China's National Day parade celebrating 60 years
Today marks the 60th anniversary of the founding of the Peoples’ Republic of China. For the last 2-3 weeks, Beijing has been preparing for the celebration. All the streets are lined with decorations and practically every store is flying the Chinese flag. Street corners are kept safe with a combination of Police, military and public volunteers. I read an estimate in the newspaper saying there are nearly 1,000,000 public safety volunteers to keep an eye on suspicious behaviour today in Beijing. I was pretty bummed that our program’s scheduled basketball tournament had to be rescheduled this week. The Police took over use of the basketball court in preparation for the parade. I tried to take pictures of them up close, but they told me I couldn’t. So I went up to an empty classroom and took pictures from a distance. You can check them out on my picture website.
Teachers and newspapers told me everyone who lives on the main parade road is not allowed to watch the parade from their balconies or open windows. No kites are to be flown during the celebration and Beijingers are encouraged to report any unusual objects in the air.
From what I understand, China has a major celebration, complete with a full-scale military parade, every 10 years. You can tell that quite a bit of time and effort went into preparing this parade. It is very well choreographed. I read that nearly 200,000 people participate in the parade. The military parade was pretty eerie in a way. It looked like something you would expect to see in 1930′s Germany. Every military person that lined the streets was the EXACT same height and build. Hu Jintao (I think it was him) drove along in a car to inspect all of the troops before returning to Tiananmen to give a speech. The later part of the celebration was the civilian parade. It was very similar to the Olympics opening ceremony. You had a ton of people moving together with some impressive choreography while carrying huge paintings of Mao Zidong and Deng Xiaoping. Fortunately, I was outside taking pictures when the flyover took place. I was pretty far away, but there are pictures and videos uploaded if you would like to take a look.
Just a minute ago, I heard a very loud noise outside my window. It sounded like a gasoline generator started up. I went outside to check it out and discovered it was a bunch of tanks cruising along the street the borders my school. I forgot my camera so I couldn’t take pictures. But nevertheless, it was pretty interesting to see full size tanks motoring through the streets of Beijing.
