Coffee abundant at Shanghai Expo, but Jamaican hospitality missing
Published:Friday | June 18, 2010 | 12:00 AM
Lavern Clarke, Business Editor
SHANGHAI, China:
The aroma was unmistakable. Freshly brewed Blue Mountain coffee welcomed visitors to the Jamaican booth at the Shanghai Expo, where the world has put its cities on display for six months to October 31.
It smelled like home, but something was missing.
At the entrance to the 320-square metre booth, at left and to the back of the Caribbean Pavilion, on Wednesday, were the familiar high mountain coffee products of Wallenford and Salada Foods around which a small group is gathered for tasting - as much fascinated by the prospect of consuming real Jamaican coffee as with the brewing equipment.
But unlike the Chinese-speaking St Lucian two booths up, and Bahamians next door, visitors are welcomed by a female Chinese volunteer, Julia Wang, provided by the expo organisers.
The Jamaicans, we are told, are on a break. The two women, one of whom later identified herself as booth director Gene Hylton, employed to Jamaica Trade and Invest, are clearly visible in the glass-panelled backroom. They appear to be eating, while the smattering of people that have entered the booth mostly wander aimlessly.
Hylton denies a request for an interview on activities at the booth, directing all queries to Kingston.
No other Jamaican products are visible. The glass-panelled storage room has more coffee in large carton boxes and a couple of seashells on a display shelf.
Jamaican coffee is known here as a high-end product - but not as well known as Usain Bolt - and is the most expensive.
At up to 98 yuan per cup at the airport and at coffee bars, Blue Mountain has a 26-yuan gap over the next most pricey coffee found on those menus.
"Yes, I love Jamanique. So nice," said a young female taster, referring to the coffee, in halting English. "I love Usain Bolt," the self-identified university student also told The Gleaner, unprompted.
Bolt and other Jamaican Olympians who created history for Jamaica and the Caribbean at the Beijing Olympics in 2008, are prominently featured in the sports cubicle of the Jamaican booth; so too is reggae music, with the legendary Bob Marley dominating one wall inside the cubicle next to the Olympians.
Inside the entertainment booth, a group of 10-15 gawkers are spell-bound by the music videos and the bikini-clad girls featured in them. It appears to be the most fascinating pull for the Chinese. Other screens mounted at different points in the booth highlights Jamaica, but there is no guide to explain the images, no narrative to engage visitors, so interest is fleeting - no one stops for long to view them.
Apart from the music-video watchers, and those who posed for pictures by the life-size image of Bolt, visitors observed over a 20-minute period stayed in the Jamaican booth only a few minutes. There was little incentive to linger.
Jamaicans living in Shanghai told the Financial Gleaner that the Jamaican embassy had sent out an appeal for Chinese-speaking nationals to volunteer as booth hosts over the life of the expo, but that there was no follow-up of the initial request.
However, at least one Jamaican, Nicoleen Johnson, who studied in Shanghai and now lives and works there as a consultant, was said to be on board as liaison. Johnson, who is from Westmoreland, is the president of the Caribbean Association of China.
The Caribbean Pavilion features 14 CARICOM countries, as well as a small booth for the CARICOM Secretariat.
Down the corridor, Guyana's focus on its agriculture economy - rice, fishing and sugar - and its emphasis on the environment appear to be a big pull for visitors. Its storyboards are in English and Chinese.
On the other side of the Pavilion, Barbados captures the interest of gawkers with pulsating calypso rhythms, videos of megastar Rihanna and a bubbly Barbadian hostess who is fun to watch as she engages Expo participants. One minute she's dancing, the next posing for photos with Chinese visitors.
Two booths up, Antigua and Barbuda is similarly festive and distributing souvenirs. And next door the Jamaican booth, The Bahamas appears to be all business.
The Caribbean Pavilion creates a feeling of warmth on entry - capturing the essence of economies that thrive, in the main, on hospitality and tourism. But, their stories in Shanghai are mundane, focusing on what exists now instead of offering a vision of what lies ahead. Video images aside, technology does not feature prominently in the displays.
The theme of the expo is 'Better City, Better Life'. Many of the countries on display create a storyline that links the past to the present, and the present to the future. Both developed and developing societies envision a high quality of life for their people that strikes a balance between technology and nature.
Featured pavilions
Some of those elements are captured in different concepts by China, Mexico, Germany and Spain, whose pavilions are featured in a tour of the expo site by a group of nine Latin American and Caribbean media executives and senior editors, who are guests of the State Council Information Office of China on a two-week blitz of three provinces - Beijing, Sichuan and Shanghai.
Germany, masters of engineering, sees its city dwellers surrounded by beauty in 'green' urban spaces depicted by garden settings. The pavilion's major drawing card is a giant energy ball hanging from the ceiling, which portrays changing images and can be made to swing in the direction of human voices - illustrating the power of individuals to influence change when their energies are properly directed.
China's booth focuses heavily on art and technology, and the evolution of family life over decades. The tour ends with a film in a four-screen cinema - one of which is installed in the ceiling - which envisions Chinese urban life in raised cities that leaves space on the ground for flora and fauna to thrive.
At the Jamaican booth, another Chinese expo volunteer is busy pouring cups of coffee for visitors. He speaks faltering English and is unable to say just how many coffee tastings are done in a day. The other Jamaica Trade and Invest representative, who identified herself as Nelissa Hinds, emerges from the backroom but again refers queries to Kingston.
The Shanghai Expo welcomes about 350,000 visitors per day, peaking Tuesday at 500,000 according to Expo representatives. At close, they expect that 70 million would have visited over the May 1-October 31 period.
The 5.28-square kilometre expo compound, which has some 190 countries on show, initially housed a shipyard, factories and residences before it was co-opted as show venue.
At the end of October when the expo closes, all but four buildings will be dismantled: the China Pavilion; the Expo Centre for events and conferences; Expo Axis, the commercial and transportation hub; and the Theme Pavilion, featuring Beijing.
Shanghai is yet to decide to what use it will put the property after the expo, but one of the considerations is to develop it into a world financial centre, a Shanghai Information Office tour guide, told The Gleaner.