双语:上海世博欲惊艳亮相
【英文原文】
The World Expo that begins May 1 promises to be nothing less than a coming-out party for Shanghai, China's commercial and financial capital. Following the lead of Beijing for the Olympics, Shanghai, which has already changed so much in the past three decades, has staged a spare-no-expense makeover.
Early this month, the Expo site was a huge muddy field filled with workers, cranes, piles of building materials and heaps of construction debris. It was difficult to imagine that everything would be completed in time. China says 192 countries will come to this city of 19 million to participate in the six-month festival, drawing an estimated 70 million attendees. (The 12-month 1964-65 New York World's Fair drew more than 50 million.)
Still, tour packagers so far report very modest interest from Americans and Europeans, with rooms for the fair period easy to find even at the best hotels. 'People just don't know about the Expo, even many Chinese citizens,' says Terrence Ou, president of the Beijing-based Great Wall Adventure tour agency.
'If it were a different city hosting it, if it were of modest size, I might say' that any lack of enthusiasm was warranted, says Jose Villarreal, a San Antonio lawyer who is the U.S. commissioner general -- a sort of ambassador -- to the World Expo. 'The fact that it will be the biggest Expo ever, that so many Americans have always wanted to see China, that Shanghai is such a dynamic place -- all this makes it a reason to come.'
The massive $61 million U.S. pavilion at the Expo almost created a major diplomatic rift between the two countries. A congressional mandate from the 1990s forbids government funding for an Expo, and only a last-minute fund-raising effort by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton salvaged U.S. participation.
Construction, which began only last July, has been 'a horrific process because of our late start,' says Mr. Villarreal, who nevertheless promises an on-time debut. Keeping with the Expo's theme of 'better city, better life,' the U.S. pavilion will feature a high-tech show on a 70-foot-high screen telling the story of a child who moves a community to create an oasis on a dilapidated plot of land. Mr. Villarreal calls it '4-D. When it thunders you'll feel the vibration. When it rains you'll feel the mist.'
It's clear why the absence of a U.S. pavilion would have been such a slap in the face. China is footing the bill for 17 pavilions, many of which will house multiple countries, and building 42 others that it will rent to countries at a substantial loss. Only 42 nations, including the U.S., are financing their own pavilions.
Other countries are vying for attention with spectacle (Saudi Arabia's hanging garden, on the top deck of a suspended boat) and culture (Denmark will send the original 'Little Mermaid' statue from Copenhagen Harbor and France will ship works by Millet, Van Gogh and Rodin).
Expo organizers promise 20,000 events around Shanghai, ranging from the Philadelphia Orchestra to the Cameroon National Song and Dance Troupe. Kids can see magic shows, puppet shows and shadow plays.
The Expo site stretches for a couple of miles along the Huangpu River in a formerly rundown industrial area, across the water from central Shanghai. While some of the pavilions are nearly finished, others are skeletons of steel beams. Incongruously, the trees had already been planted by late February, a necessity if they're going to grow leaves in the springtime. Two giant red-and-gold banners read in Chinese, 'Please be reassured; we will finish the task in time,' and (directed to workers), 'Hard work for 30 days and we will finish it.'
'The infrastructure and all the buildings built by China will be finished totally on time, I know that,' says Wu Siegfried Zhiqiang, an architecture professor and dean serving as the Expo's chief planner. The challenge, he says, lies with the 42 countries building their own pavilions.
No visitors are allowed in the buildings because of the construction work, but the exteriors range from breathtakingly innovative to dull, big boxes, albeit colorfully painted. China has again produced two beautiful buildings, a flying-saucer-shaped cultural center for performances and a China pavilion of horizontal and vertical red beams, with the dimensions of the building widening the higher up it goes. The theme inside will be China's urban development.
The conventional-looking U.S. pavilion won't produce any gasps, but that's not true of some of the other nations'. The British pavilion, displaying an encapsulated seed bank, centers on a building resembling a giant porcupine, made from 60,000 acrylic rods that quiver when they catch the wind, making the building look blurry. The modular slabs of the Italian pavilion, constructed of a material called transparent cement, will change appearance during the day as the material reflects the light. The walls of the Spanish pavilion, jutting out at all angles, are covered with wicker.
Switzerland will offer visitors a cable-car ride onto a flowering meadow on the roof of its pavilion, while the Indian pavilion will be modeled after a 2,200-year-old Buddhist stupa and display the wisdom of the ancients.
Across the river, the landmark buildings of the waterfront Bund, dating back to the late 19th century as the center of foreign-owned businesses, have been elegantly restored and now house a variety of expensive boutiques and restaurants. The former British Consulate, built in 1873, will open for the Expo as an art center. The city is completely rebuilding the waterfront promenade. (Unfortunately, the wild building boom of the past 20 years, carpeting Shanghai with skyscrapers, destroyed much of the city's architectural heritage.) The Bund's iconic but deteriorating Peace Hotel is about to reopen after months of restoration. A new addition to the Bund, designed to look like a restored old building, is the elegant 235-room Peninsula Hotel.
There will be another way for Americans to stay: Shanghai residents who register with the city's tourism authority can legally take paying guests into their apartments, although the nightly charges and the procedure for making reservations haven't yet been set. Translators will be stationed at big apartment complexes. By Nov. 1, the events and crowds will all be over. Ironically, for an Expo that promotes the buildings' energy-saving features and emphasizes the concept of sustainability, almost the entire set of exhibits will be thrown away. The rules of the Paris-based Bureau of International Expositions, which govern World Expos, require that all of the pavilions be torn down. An Expo spokeswoman says that only five buildings will survive, including the cultural center. Mr. Villarreal shudders at the thought that the American pavilion, built with so much anguish, will eight months from now be reduced to a pile of debris. 'I hope we can disassemble the building and move it,' he says.
【中文译文】
将于5月1日开幕的上海世界博览会有望成为上海首次在国际舞台重大亮相的盛会。作为中国的商业和金融之都，上海在近30年已发生了巨大的变化。而仿效北京为奥运会所做的种种努力，上海也不惜工本，大兴土木。
本月初，世博会场还是一个巨大的泥泞土地，到处是工人、起重机以及成堆的建筑材料和大量的建筑垃圾。当时很难相像一切能按时完工。中国称192个国家将来到上海参加这个长达六个月的盛会，预计将吸引7,000万名参会者。（1964年至1965年在纽约举办的世博会历时一年，吸引了超过五千万人。）上海目前共有1,900万人。
然而，旅行社方面显示出迄今为止欧美游客对上海世博会的兴趣不高，因此即便在上海最好的酒店人们也能轻易地找到世博会期间的空余客房。总部位于北京的Great Wall Adventure旅行社总裁Terrence Ou说，人们只是不知道世博会，就连许多中国人也不知道。
女工们正在包饺子美国上海世博会总代表费乐友(Jose Villarreal)说，如果主办地是另一座城市，如果规模没有这么盛大，我可能会说人们肯定会缺乏热情。而事实上，这将是史上规模最大的世博会，并且这么多美国人一直想亲眼见一见中国，而上海又是如此充满活力的地方，这一切便是吸引人们前来的理由。费乐友是美国德州圣安东尼奥市的一名律师，他所担任的美国上海世博会总代表一职与大使的职能类似。
上海世博会美国馆投资高达6,100万美元。这座大型展馆差一点给中美两国的外交关系造成重大裂痕。上世纪90年代美国国会明令禁止政府为世博会出资。美国国务卿希拉里•克林顿(Hillary Clinton)在最后一刻为筹款所做的努力才使美国得以参加此次世博会。
费乐友说，美国馆自去年7月开始动工建设。虽然动工较晚，但进展速度惊人。但他仍然保证将会按时开馆。美国馆将利用一个高70英尺的屏幕播放一场高科技演出，演出的主题与世博会的主题“城市，让生活更美好”一致，讲述一个孩子感动了一个社区，人们在荒废的土地上打造一片绿洲的故事。费乐友称之为4-D演出。打雷时会感到振动，下雨时能感到水雾。
没有美国馆对美国而言将是一记响亮的耳光，这是一个显而易见的问题。中国承担了17个展馆的建设费用，其中许多展馆将容纳多个国家。另外中国还建造了42个展馆用于出租给另一些国家，价格之低将令其承受实质性的损失。包括美国在内仅有42个国家自行出资建造自己的展馆。
其它国家的展馆竞相以奇特的造型和自己的文化吸引观众的目光。例如，沙特阿拉伯在其悬空的船形展馆的顶部建造了一座空中花园，丹麦将把小美人鱼雕塑的原作从哥本哈根运到上海，而法国将带来米勒(Millet)、梵高(Van Gogh)和罗丹(Rodin)的作品。
世博会的组织者承诺将在上海各地举办两万场各类活动，从费城交响乐团(Philadelphia Orchestra)到喀麦隆国家歌舞团(Cameroon National Song and Dance Troupe)，内容多种多样，还有供小孩子观看的魔术表演、木偶剧和皮影戏。
世博园沿黄埔江绵延两英里，园址曾经是一片工业区，江对面则是上海的中心城区。虽然一些展馆已接近建成，但其他还只具备由钢梁搭成的骨架。今年2月底种下的园区树木显得与此有些不够协调，提早种树是为了春季时它们能长出叶子。两条巨大的红底金字横幅上用中文写着：保证按时完成任务；苦干30天，完成建设任务。
身为世博园首席设计师的建筑学教授吴志强说，基础设施和所有由中国兴建的建筑都将按时全部完工，我知道这一点。他说，难点在于自行建造本国展馆的那42个国家能否按时完工。
由于尚在建设中，园区内的建筑不允许入内参观。但从外表看，这些建筑有的新颍得令人震惊，但也有些不过是平淡乏味的大盒子，尽管被涂上了鲜艳的色彩。中国再一次拿出了两座美轮美奂的建筑，一座是供表演用的飞碟状文化中心，一座是中国国家馆，它由水平和垂直的红色横梁搭建起来，建筑越往上越宽。馆内的展示主题将是中国的城市发展。
外观中规中距的美国馆不会引来任何惊叹，不过其他一些国家的展馆却会让人叹为观止。英国馆展示的是一个封装起来的种子库，展馆酷似一只巨型豪猪，表面向外伸出六万根亚克力棒，能随风摇摆，使建筑看起来亦真亦幻。意大利馆的组合板是用“透明水泥”做成的，它能在一天中的不同时间随材料对光线反射的不同而改变外观。西班牙馆的墙壁上覆满了柳条，以不同的角度招展。
瑞士将向游客提供通往瑞士馆屋顶鲜花盛开的草坪的缆车服务。印度馆将仿照一座有着2,200年历史的佛塔建造而成，展示古人的智慧。
隔江而立的是外滩标志性的建筑群。19世纪末，这里曾是外国公司的中心区，如今这里经过精心修复，是各种高级专营店和饭店的所在地。1873年建成的前英国领事馆将在世博会期间作为艺术中心对公众开放。上海正在彻底重建外滩。（不幸的是，经过过去20年来疯狂的建筑潮，如今上海摩天大楼林立，大部分老建筑都遭到了破坏。）外滩的标志性建筑、日渐损毁的和平饭店在经过了数月的翻修之后即将重新开业。外滩的一个新景是有着235间客房的、典雅的半岛酒店，酒店是仿照翻修的古老建筑设计的。
美国人在上海住宿的方法还有一个：在上海市旅游局登记的上海市民可以合法地让客人住到家里，收取一定的费用，不过尚未出台有关住宿费率和预订程序的规定。大型公寓楼中将有翻译人员提供服务。世博会到11月1日结束，游客也会散去。具有讽刺意味的是，本届世博会宣传建筑节能、强调可持续发展理念，然而其整套展览设施几乎都将被拆除掉。位于巴黎的国际展览局(Bureau of International Expositions)是管理世博会的机构，它的规定要求所有的场馆都必须拆除。世博会发言人说，只会留下包括文化中心在内的五座建筑。想到花了那么多心血建成的美国馆在八个月后将化为一堆废墟，费乐友感到不寒而栗。他说，我们希望可以把美国馆分解，然后搬到别的地方。
