EDITOR'S note:

Shanghai Daily will publish a series of interviews focused on the legacies of the ongoing World Expo in Shanghai. The first interview is with Dr Awni Behnam, commissioner general of the UN Pavilion, who spoke to Shanghai Daily reporter Ni Tao on Wednesday about Expo's impact on people's understanding of "Better City, Better Life."

Q: The Urban Best Practices Area shows how some pressing problems in urban life are being addressed. At first it was not very popular, but numbers have picked up. What's behind this shift?

A: I think this is because of the quick learning process of the Chinese public. I've seen with my own eyes an amazing fact that youths have come and seen the statistics we display at the UN Pavilion on sanitation, urbanization, energy, food, carbon emissions, refugees, etc.

I saw them photographing the information. And I'm very happy about that because they are understanding the message and seeing the statistics of how our cities grow, what it means, how carbon emissions increase, etc.

This is a healthy sign of curiosity and interest. And what you saw in the UN Pavilion is that people have realized that there is much more to the Expo than just entertainment, and that's why we have the shift.



Q: The UN Pavilion chooses Chinese tea as a central element of its theme. How do you think Chinese tea can better our understanding of global governance?

A: This is very simple. We see tea as a form of culture and tradition that is centered on harmony, understanding and dialogue. Our pavilion is about dialogue, about understanding each other, about sitting around the table.

Therefore tea is very representative. We find it to be the symbol of the very essence of our message, that we need to talk to each other, sit around and sip tea in a peaceful state of mind to solve problems.

This is where the culture of tea and the philosophy behind global governance converge. The ultimate aim of global governance is peace. And peace can only come from compromise, from understanding each other.



Q: How can China learn and what does it have to offer at this Expo?

A: What China has shown at this Expo is its dynamism, diversity, capabilities, capacity and openness to cooperation. It has offered us an open door to cooperation. International cooperation is our ultimate aim and here I see great opportunities of cooperation, particularly South-South cooperation.

China has provided tremendous assistance to other developing countries, showing them how to best use human resources and existing resources to build up their capacity for cooperation.

What we have started here is that we've unleashed the most powerful source of development - cooperation. China can be the force that will put developing countries out of underdevelopment. It also needs the market and resources from these countries. Those resources are not taken by force or stolen. China will secure its needs through friendly means.

Let me return the theme of tea to make my points clearer. It's about getting around, asking what you need and what I need and we agree on how to help each other. Through win-win cooperation, we form the basis of future peace.

Q: How does an Expo or World's Fair have the potential to benefit the host country?

A: I was asked this question over and over and my reply is very simple. Do you ever go to Paris without wanting to see the Eiffel Tower? The tower was a pavilion built for the Expo in 1889. As a result, now you can't imagine France without the Eiffel Tower.

The Expo's legacy is not just that your wonderful pavilion will be a reminder of China's capabilities, or the next Eiffel Tower. The greatest legacy of all is that we have opened the wonderful doors of cooperation and we have banked a great deal of knowledge.



Q: Some claim this Expo helps make the Chinese "more civilized." From your observation, are the Chinese you see the same as those you've read about in the press?

A: I really don't share the thing said about "civilized." Every nation has its different pattern of behavior. It has nothing to do with being "civilized" or "uncivilized."

We've seen Expo visitors queue diligently without problems for nine hours. Can you ask any more of them? Can you imagine how big the crowds were and no casualties were involved? I have a very good impression of the Chinese visitors, not because they learned to be "civilized," but because they already have wonderful values of a great civilization that make them "civilized."

So to say that somehow they were "uncivilized" and behaved badly before the Expo, that's a cliche. I don't believe that. You can go around the world and find people are just the same. To say the Chinese are worse than other people in terms of manners is a fallacy. As for the media criticism, it's okay to criticize oneself, but don't overdo it.



Q: As Chinese society becomes more and more materialistic, traditional emphasis on harmony and contentment is becoming obsolete. Can the Expo reshape people's understanding of what makes a happy life, and that possessing fancy stuff may be counterproductive?

A: More material things don't necessarily amount to happiness. Real happiness lies in the human dimension, not the possession of certain goods.

For instance, we have a creative corridor in the UN Pavilion. The corridor is about the human dimension of meeting the challenges to achieve a better city and better life, for instance, keeping the family ties, keeping the intellectual mind to stress that this brings us to the ultimate aim of happiness.

So better life is about that, not about owning multiple houses, cars and wide screen TV sets. I think the Expo has made this message very clear.



Q: Given the ease of travel today, some say it is no longer necessary to stage a costly extravaganza like the Expo. The event has been, by all accounts, in decline, and is being saved by China. Is this true?

A: The same thing has been said about three great events, the Olympics, the football World Cup and the Expo. If we did not have the Expo even today, we would have to invent it, just as if we did not have the UN today, we would have to invent it.

I think the Expo is a necessary tool for human-to-human interaction. Human species are based on interaction. But no matter how much I can see you and talk to you on Skype, it's not the same as seeing you in the flesh.

So we need interaction, we need face-to-face communications to feel each other. Our globe is a shrinking village. But can I get satisfaction by just sitting in my home in Geneva and visiting the Expo online? I need to be here to experience the sun, the water, the air, etc. We are humans, don't turn us into robots.

And considering the huge potential for cooperation and understanding, it's worth the investment.