Overheard at the Fair

BY MADELEINE MAY

AFTER day’s work in the United States pavilion at the Brussels World’s Fair, my mind is a corridor of images and echoes, with my aching feet and hoarse voice a reminder of reality. Resting in my room at the day’s end, I begin to clarify my impressions.

I remember the German fellow who came up to me, shaking my hand, saying, “I think your pavilion is really the most lovely one. The openness and the water are so free. You have even respected the trees.” Evidently our protection of the old trees in the royal park showed him a side of America that no exhibit or photograph could ever communicate.

The beauty of our pavilion is seldom challenged. But not everyone understands the reason for the exhibits within.

“Well, frankly, I’m terribly disappointed,” an American woman said to me. “I’m a 100 per cent American, and I practically cried when I saw our flags out there after touring the Continent for six weeks. But this is not America. The Russians are showing so much more in their pavilion. We’re such a wonderful country; we have so many modern and beautiful things. Why do we have to show them stuff like tumbleweed?”

“Our tumbleweed seems to be attracting as much attention as their Sputniks.” I smiled, pointing to the crowd of people surrounding the deep black box of weeds. A guide was explaining that the weed is a common phenomenon in a large section of the United States. The wind blows it across the plains and forms it into large bunches.

A Belgian picked it up and examined it carefully. “What is it used for?” he asked.

“It once was used for mattresses, but now it isn’t used for anything.” The man accepted the answer and nodded his head. “That’s interesting,” he said and went on to see the Model 1903 Ford.

The tumbleweed, an antique Windsor chair, the Ford, some Idaho potatoes, and a huge cross section of redwood are all parts of one exhibit called “Face of America,” which is planned to show the diversity of the country.

Often I wish I had a camera to capture the reactions. One afternoon a group of priests was walking by, and one stopped in front of a glass case which displayed the round black hats worn by the Amish in Pennsylvania. The priest took off his own round black hat, placed it on top of the case, picked it up, looked at it again, and smiled. That same day, I saw seven nuns grouped around the case which holds a football player’s uniform, complete in every detail. The explanation called it the modern knight’s armor. From a distance their black hooded heads bobbing up and down and white fingers pointing were all that I could see.

In this same area is an exhibit shaped like the arch of Archimedes, which is lined with one Sunday edition of the New York Times — 480 pages. A little elderly woman dressed in a bulky tweed suit looked curiously at the convoluted walls for some minutes. I approached her and explained about the paper. She put her hand to her mouth and giggled like a schoolgirl. “Really, one newspaper? That’s amazing. But then everything in America is so big, isn’t it? Here, we are such a small country that you seem like a continent to us.”

I met one German who accused the United States of censoring the international edition of the New York Times. I tried to convince him that this was not true. From there we got on to a heated discussion, in German, of socialism, Communism, Russia, and Secretary of State Dulles.

“I have nothing against the American people, but it is their government which is antagonistic. It is Mr. Dulles who wants war.”

It was jarring to hear our policy toward Russia distorted. I tried to show him that Mr. Dulles did not really want war and that his diplomacy may have been misinterpreted. But I still do not know what kind of impression I left.

An Englishwoman shocked me when she burst out with the remark, “You really are trying to push your colored people here, aren’t you?” I explained to her that Negro guides were included in the group as a representative part of the American population.

There are many misconceptions about our country which we are trying to counteract. One Belgian was scandalized by the high divorce rate in the United States and was positive that all Americans are immoral. I tried to point out that many other countries had equally high —if not higher — divorce rates, but it was difficult to convince him. Many Europeans believe that the American male is completely dominated by his towering American wife. One man thought this was demonstrated in the pavilion, where the women’s fashion show is one of the focal points.

The fashion show has been a controversial part of the exhibition from the beginning. Many Americans become upset when they learn that the models are European. “I knew right away those models weren’t Americans. Our models are much thinner than that. And you know very well, my dear, that not all American women dress so extremely. What will those Europeans think of us?” one New Yorker asked. When the fashion show begins, at 2 P.M., the entire balcony of the pavilion and the ground floor around the central pool are encircled with onlookers, five rows deep. The models walk down a white ramp from the balcony to a platform in the pool. The men have the expression that all men seem to have when they are looking at women; the women are a bit more critical. As one European put it, “The women look at the clothes and the men look at the women.”

Many Europeans regard the fashion show as part of the leisurely atmosphere of the American pavilion, in contrast to the Russian pavilion. The two pavilions are constantly being compared, and the Europeans use two contrasting adjectives in their descriptions: the “heavy” Russian pavilion and the “light” American pavilion.

With their hands, they describe the square massive Russian structure, and you overhear them saying that when one enters the Russian pavilion, one has the feeling of walking into a huge city square — the people are silently marching and one is caught in the mass. The Russians hammer their visitors with powerful words, pictures, and statues. Oddly the people who seem to be most impressed by the Russian pavilion are the Americans. The Europeans are not as impressed by Russian might. They use the word “propaganda”; they say, “The Russians are out to show everything that they have, but we know what America has so you don’t have to show it.” Critics have said that the American pavilion is too subtle and too intellectualized. An Englishwoman described it as “the least aggressive of them all.” A French businessman called it “rather thin.” The word “understatement” is also used.

When we guides hear these criticisms, we try to point out that the purpose of the World’s Fair is cultural, not industrial. The United States is not trying to outdo other countries, but only to explain itself. In this pavilion, we hope to give a swift sketch of how Americans live. We have not indulged in bugle-blowing propaganda. I think our discretion and humility are often appreciated by people who already have heard too much about American superiority.

Our most restful exhibit is the record room, with its exquisite music and its deep relaxingchairs; our most stirring is the “Circarama.” This nineteen-minute movie, a masterpiece by Disney, sweeps its audience through the United States with one dramatic gesture. Americans walk out, heads high, tears in the eyes, still hearing the strains of America the Beautiful. Visitors from abroad burst out with their favorite superlatives, ”Fantastiqae, magnifique, formidable!”

Next in popularity is Ramac, an IBM machine which can tell in any one of ten languages what happened in a certain year. Visitors who ask for it refer to it as “the robot.” A crowd is usually gathered around the exhibit, which shows the operation of remote-control hands run electronically. This is part of the atomic energy exhibit.

Our six voting machines are constantly surrounded by people. The only phrase which our guides can reduce to French is “machine a voter, pour les elections” People are interested, a little surprised, and one will mutter, “Oh, these Americans. They have a machine for everything.”