The Shanghai Expo is about inviting the world to China to communicate and share, the opening ceremony's artistic director, Ignatius Jones, believes.

"Being able to host an expo means Shanghai has a certain level of infrastructure. And hosting the expo is a symbol of being a global city. But the expo is about more than just showcasing. It is a chance to invite the world to China for communicating and sharing," said Jones, sporting a pink t-shirt.

Jones directed the fireworks show at the expo's opening ceremony on April 30.

Jones, from David Atkins Enterprises (DAE), said his team tried to make the opening ceremony both Chinese and international, as the expo is a gathering of the world' s cities.

"It should be obviously Chinese but also international," he said.

Jones's team started studying Chinese culture before it bid for the project. "It should be China's show, not our show," he said.

Jones said his team did much research on Chinese culture, expos, on modern China and Western conceptions of China. Then they worked very closely with their client to decide the messages they wanted to convey.

China wanted to deliver three messages, Jones explained.

"First, they wanted to invite the world to China. Second, it was to be a cooperative event, something done together. And the final message was that they wanted to celebrate in a way that was quite obviously Chinese but at an international standard."

The show started with a quotation from Confucius: "When friends come from far away, what a great joy."

Then it canvassed expo history, starting with the one in 1851. In many ways, the show presented the Shanghai Expo in terms of previous expos, contextualizing it in reference to the world's other great expo cities.

"That's a small example of how we brought the outside world and combined it with something very Chinese," Jones said.

Jones said his international team, which included four Chinese companies and one Australian-Italian company, helped him to develop a special ending for the show.

Jones has been influenced by the way different countries appreciate fireworks. For instance, the Italians always finish very loud, while the Chinese tend to finish big but beautiful and the Spanish are colorful.