National Day

National Day is a huge holiday and celebration in China. Today is the 60th anniversary of the founding of the Peoples Republic of China in 1949. I am watching the parade being telecast live from Beijing on CCTV. It is real interesting to see how controlled the activities are. The beginning of the parade showed President Hu riding in a car observing the soldiers and the military vehicles along the parade route. He would say something then the soldiers would sound back a response. Don't ask me what they said... the interpreter on CCTV did not repeat. When Hu got back to Tiananmen Square he did a speech celebrating the victories and the future of the country. The military parade began shortly after that. It began with the different branches of the military presenting to the government officials. It was interesting that the women's branch of the military presented after and looked "different" then the men's. You also notice that there are no "fat" or non-fit soldiers. Very interesting. After that completed, that is when the real excitement began... the heavy military machines! Tanks, airplanes overhead, more tanks, anti-aircraft artillery... I believe all of this military presence is to show the country that they are a strong and powerful force.

When Scott and I began trying to figure out what to do over this holiday (he has 5 days off, the kids have 12), we thought that wouldn't it be cool to go to Beijing and see the parade ~ then we realized that "what are we crazy?". The only people that are "allowed" on the streets and in the Square are the 30,000 people who have special invitations to witness the parade. The news channels (coming from advice from the gov't) has been telling people to stay home and watch it on tv. The gov't told people along the parade route to stay inside and close their window blinds. And the people obliged, but wouldn't you too?

We are going to go out later and walk up and around Jinji Lake to see what the street (lake) vendors are selling today. We figure that it should be interesting to see the Mao hats, posters, flags, t-shirts, etc that will be sold. Tonight there is going to be a huge fireworks display celebrating the day at the lake. We will take pics and post later (with our new camera).