Made in Japan, Outsourced Globally

What do you get when you get countries in the world to exhibit their culture, futuristic technology and lots & lots & lots of people wait in line to see them?

The World Expo.

The World Exposition: Ai Chikyuhaku is being held in Nagoya, Japan this year from March 25 - September 25. I was lucky enough to be in Nagoya to attend the expo for 2 days. What impressed me the most was how far visual and transportation technology has come over the years (*see comments below).

The first World Exposition was held in London in 1851, celebrating the Industrial Revolution. Since then, major cities around the world have bid for their part in hosting the multi-cultural and progressive technology fair.

>>Click here for the history and location of World Exposition 1851-2010.


"Ai-Chikyuhaku" = Love - World Expo

Everybody needs mascots

The World Expo has 2 mascots, Morizo and Kiccoro, which represent the forest spirits. Did I mention that the theme of this expo is "Nature's Wisdom"?
The big dark one - Morizo
The little light green dude - Kiccoro

I found the mascots to be a bit odd and creepy at first, but for some reason, they grow on you (or perhaps it's the excessive marketing everywhere you go).

Company Pavillions - New Technology

I guess you can say that the World Expo is split into 3 main parts: Nature, Global Village, and New Technology. The flashiest exhibits were put together by the major Japanese firms: Toyota, Mitsubishi, Chunichi Newspaper, Hitachi, Toshiba, Mitsui, to name a few.

Mitsubishi Future Pavillion - 'If there was no moon...'

Mitsubishi based their pavillion on a study by an astrologist named Dr. Neil Comins - 'What earth would be like if there was no moon.' The point of this exhibit is to show the miracle of earth and to conjure a desire for preserving the one and only earth.

The Mitsubishi IFX Theater - the walls, ceiling, and floor expand to become the entire screen. The beautiful images of life on earth are portrayed in a dramatic stereo surround sound environment.

The evolution of earth is fast-forwarded through the Giant Impact, dinasaur age, etc. There is an abrupt pause and a question is posed: What would it have been like if there was no Giant Impact?

If there was no "Giant Impact" meteor that chipped a part of the earth to create the moon... there would be no moon... then, there would be no gravitational pull to slow down the earth's rotation... the earth would be a desolate desertland with unfavorable conditions for evolution...

*I really liked this pavillion for the beautiful images (especially the huge whales swimming across) and the cute robot narrator in the beginning.

Mitsui-Toshiba - Grand Odyssey

What if everyone who came to the park could star in a movie? At this pavillion, computer graphics technology was employed to scan your face to cast you in the movie that you were watching.

Scanning process

You can be a sci-fi movie star too.

*I guess I'm just not too thrilled about sci-fi movies. It was a bizarre experience to see myself on the screen.

Hitachi - Nature Contact

This was probably the most interesting pavillion at the expo. Hitachi introduces 3 of their products through the Nature Viewer to allow entrants to learn about endangered species in the world. There is also a virtual reality ride that allows you to hold the animals on your hand.

Nature Viewer -the liquid battery is environmentally friendly; iVDR is a mobile HDD; the mu chip reader allows you to scan in information into the HDD. When you scan the device over the indicated posts (over the mu chips), you can access interactive images, texts, and videos about the endangered animals.

Virtual reality ride - put up your binoculars and strap on your VR sensors on your hands. You are off to the safari, the jungle, and the underwater world where you can feed bananas to monkeys, feel the giraffe breathe on your cheek, and flip a sea-turtle on your hand.

*This was my FAVORITE pavillion. The technology was amazing, the VR ride was fun, but most of all, it's such an awesome idea to increase awareness and to allow people to interact with endangered species without actual contact. Very creative and entertaining.

JR (Japan Railways) - Linear Motor Car

For the longest time, Japanese people have been anticipating the arrival of the linear motor car age. The technology has come far enough to run frequent tests. What's most impressive about this is its ability to run at 581 km/hr without negative effects on humans (this is the best record - usually, it runs at 500+ km/hr). The bullet train currently runs at 210 km/hr.

Two main physics applications are: 1) the use of absolute zero condition (using immediate refrigeration technology) to achieve "pinning" (makes things stay in their place) and 2) use of magnetism to levitate, accelerate, and direct the train.


You can experience the speed of the linear motor car in the 3-D theater.

Domo-Arigato-Mister-Robotto

How can you speak of the future without conjuring images of a sophisticated robot that performs gazillion tasks? Actual practicality aside, there were some amazing robots that paraded throughout the World Expo site.

Toyota's "Partner" robot - this one has actual lips for playing the trumpet. There are other robots that play various musical instruments.

NEDO Helper robot - one of the few robots that can walk upright. It is being tested as personal helper robots. NEDO is a new energy development organization, created by the Japanese government in 1980. Its current major project is carbon nanotubes, which has a possible application as paper thin and flexible computer screens (imagine a Harry Potter newsletter in real life). NEDO also has an experimental lab at the expo site to create recycled energy from the garbage produced at the site.

Wakamaru - Mitsubishi's cute guide. Since it has wi-fi capabilities, you can access the internet on this robot and it also responds to daily conversations.

Computerized cars in the park - If you look closely inside, you'll find that there's a stuffed animal in the driver's seat!

One may question why companies are investing so much in humanoid robot technology. Some are not even related to the core business (e.g. - Toyota's Partner robots only play music). But if you can create a snazzy robot, you get a lot of publicity, I think. Unforutnately, I didn't get to see the robot that flatulates and blushes - I have no clue why it would even have those functions.

Art and Nature

At the expo, there were plenty of parks, benches, and picnic areas to make you feel like you were surrounded by nature. You can tell that the pavillions and exhibits were carefully planned to cater to aesthetics.

"Daichi no Tou" = Tower of Land. This was produced by Fujii Fumiya (a popular singer who started in a boy band) and has been certified to be in this year's Guiness Book of World Records as the world's largest kaleidescope (47m tall).

View from inside

"Nihon Kan" - This was also one of my favorites. This is a 360-degree globe-shaped theater where you see a movie from inside a sphere. You get dropped from the sky for an aerial view of earth, then into the ocean to see life under sea, and then finally you are standing in space with the stars and clusters of universe all around you. It was an amazing feeling.

Speaking of nature, there was a very agressive effort to be environmentally friendly and energy/material efficient. Here, you can see 12 different trash bins for recycling and separating garbage.

There's one for throwaway chopsticks only.

Actually, many of the pavillions are built from recycled/recyclable materials. For instance, the walls of the Mitsubishi pavillion are built from recycled plastic bottles. Also, the toilets use re-purified water from a nearby water purification site. There are also various sites that use solar, wind, and recycled natural energy (still in R&D stage).

Global Village - Around the World in 4 Days

Girls from Aremenia and Georgia dress up in their cultural dress - a favorite for the camera-shutter happy Japanese

The Lithuania pavillion had an interactive robot. This would have been really cool, but it never quite understood my questions.

Italy proudly covers their Fiat in white chocolate

Belgium was all into art - they exhibited a painting opera which was a unique form of modern art, and they showed off the best of their country side and architecture via an aerial movie on a looooooooong screen.

Switzerland had one of the longest lines for people waiting to enter the pavillion. You learn so much about Switzerland within the 30minutes by carrying around an interactive mp3 player and flashing it at the exhibits. This picture shows a modern art performance by a Swiss woman who rubs her face back-and-forth against the glass.

Large shouts perked my interest and I found this. The Maori tribe from New Zealand performed their dance for the crowd. Their scary expressions and makeup were comical and some brave souls dared to take pictures with them afterwards.

One of the auxiliary exhibits included an all-star line-up of sumo wrestlers. It's quite impressive to see all the sumo wrestlers stacked in a line. It was a great opportunity to introduce Japan's sport of sumo wrestling to an international and young crowd (contrary to common misconception, sumo wrestling is not about fat guys bumping into each other. It's an actual sport).

Yokozuna: Asa Shoryu - 'yokozuna' is the highest rank in sumo wrestling. Asa Shoryu is currently the Michael Jordan of the sumo world. Interestingly, he is Mongolian, which is hurting a bit of national pride (so I hear).

This photo is somewhat misleading. These guys are pro-sumo wrestlers, but they are not from Azerbaijan. The two guys on the left are from Belgium and the tall guy on the right is from Russia. Sumo goes global - how cool!

Now, this guy should pick a fight with someone his own size. 5-year old kids from the Nagoya international school were chosen to join the pro sumo wrestlers for the auxiliary fight. There were even some kids who got picked up by their underwear (it's a long piece of cloth wrapped around like a thong, called 'fundoshi') - but there's also a traditional belief that kids who are picked up by sumo wrestlers become strong.

Did you know that sumo wrestlers are quite flexible?

So I conclude my report here. It was a great opportunity to peer into an awesome global event. I really enjoyed the new technologies and was especially in awe of the visual exhibits. I was also quite impressed with how "Green" everything was and am crossing my fingers that the expo in Shanghai in 2010 will be as environmentally friendly, or even more.

And if anybody is thinking of going to the World Expo in Japan this year, I can give you tips on how to get there and how to maximize your day (since you line up for the popular pavillions).