The Norwegian Pavilion welcomed its millionth visitor on Friday, 48-year-old air-conditioning technician Zhu Xingwei from Changzhou, Jiangsu Province.
Zhu first thought he had done something wrong because he was pulled aside by State Secretary Halvard Ingebrigtsen from the Norwegian Ministry of Trade and Industry, commissioner general Arild Blixrud and pavilion director Espen Guterud. Until he was congratulated, he realized he was the luckiest visitor to the pavilion so far.
"We chose the Norwegian pavilion because we liked how it looked from the outside, but we had never thought we would get to experience anything like this," said Zhu.
He was given a certificate, the collected works of Norwegian author Knut Hamsun in Chinese, and a four-course dinner for two at the pavilion's seafood restaurant, among other things.
With a daily average of 20,000 visitors, the Norwegian pavilion is now on track to exceeding the initial estimate of three million visitors for the duration of the Expo by a half million.
