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Japan wraps up 6-month, trouble-free World Expo

Participants in the closing ceremony of the Aichi Expo yesterday wave to the crowd in Nagakute near Nagoya, Japan. The Aichi Expo was the first world expo in the 21st century and Japan's first in 35 years. PHOTO: EPA

After six months of humanoid robots, a frozen mammoth and long queues for some of the 22 million visitors, Japan yesterday wrapped up a popular and trouble-free World Expo by putting people center-stage.

With a final fanfare, the curtain fell on a showcase event that has largely defied early predictions of a flop and instead sets a hard act for Asian rival China to follow as the next host.

Together with the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the 2010 Expo is seen as a test for China, which is hoping to boost its global stature and outdo Japan.

"Asia has become a driving force of the world economy," said Wu Jianmin, the Chinese head of the international body that oversees the Expo. The event was born from the 1851 Great Exhibition in London and is now held every five years.

"Expo contributes to Asian dynamism for the benefit not only of Asia but also the rest of the world," he told a crowd including Crown Prince Naruhito, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and a host of foreign participants.

The six-month exhibition in a forest park in central Aichi Prefecture drew a larger-than-expected 22 million visitors with 121 countries hosting displays aiming to depict the link between technology and the environment.

Organizers heaved a sigh of relief as the event ended with no major crimes or terrorist attacks and under sunny skies, despite heavy rain in parts of Japan over the weekend with a typhoon bearing down on Honshu.

In contrast to the opening ceremony when humanoid robots walked, danced and played music, the closing session was all about humans. Japanese traditional kabuki actors performed and children waved the flags of the 121 participating nations.

"That the World Exposition has proved such a resounding success is in no small part due to the tireless efforts of more than 120 countries and organizations, individual companies and groups and people from all walks of life," Koizumi said.

The host country, hoping to revive its image as a world innovator, thrilled spectators with robots dancing and playing music at corporate pavilions, as well as guiding visitors by day and patrolling as security by night.

A frozen mammoth dug up from the Siberian tundra and preserved in a giant refrigerator was a key exhibit of the Expo, whose theme was "Nature's Wisdom."

Visitors witnessed the beast, believed to have lived 18,000 years ago, with a nearly intact soil-colored head covered with muscle tissue and some woolly hair, along with tusks.

Organizers faced early criticism over environmental concerns, lengthy security checks and doubts they would hit a visitor target already less than one-quarter of the 64 million who attended Japan's first Expo in Osaka in 1970.

However, more than 70 percent of visitors said they were satisfied with the event, though many visitors complained about long queues to visit popular pavilions or even the toilet.

Japan made a profit of some US$90 million from the event.
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