Better City, Better Life

Shanghai is frantic with activity this week in preparation for the coming Expo 2010 - it seems that every available outdoor space has been devoted to adverts and experiential communicating the Expo theme 'Better City, Better Life'.

Whilst the advertising is perhaps predictably futuristic in feel, some of the experiential has a more down-to-earth touch. In one park we spotted the Expo Volunteer Team iron clothes for Shanghai residents, treating them to a new haircut and providing free a blood pressure checks. And middle-class consumers in the city seem to have genuinely bought into this optimism about what the 6 month long exhibition will bring. In the words of one woman "I think we will have to be more open and more global, the world will come to us and we will share more. I also think there will be more jobs that are interesting as a result"