee of the Red Cross and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies to ensure that the experience embodied the work of the Movement around the world. Visitors entered through a corridor projecting images of people affected by armed conflict, natural disasters, and disease; they sat for a short, moving film on the role of the Red Cross and the Red Crescent in alleviating suffering; and they exited past the "great wall" of portraits where they could express their support by having their photos shown on video screens scattered beneath the volunteer portraits.
The pavilion’s success
Despite the attendance records, Guo Changjiang, RCSC vice president, and the pavilion’s commissioner general, was reluctant to measure the pavilion’s success. “How do you quantify humanity?” he asked.
But, gazing at a line of visitors outside the pavilion, he took a moment to express pride in the fact that its donation box collected considerably more money than the one located in the hugely popular flagship China pavilion, which had an average attendance of 35,000 people per day.
“So that is one way to tell you our message was powerful. But only one,” he said.
Hu Chao, a soft-spoken Shanghai-area university student and pavilion volunteer, was another.
“I came to the pavilion because I wanted to help out at the Expo,” he explained. “But now that I’ve experienced and learned about the Red Cross, I want to help out in the future.”
The turning point, he continued, was a chance meeting with a Red Cross volunteer whose photo is one of the 186 on the “great wall.”
“We talked for a long time and he told me about his work at a Red Cross blood-donation centre in China. I was really moved.”
Not far away, inside one of five Red Cross-operated first-aid stations at the Expo, several volunteers were awaiting potential patients. Behind them, in her white coat, was Dr Xu Zhengjie, a physician at Shanghai Xinhua Hospital, enjoying a brief and unusual respite from a heavy workload.
The clinic alone had received 42,764 visitors between 5 September and 6 October, some seeking information and others seeking first aid. Dehydration, in particular, was a problem during the sweltering summer months.
Over the six months, the five stations altogether received 1.75 million visitors, according to the Shanghai Red Cross Society branch. In fact, the Red Cross emblem itself is well-known enough in China that visitors in search of assistance would often stop by the pavilion itself, and eventually pavilion management stocked first-aid supplies there, too!
Yet, despite the almost unfathomable patient load, Dr Xu said she intends to continue working with the Red Cross after the Expo. “It’s very meaningful to me,” she said. “I won’t leave this experience behind.”
Like many others, the Red Cross and Red Crescent pavilion extended its messages beyond its site. For example, on Charity Performance Day at the Expo (9 August), the pavilion co-sponsored a series of traditional, interactive performances on an Expo public stage, including a sign-language instructor who taught the audience basic signed phrases. Student volunteers, energized by their experiences posted articles and blogs online, while the pavilion itself organized first-aid training sessions.
“We planned to do things that could raise our image in China,” Qiu Hailing explained. “And I think we were very successful.”
Drawing to a close
On its final day at 4 p.m., the Red Cross and Red Crescent pavilion drew to a close in a modest ceremony held inside the small theatre where so many thousands watched the pavilion film over the last six months. The mood was not unlike a school graduation where classmates and friends say their final good-byes.
Speeches by dignitaries were greeted with applause, and a slideshow of visitors, volunteers and memories was met with laughter, hoots of recognition, and a few tears.
Shen Hongqin, a pavilion manager, said six months ago he didn’t quite believe that students could run a World Expo pavilion, but that he was never more proud to have been proven wrong.
Hu Chao, the shy student volunteer, was chosen by his peers to give a short speech. “We have all been changed by our experience,” he said. “And we will carry it for the rest of our lives.”
By the rules of the International Bureau of Expositions, the governing body for World Expo events, all pavilions must be demolished. But there’s little chance that the Red Cross and Red Crescent pavilion will disappear completely. Even before the Expo had wound down, several Chinese cities had inquired about acquiring the pavilion. And, according to Guo Changjiang, the Red Cross Society of China intends to sign an agreement to rebuild it in Wuxi, west of Shanghai, in the very near future.
“They want to see the message we brought to the Expo continue,” he said. “And I am very excited to see that happen.”
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