Dear Editor,
The Minister and Ministry of Tourism, along with the artists and architects, did Guyana magnificent justice with the display booth at the world famous Shanghai Expo.
During the middle part of October, Mrs Khan and I, accompanied by our son Dr Roshan Khan visited China, and also its Shanghai Expo. The entire Expo was something to marvel at. The discipline, orderliness and organization, coupled with such a grand spectacle and amazing infrastructure was like a fairy land, without any confusion, fuss, alcohol, or ridiculous noise. It is a feat which needs to be applauded by the world. In Guyana we do such things with ugly noise and beer or alcohol. It would have taken many hours to wait in line to visit some pavilions, but we visited those that we could easily.
The US pavilion was easy because we have facilities for that; the Indian pavilion was easy because I looked like an Indian, and spoke a bluff-type Hindi to the Chinese supervisor (thank God he was not an Indian), explaining that our passport was in security at the hotel. Both were fantastic pavilions, and we visited some others with extreme technology.
I refuse to say what I saw at the entrance of the most outstanding structure of all the pavilions, ie, the Saudi Arabian one; it had lines stretching two miles and would take about 8 hours to get in.
But from the Indian pavilion I saw something that I cannot speak of, as it would embarrass the good Muslims in Guyana.
Getting to the Caribbean pavilion, which housed the Guyana booth, was no hassle. The booths of the various countries were well placed, but my heart throbbed with emotion, and I felt most joyful at the Guyana booth. The Ministry of Tourism did a magnificent job. I felt elated and jumped for joy.
I became a PR star for Guyana, because, sadly, our booth had no living human being to assist people, unlike the other Caribbean territories and islands and even Suriname. So I took control and started to explain to people what they wanted to know. I told them of our President being Champion of the Earth, about Guyana’s first president being Chinese.
They were shocked and happy also. I told them about our pristine jungles and peoples of six races. It is difficult for them to imagine six races living side by side in peace, as they may have ‘tribal’ differences but they constitute one race. Even though the small canoe said do not enter, I placed a pretty Chinese child and took a photo of her in it; I have that photo. It brought joy to the many visitors there. I am happy that for that one hour I was able to help showcase Guyana and make people understand Guyana better. It is unfortunate that we had no one there to explain. As a result I offer myself and family as volunteers to help explain Guyana at our booths and pavilions wherever they may be in the future.
I believe that our government made an excellent decision to showcase Guyana and should be congratulated. It could have been no easy feat to have accomplished such an excellent presentation. Our artists and decorators did us proud also, so congratulations to them. I am filled with joy and pride.
Yours faithfully,
Roshan Khan
