The Czech Republic celebrated its National Pavilion Day at Expo 2010 Shanghai on a high note on Monday after welcoming over half a million people to its pavilion in two weeks.

But if plans to keep the structure in China bear fruit, its legacy will last much longer.

"Next week I'm going to the first negotiation on whether the pavilion will stay in China," said Pavel Antonin Stehlik, the pavilion's commissioner general.

"Our capacity is 30,000 a day but we have already exceeded this by 20 percent on several occasions," he said, adding he gave the exhibition a modern focus despite the wealth of history at his disposal.

The European country of 10.5 million organized puppet shows of Mozart's Don Giovanni in the Expo Garden on Monday afternoon. Later, troupes of girls from the French-Czech theater company Decalages performed wearing angels' wings and rubber ice hockey pucks. The pavilion is partly covered in pucks to reflect its people's love for the sport.

"It makes sense for us to be here for various reasons, even though we come from a country 10,000 km away," said Jan Kohout, the country's vice-prime minister. "We want to make an intellectual investment in China and show that we are full of invention and creativity."

The contents of the pavilion seem to bear this out. In one partitioned section, a wired headset connects visitors to a "golden teardrop" that scans their forehead, weight and electro-dermal stress to read their emotions. It then uses this data to produce a perfume they can take home.

At the "Czechoscope" nearby, children can climb into the cockpit of a plane and watch onscreen as they fly over Prague. Other artifacts include genuine bronze plaques taken from beneath the statue of Saint John of Nepomuk on Prague's famous Charles Bridge. A replica of the statue towers over them.

"The 'golden teardrop' is interesting but I prefer the children's fantasy elements," said Kohout. "But both are excellent because they are interactive, and this is what is so great about this exhibition. You are not just being fed information."

When asked how much he wanted China to pay for the standalone pavilion, he said: "We're asking for half a billion Czech koruny ($24 million)."

The Czechs, known for their abundant sense of humor, live at a European crossroads that has seen them absorb influences from various parts of Europe and Asia over the millennia.

"Lots of people, lots of technology, different ideas and different cultures pass through our country, so Czechs are kind of melting this, and sometimes producing the fruits of civilization - hence the name of our pavilion," said Commissioner General Stehlik.

Now the country, which derives 83 percent of its GDP from exports, is making another smart move by courting the world's biggest market. Its post office even issued 70,000 commemorative Shanghai Expo stamps in February to appeal to Chinese philatelists. They are on sale inside the pavilion.

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