George Takei

Top Stories
Kendall Jenner Wearing A Massive Winter Coat Is Like Lenny Kravitz's Scarf 2.0 😂

Kendall Jenner Wearing A Massive Winter Coat Is Like Lenny Kravitz's Scarf 2.0 😂

Michael C. Hall Is Starring In A One-Night-Only Broadway Musical About Skittles—And No, We're Not Making This Up

Michael C. Hall Is Starring In A One-Night-Only Broadway Musical About Skittles—And No, We're Not Making This Up

Time-Lapse Video Shows What A Rocket Launch Looks Like From Outer Space—And It's Dazzling 😮

Time-Lapse Video Shows What A Rocket Launch Looks Like From Outer Space—And It's Dazzling 😮

Blog Posts

Celebration of Diversity

July, 1999

Celebration of Diversity
upload.wikimedia.org

July, 1999, LOS ANGELES, CA - It's hard to believe, but here we are now halfway past the final year of this century. For that matter, the final year of this millennium. It does give me a sense of the momentousness of time.

July began with a singularly 20th-century experience that resonated with portents both terrestrial and extra-terrestrial. I did a Star Trek convention in Roswell, New Mexico, the place that claims to have had a visitation from outer space just a bit more than fifty years ago. There couldn't be a more fitting locale for a Star Trek con. My manager, Brad Altman, and I flew into Albuquerque, then he drove me the three-plus hours down to Roswell across the sun-scorched New Mexican landscape. We saw incredibly picturesque billows of dark clouds edged in radiant light. Then, off in the distance, we saw a flash of silent lightning on the horizon. As we drove on, we saw more flashes with increasing frequency. Before we knew it, we were driving through a storm of lightning bolts spearing the ground all around us. Right, left, front and rear. All with no sound, no rain. We drove on through this bizarre storm for about five minutes and suddenly, it was over. As if we had crossed some invisible meteorological border, the soundless lightning flashes stopped. But a few minutes later, like bullets fired at us from the sky, hailstones began falling on our rental car. The pounding got so loud, it seemed like we were being attacked by some fighter craft from above. We could barely see beyond the windshield. Then, as suddenly as it started, the hail assault was over. The sky cleared and we were driving through picture postcard New Mexican scenery again.

An hour later, a Days Inn Motel, looking brand spanking new, appeared on the roadside. We drove past a simple but tidy Travel Lodge, then a 7 Eleven, a Burger King, a Ramada Inn, the signposts to Americana U.S.A. Before long we were driving down Main Street with dress shops, thrift stores, a bookstore, and a Denny's on the corner. Then we came upon a 1930's art deco movie theater that obviously had been converted to more distinctive use. There was a crowd anxious to get in waiting under the sun bleached, jazz era marquee. It read, "U.F.O. Museum." We had arrived in Roswell, New Mexico. It was the very picture of a pleasant, upbeat community but with a singular distinction. The unidentified flying object was not only a local phenomenon and an alleged government conspiracy but a thriving industry as well.

The Chamber of Commerce was one of the sponsors of this Star Trek convention. It began with a ribbon cutting at a specialty store called Alien Zone. Roswell mayor, Bill Owen, was there to greet the public and the press. The local Toyota dealership was providing transportation for the celebrities and dignitaries. The business establishment was solidly behind this Star Trek convention. Chatting with Mayor Owen after the event, I learned that he was a native of Roswell but had been an FBI agent in Washington, D.C. in another life, as had his attractive wife. It occurred to me that an "X Files" convention could do well here as well.

Every convention has something unique about it but I must confess Roswell is the only place where I did my autograph signing sessions in a gallery filled with displays of mock-up alien visitors to Roswell back in 1947. They are depicted as about four feet tall with swelled, bald heads and enormous, dark, haunting eyes. Their spindly, elongated limbs are attached to a thin torso. Why do these alien life forms consistently seem to take on somewhat anthropomorphic shape? Is it that the people who have these encounters cannot see alien life taking forms other than basically our own? Much as Japanese artists who saw white people for the first time with Commodore Matthew Perry's visit to Japan in 1853 drew Caucasians with unambiguous Japanese features distinguished only by strange costumes and odd beards. If we are going to be venturing beyond this planet, it seems to me, we are going to have to have much more open minds and far greater imagination.

The consistent element with these conventions however, is the fans. Wherever we go, they are enthusiastic, dedicated and celebrants of the Star Trek view of pluralism. "Infinite diversity in infinite combinations" was vibrantly on display in Roswell in the combinations of ethnicities, lifestyles and ideas. May it live long and prosper.

Ethan Philips, that wonderful actor from one of our spin-off shows, "Star Trek: Voyager," was the other guest at this con. What a terrific stand-up comic he is! His performance at the convention dinner was painfully funny. Without any sense of shame or conscience, he told "my wife" jokes with his long-suffering wife right there in the audience in front of him. The crowd roared as she sat impassively in its midst.

I'm writing this on July 14. Tomorrow morning, I'm off to another convention in Raleigh, North Carolina with Walter Koenig, Jimmy Doohan and Nichelle Nichols. We keep on trekking, boldly going wherever this trek will take us. Next month, I'll be in Chicago on August 5, on the Navy Pier celebrating a summer festival. Stay tuned.

Sky High Challenge

June, 2000

June, 2000, LOS ANGELES - It was a proud moment for all of us at the Japanese American National Museumwhen we received word that we had been selected as a recipient of a $1.5 million challenge grant from the Ford Foundation. This was not only solid recognition from a distinguished philanthropic foundation for the achievements of a relatively young museum in telling the uniquely American story of the Japanese American experience. This was significant financial support for our still developing endowment. We were delighted.

As a challenge grant, however, we knew that we would have work to do. We had to match the gift two to one. Our challenge was to raise $3 million in three years. I had no idea, though, of a capricious and nerve-racking challenge that I would be facing as well.

As chairman of the national museum, I was to fly to New York, where the Ford Foundation was to present the gift at a dinner. I was to be a speaker on the program together with famed opera star, Beverly Sills, who also happens to be the chairman of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. I had always admired Ms. Sills' artistry as well as her private commitment to the arts. To meet her and share the stage with her would be a wonderful personal occasion for me as well.

On the day of the dinner, I caught an early morning American Airlines flight at LAX that was to connect through Chicago. It would get me into Manhattan with time enough to check into the hotel, get dressed and be at the Ford Foundation Building in time for the dinner. The flight was uneventful -- which was good. I have had more than my share of "eventful" flights in my life. We landed at O'Hare Airport in Chicago on schedule, but, as I stepped out of the jetway, an airline representative was there to meet me. He apologetically told me that my connecting flight to New York had been cancelled due to a bad storm between Chicago and New York. But, he assured me, he had booked me on the next flight to New York only an hour later.

I realized that I would have to adjust to the changed circumstances. To make up for the lost time, I thought I had better be dressed for the dinner. So, I got to the Admiral's Club, unpacked as best I could within the confines of a cubicle and struggled out of my casual clothes and into my suit and tie. Dressed and ready for the dinner, I stepped out of the men's room.

As I walked by the flight schedule monitor screen, I gave a quick glance to check on my new connecting flight. CANCELLED, it read. My new connection, too, had been aborted. Trying to suppress my alarm, I got in line at the service desk together with a horde of panic-stricken passengers. The harried reservation clerks announced that the storm had forced the cancellation of all flights going east but that they were working on getting us back in the air as soon as possible. The sky in Chicago looked fine, but I wasn't so sure I wanted to get back up into that sky.

I took up residence in the Admiral's Club for the next six hours waiting anxiously for a break in the storm. Periodically, the airline reps announced that they would, at last, be able to book us on a flight. And just as quickly, they reversed themselves. When they finally told me that they could get me into New York by 2 p.m. the following day, I realized that I had failed this part of the challenge grant. It was pointless for me to go on. Our museum's executive director, Irene Hirano, had flown the day before and she could accept the gift from the Ford Foundation. I took the next flight going west through calm skies and returned home to Los Angeles.

That was two weeks ago. Last weekend, I flew again, this time to a Star Trek convention in Tampa, Florida, the annual Vulcon show organized by Joe Motes and Fernando Martinez. Thankfully, the flight was uneventful. This month, I have trips to San Francisco, then Tokyo, Japan, and Toronto, Canada. The challenges continue to be scheduled.

Global Interchange

July, 2000, TORONTO - The theme running through this past month turned out to be interchange; interchange of many kinds - international, cultural, technological and generational. And it had me traveling over half this globe to three nations.

The first country I traveled to was Japan. I am a commissioner on the Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission, an independent Federal agency that has as its mission, broadly put, to enrich mutual understanding. One of our projects is to utilize the internet by building a site that chronicles the past fifty-year history of the cultural and educational interchange between our two nations. The U.S. working group, of which I am a member, met with our Japanese counterparts to set the basic architecture of the prototype and to outline the content of the site.

Our two-day agenda was fully packed. June was the rainy season in Tokyo and, true to the time of year, it rained both days of our meeting. The air was dense and steamy but, thankfully, air-conditioning made our working time productive. In concert, we set the structure of the project and arrived at mutual agreements on the subjects to be addressed on the site. The bi-national internet interchange project is off to a good start. Our timetable is to have the prototype ready by next spring.

The next day, changing roles, I put on my hat as the Chairman of the Japanese American National Museum for a series of meetings arranged by the Tokyo office of the Los Angeles Convention and Visitors Bureau. Our strategy is to increase tourism by the Japanese to Los Angeles - or people interchange -- by highlighting the Japanese American National Museum. The meetings were with Japanese travel bureaus and agency representatives. Lunch was with about a dozen Japanese travel journalists at a Chinese restaurant. I discovered, however, that my attraction to these people was -- not so much my chairmanship of the Japanese American National Museum -- but as Captain Sulu of Star Trek. One of the journalists even brought his collection of Star Trek books as well as the blueprint of the Starship Enterprise to be autographed. I noted for him that my Captain Sulu uniform from "Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country" was on display at the Japanese American National Museum. Whatever the occasion, Star Trek is an inevitable part of anything with which I might be associated. As long as my primary mission is served - in this case, increased attendance at the Japanese American National Museum - I am a willing Captain Sulu. Star Trek is a powerful magnet for any good cause.

The next evening, however, was an unadulterated Star Trek event. Russ Haslage of the Excelsior campaign had arranged via the internet for me to meet with a small group of Japanese Star Trek fans that are supporters of the Excelsior campaign for a relaxed evening over sushi. The enthusiasm for a new "Star Trek: Excelsior" television series, it seems, spans this globe.

I discovered that many of the Japanese fans were studying English. So I proposed that we make our evening an opportunity for some linguistic interchange. I promised to speak to them in Japanese if they would try to speak to me in English. It was an engaging evening of lively conversations in broken accents and laughter mixed with mangled syntaxes.

A week in Tokyo seems to fly at warp speed. Before an electrifying performance of Kabuki at the famed Kabuki-za Theater or a day trip to the dazzling new development complexes built on land fill in Yokohama could become fond memories, I found myself on a plane bound for home. I left Tokyo at 3 p.m. on a Saturday afternoon and, after a numbing ten-hour flight, arrived back in Los Angeles at 9 a.m. on that same Saturday morning! I was back before I had even left! Not only was I jet-lagged, I had to live through another Saturday. What unanticipated forms of punishment will warp speed impose?

With only the two Saturdays and a Sunday for recovery back in Los Angeles, I was off to Washington D.C. for a momentous event. Twenty-two Asian American veterans of World War II were to be granted the Medal of Honor, the highest military accolade this country can grant. At the end of the war more than fifty years ago, they had been given the second highest honor, the Silver Star. But because of the prevailing attitudes toward Asian Americans at the time, and especially toward Japanese Americans, the Pentagon was requested to again review the records of the Asian American Silver Star recipients. Twenty-two of them - twenty being Japanese Americans with one Chinese and one Filipino- were found to be worthy of the Medal of Honor. The greatest honor a soldier can receive was to be awarded at a White House ceremony by the President and, on the following day, they were to be inducted into the Hall of Heroes at the Pentagon. I was again to represent the Japanese American National Museum at both events and I had the honor of serving as the master of ceremonies of the celebration reception in the evening. But I also had a personal responsibility to be there as well. I owed an enormous debt to these veterans.

The America that I enjoy today is a vastly different world from that before World War II. The opportunities I enjoy today, where Asian Americans can choose to live wherever we want, receive the education for which we qualify, have the freedom to pursue the careers that we want, are possible in large measure because of the gallantry of these extraordinary men. They fought for a nation that had incarcerated their families behind the barbed wires of internment camps. Their country had failed the ideals to which these young men had pledged their allegiance every day in school -- but they had not. Their incredible faith in those ideals and their extraordinary valor changed, not only the course of the war, but the hearts and minds of a nation. I owe so much to them. The legacy of their generation to mine is enormous. I owe my America to them. My pride as an American is solidly based on the awesome price they paid. To witness the seven surviving veterans, some of who are now frail and unsteady in their steps, receiving the Medal of Honor from the President in the White House was a profoundly moving experience. One of them was my friend, U.S. Senator from Hawaii, Daniel Inouye. I will never forget that moment.

A quick shuttle flight for a meeting in New York and I was again back in Los Angeles to perch briefly at home. But two days later, I was back in what is now becoming my second home -- an airline seat - bound for Toronto, Canada. I am working on the narration of a documentary on Canada's effort to develop a new, low-cost and clean source of energy - nuclear fusion.

A sobering fact is that world energy consumption will at least double by the year 2010 - only ten years off. Canada's campaign to develop fusion energy, or energy produced by the combining of atoms -- as opposed to fission, or the splitting of atoms -- is in concert with a consortium of nations. As a citizen of the U.S., but also as a futurist and an environmentalist, I am excited to be participating, if only as an actor-narrator, on this visionary project. I certainly feel I have a duty to make up for the part I have played in my heavy consumption of energy jetting all over our much-beleaguered planet.

Rockin' in the Northwest


August, 2000, SEATTLE - Have you ever seen music? I mean seen with your eyes the lunging energy of rock? Or the wail of blues? Or the joyful syncopation of ragtime? Have you ever seen music actually take on visual shape and architectural form? I have. I saw music transformed into wild, swoopy, fantastical shapes and spaces at the Experience Music Project, the new rock music museum in Seattle, Washington. The building is music as architecture and an architecture that becomes singularly musical.

Because the trustees of the Japanese American National Museum come from across the nation, we move our board meetings around the country. This quarter, the meeting moved to Seattle. So, while we were in town, we had the opportunity to visit, alas, only too briefly, the museum that is the sensation of Seattle and of the museum world.

Situated right next to the landmark Space Needle and a children's play land, with an elevated people mover system gliding right through it, the Experience Music Project is a structure that seems to have swelled up organically around its fanciful setting. It is an architectural crescendo of bright colors, wild forms and pulsating rhythms. Frank Gehry, the architect of the much-lauded Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, is the master-builder whose imagination produced this fantastical composition in ripples, swoons and hard rock riffs.

The inner workings of this singular structure are as futuristic as its architecture, dare I say, as high tech as the starship Enterprise. Everything runs on fiber optic sensitivity. On entering, I was fitted with what can only be called a Star Fleet tricorder, a set of earphones and handed a device like a TV remote control. You point the remote to a number on an exhibit and you hear either music or narrative. For me, all this advanced technology became simply a nostalgic transporter that took me back in time to my teen-age days of Elvis Presley and Buddy Holly, and, later, the Beatles and Ramsey Lewis. Cutting edge technology was my vehicle for a sentimental journey back to music that defined a time, a mood and sentiments that no longer exist today.

Another part of the museum, however, is hands on immediacy. I became the drummer in a virtual rock band performing in a huge virtual concert hall.

Members of my band were made up of -- would you believe -- the trustees of the Japanese American National Museum! Our lead singer was Dr. Margaret Oda, a professor of education and an elegant lady. The virtual curtain parted to the deafening roar of a raucously expectant rock crowd. The music started and it was as deafening as the cheering from the virtual audience. I began drumming away wildly. Dr. Oda wailed out "wild thing�" like a rock legend. In the frenzy of my drumming, I lost my grip and my drumstick went flying off into the darkness. Dr. Oda continued wailing "wild thing." The music came down to a crashing crescendo. The sound of the wildly cheering crowd turned riotous. And the virtual curtain came down. Our concert was over. As we stepped out of the chamber, we were each handed a copy of the poster of our rock band taken as we were performing. It was rockin' good fun. The Board of Trustees meeting that followed seemed more energized than usual.

After our two-day board meeting, on my way back to Los Angeles, I stopped off in Portland, Oregon, for another wonderful event. It touched on three concerns that are important to me -- historic preservation, medical research and, inevitably, Star Trek.

The Friends of the Parkinson's Center of Oregon is an organization dedicated to research in finding a preventative and cure for Parkinson's disease. The organization's mission is to find creative ways to raise funds to support this important research. They knew the combination of baits to attract me. They combined their efforts with another dedicated group known as the Oregon Film and Video Foundation. This group of passionate people is committed to the revitalization of an historic movie palace. Built in 1925, the Hollywood Theater has a richly Byzantine exterior with an ornate rococo tower. In 1983, it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places. With so many of these unique palaces of entertainment having been lost throughout the nation, the Oregon Film and Video Foundation's effort to restore and bring new life to this beautiful movie house was something not only to be applauded but actively supported.

For the combined fund-raiser, the two organizations had decided to screen my favorite Star Trek movie, "Star Trek VI, The Undiscovered Country." It was an irresistible package. And the evening turned out to be an enchanting success. Yes, it was a kind of Star Trek convention. The Klingon nation, as well as the Federation, was well represented. There were the expected photo ops. There was the usual and unending autograph line. I signed until past 11:30 p.m. But this was a different kind of Star Trek convention. The proceeds went to support the revitalization of a beautiful historic legacy and the fueling of research to cure a dreaded disease. May the good spirit of philanthropy live long and prosper in Portland, Oregon.

Hanover Expo 2000

September, 2000, HANOVER, Germany - What a perfect combination it was! A Star Trek convention and a World Expo, both in the astonishingly engaging city of Hanover, Germany.

Star Trek is a future-oriented show with a philosophy of responsibility for the environment we inhabit. The Hanover World Expo is an international fair with a strategy not only of displaying today's cutting edge technology together with ecological consciousness, but of planning that consciousness into the urban design of the long-term development of Hanover. And the city of Hanover that I visited this month was at once gracious and raucous, urban and sylvan, traditional and boldly moving into the future. It was a fascinating visit and I had a great time.

The Expo Trek convention was a wonderful extended family reunion. I visited with fans who had become friends over the years from the countless conventions and cruises we had shared. But this Star Trek convention was unique. Creative convention organizers par excellence, Dirk Bartholomae and Gerhard Raible, put this one in a huge revival meeting tent on a rustic campground. They included thought-provoking panel discussion topics new to Star Trek conventions on human rights and religious diversity. The topics seemed particularly pertinent in a Germany that is experiencing a disturbing resurgence of neo-Nazi activities. These panels were the sobering issues part of a wholly uplifting convention. The ovation at the conclusion of the closing ceremony, with sunflower presentations, was overwhelming. The fans "transported" me - with no help needed from Scotty at all.

The Expo, too, was transporting in its own extraordinary way - figuratively as well as literally. What first struck me was its size. It was vast. The guides told me it covered 160 hectares, which meant nothing to me. But I could see from the transport pod that carried me high above the expo grounds that 160 hectares was enormous. From this bird's eye view, I saw buildings in the shape of cones, pyramids, cubes, domes and countless other variations on geometric forms. A few even looked like shuttlecrafts and starships. Some were made of glass, others shone metallically and some had shimmering sheets of water cascading down its skin. They were strikingly futuristic. The guide told me that the theme of the Expo was "Humankind - Nature - Technology: A New World Arising."

All of the pavilions, however, were not avant-garde New World. Some, like those representing Bhutan, Thailand and Nepal, were decidedly traditional. They recreated richly ornate, time-honored temple structures of their respective cultures. Yemen even built a replica of a middle-eastern palace surrounded by a swarming market bazaar. They looked strangely anachronistic, and, to me, rather unexciting.

The most successful pavilions, I thought, were the ones that most imaginatively addressed the use of technology in humankind's relationship to nature. The Japan Pavilion was a spectacular example. It was an immense structure, but at the same time, light, graceful and undulating. The soaring vault-like construction was made entirely of recycled paper. The support structure members were made of paper rolled up tight and hard into rods as strong as bamboo poles. These brown bamboo-like tubes were woven in great arches to shape the multi-story structure. A white, translucent, weather resistant skin made of a combination of paper and plastic covered this construction. The brown bamboo-like poles formed an elegantly lacy pattern outlined by the soft white natural light seeping through the luminous skin. The pavilion was altogether fresh, strikingly contemporary and subtly Japanese in its aesthetics.

The pavilion representing the Netherlands also impressed me. The structure covered only 10 percent of the land. The rest was a vast garden landscape representing the varied flora of Holland. This land use illustrated the Dutch talent for making optimum use of their scarce land reclaimed from the sea. The pavilion itself was a wondrous structure stacked onto six levels, each lush with the elements of nature. I took the elevator to the top and gradually worked my way down either ramps or stairways. The roof level was a body of water with a grassy island in the middle with windmills as an alternative form of energy production. I descended to the next level, which was a theater and exhibition area sheltered from the outside by a curtain wall of water representing rainfall. The next level down was a living forest with real trees imported from Holland. The support structure holding up the upper levels were natural tree trunks. Each descending level artfully displayed the diverse flora of the land and the peoples' interrelationship with nature. The Netherlands Pavilion succeeded wonderfully in presenting virtually every facet of the life of the Dutch people and capturing the theme of the Expo in a limited space.

Limited space is a challenge but so is time. I had only scratched the surface of this gigantic exposition. There were many other tantalizing pavilions I wanted to visit but time was my great limitation. What I did experience, however, was dazzling. I will savor the memory for a lifetime.

I wanted to make time for Hanover itself. The city was a delightful discovery. Among Germans, Hanover has the reputation of being a staid, rather boring municipality. I discovered that to be totally false. The people were warm and gracious. The hospitality of Claudia Wolff and her mother Karin, both natives of Hanover and fans who have become friends, and a host of others like Sussanne, Andreas, Jan, and Filip, was terrific. Their love for Hanover was infectious. I came to love the city as well.

Hanover is most certainly not a staid city. I was introduced to how wildly riotous it can be on a Saturday afternoon. From morning on, I kept hearing an unrelenting, rhythmic drumbeat off in the distance. It seemed to be coming closer to my hotel. I asked the clerk at the reception desk about it. He smiled a cryptically insinuating smile and informed me that it was the Reincarnation Parade held annually in Hanover. It sounded like some religious observance to me. When the parade finally arrived, however, wildly thumping dance music and all, I discovered to my wide-eyed amazement that what I had thought to be a spiritual pageant was, instead, the most outlandish rave parade I had ever seen. Actually, it was the first one I'd ever seen -- mile after unending mile of writhing, swaying bodies - some with very little on - dancing in sheer ecstasy. In fact, more than a few seemed to be on some chemical ecstasy. There were flat bed trucks overflowing with prancing, jiggling bodies. There were double-decker buses crammed with dancing bodies. And the street was a sea of writhing, surging bacchanalia. I'm from Hollywood but Hanover sure showed me a thing or two. One thing for sure - Hanover ain't staid.

And Hanover is urbane. The centerpiece of the city is it's "new" town hall or rathaus built in 1913. The neo-Renaissance building with its high domed cupola looming over the city was damaged badly during the bombing of the Second World War but has been carefully rebuilt. In the great rotunda are four large models of Hanover at different periods in its history. The model of the ruined city in 1945 was a sobering reminder of the madness of war. Andreas and Sussanne took me up to the very top of the building in a unique incline elevator that traverses the curve of the dome. The view from the top was breathtaking. On another morning, Claudia, who works in the city's urban planning department, took me for a walk around the lovely park and pond behind the town hall. She told me that Hanover is a city that loves its parks and gardens and is considered one of the greenest cities in Germany. I agreed. I told her I loved my hotel overlooking a man made lake, Maschsee, with a forested park around it with running, walking and bicycling paths. I jogged around the lake every morning.

Hanover is, as well, a sophisticated modern city. There is a controversial new bank high rise building looming up over the treetops. Some in Hanover are opposed to the glassy new presence on the skyline and others love it. The debate is healthy evidence of the passion the people feel for their city. I think it is a dazzling building and will be an enhancement of the Hanover skyline as well as its streetscape. I'll stay tuned to the debate.

On a trolley ride through the city, I noticed another eye-catching new building under construction. The medium rise office structure was twisted in place with staggered window placements, like a building caught in the middle of a whirlwind. I recognized it instantly as the signature style of Californian architect, Frank Gehry who designed the much-discussed Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain.

I was visually stopped even by some of the trolley stops. They were contemporary art pieces in themselves. One was a fanciful composition of bright yellow and black blocks. Another looked like a sculptural tortoise shell. We rode past the once controversial, now much loved Nana statues - three colorfully whimsical polyester sculptures of rotund dancing female figures - sort of like sculptural rave dancers in the Reincarnation Parade. Taking the trolley through the streets of Hanover was like a trip through an outdoor contemporary art gallery. Hanover is a bold, culturally venturesome city.

It also seems to be a foresighted planner of its urban development. Claudia showed me a model in the lobby of her office building of a new town called Kronsberg being built in concert with the Expo. The residential units built for the staff of Expo will become housing for the Kronsberg community to come. The new public transportation system built for Expo will also be the transit system to support the new town. The structures built for Expo itself will be reused after the exposition as cinemas, academic institutions, and retail and office buildings that will become a part of the Kronsberg job, shopping, education and service sector. Small community green space is either already built or designed into the future residential districts. Rainwater is planned to be captured and recycled to keep the public parks lush and green. The Expo theme of "Humankind - Nature - Technology: A New World Arising" is not just a trendy slogan. It is indeed the driving philosophy of this fascinating city. I know I'll be coming back to Hanover to see how this New World rises in the future.