According to this website, The China Potato Expo is on in Beijing this week.
It is described (only slightly Chinglishly) as follows:
CHINA POTATO EXPO is considered to be the only international trade show in the category of potato...
and other root and tuber crops...
and related products...
in China.
The lack of a definite article at the start and the dread linguistic tic 'related' at the end are the Chinglish markers; although I suppose event titles sometimes do omit the article, and 'related' is (for once) actually appropriate here. And it must be hard for copy-writers to work their puff-magic with such resolutely unsexy subject matter. And perhaps that clunky "is considered to be" is a deliberate legalese vagueness: they're not saying that it IS the only international potato trade show in China, just that certain unspecified persons believe it to be so. Please drop me a line if you know of any other candidates. [Only my undernourished Irish forebears are capable of finding the potato sexy. Check out the brief instructional video below for the usefulness of the phrase, "Does the bride come with potatoes?"]
I'm glad they're not narrowing the focus too much. I shall be eagerly seeking out the "other root and tuber crops".
Strangely, this event is filed under the category of 'Apparel & Clothing'. Really? It's all going to be clothes made from potato fibres?? Intriguing novelty though this would be, I doubt many of the leaders in the clothing industry will be enticed away from the contemporaneous Dubai Fashion Week. We shall see.
5 comments:
You're too late. The Potato Expo was early Jan 2011 in Las Vegas, Nevada, "billed as the largest conference and trade show for the North American potato industry."
If you attend the expo in China keep an "eye" out for me.
[Groan]
The Pun Police will be paying you a call, Don.
I'm sure the Vegas show was way more fun, and probably at least twenty times larger.
The China organizers couldn't afford the main space at the Agricultural Exhibition Centre; they were using half of one of the unregarded annexe buildings to the south; only a few dozen exhibitors.
I'd been hoping there might be some free samples of potato baijiu on offer, but alas, no. (In fact, I gather that potatoes are seen as a high-efficiency source of fuel alcohol. But, at present, the Chinese government is instructing would-be producers to focus on cassava and sweet sorghum, since these can be grown on marginal land - or imported - and hence not impinge upon food production.)
There were some odd products on show. Lots of starch products which supposedly have some kind of health application. Lots of dessicated zhou mixes - potato porridge, yummy! - some of them dyed lurid shades of green or pink. There also seems to be an odd obsession with breeding them down in size: the cocktail olive-sized ones I spied first proved to be quite cumbersome compared to the ball bearing-like ones less than a quarter of an inch in diameter. What gives with that?
It appeared Wednesday was supposed to be a trade-only day, and there was heavy "security" - airport metal-detector doorways, and all.... which my friend and I inadvertently circumvented by walking in through an exit.
Haha, so much for security.
One of The Missus's favorite topics, potatoes. She often says that they'd be her one desert-island food choice. (A weekly magazine columnist years ago asserted that the best such would be canned dog food, which -- while yes, unappealing -- is supposedly packed with all manner of nutrients.)
A strange interest for a lady!
Have the two of you ever visited a Potato Museum?
I remember once being told that there was one in Prince Edward Island, Canada. I gather DC also has one somewhere. And Blackfoot, Idaho. And - what do you know? - Albuquerque, New Mexico. I must ask Cedra about it.
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