Yesterday, 1st Oct, was the Chinese National Day. This year’s celebration was a big one as it marked the 60th anniversary of the People’s Republic. In Chinese culture the 60th is more important than the 50th because the Chinese use a 12 year cycle (12 signs of the Chinese zodiac) rather than a 10 year cycle. To celebrate there was a huge military and civilian parade followed by singing, dancing and fireworks in Tiananmen. We are lucky enough to live on the parade route so we heard the tanks moving into position at around 3am on the Wednesday morning and we saw them going back to their bases after the parade. We also saw the military fly past. I have attached some pictures.
As with a lot of things in China, things were not as they seemed. No ordinary members of the public were actually allowed near the parade. For those living on the parade route, we were told to remain indoors. In fact, the city was pretty much shut down. It was very much a made for TV event. We even got a knock on our door to tell me to stop taking pictures.
My wife has blogged about the lead up to the parade here http://blogs.wsj.com/chinajournal/2009/09/24/living-along-chinas-parade-route-%e2%80%93-not-so-festive/?mod=rss_WSJBlog?mod=chinablog
All in all this was a spectacular event aimed at the Chinese public. I am not entirely sure it was worth the inconvenience and hassle that we had to go through during the build up, but it did go without a hitch and now everything is just about back to normal.