Countdown to Tokyo

The pleasantly short schoolweek ended on Wednesday as Thursday was reserved for the glorious 60th national day of the People's Republic of China. In 1949 chairman Mao Zedong declared in Tianmen square that the PRC was established, and moved the capital of China from Nanjing back to Beijing. During Mao Zedong's somewhat controversial reign China definitely took some steps forward in terms of progression as a nation with cultural revolution and the great leap forward campaigns.

Nevertheless Thursday's arrangements and festivities were spectacular even though I was only watching it from the TV at the dorm. It had been raining during the night before, but by some miracle (or by some chemical agents injected to the skies) the sky was bluer than ever before I had seen in China. It felt like a little miracle, but the weather was exceptionally good (maybe +25 degrees of C). The flag-raising ceremony started at 10 A.M. and shortly after followed the inspection of the military troops by the state secretary Hu Jintao. Having completed the inspection and shouting something about comrades (tongzuemen..?) from his car (video below), the military parade initiated. The channel's (CCTV 9) commentator's were clearly reading a script as the only time they threw in something personal was the time when the commentator said that his work buddy was on one of the platforms. Commentators remembered to praise PRC a lot, though having seen the amount of work they had put onto this day, I'd have to agree with them (although being sceptical I kept in my mind the word 'propaganda'). Back to the parade. Military parade was impressive with the word pair 'information technology' coming up quite often. During the nuclear missile display the commentators emphasized on China's policy not to be the first one to use them and to have them only for the people's protection. Which is quite acceptable in my mind, if some other countries have the right to own nuclear weapons also (this does not mean I support nuclear weapons in any way - on the contrary). After the parade the citizens of China from all over the country and from different trades and positions conquered the stage (the road which is between Tianmen square and the Forbidden City). This pageant displayed more than 100,000 people passing by with their own theme ranging from environmental protection, olympic games, different ethnic groups (was actually the main theme) to China's space program.

All in all very nice. Everybody seemed to be very happy and cheerful (ok, I was thinking maybe they were hired, but their expressions were very real) and I think this shows how the Chinese people are really feeling this oneness and proudness of their power and most of all their traditions, different ethnicities and the country (Zhongguo) itself. It is true: you can't see hungry people in China (as opposed to the democratic nation of India, where half of the children are facing malnutrition) and it seems that the recent decisions concering e.g. environmental protection and way of thinking about how nations should live and respect each other, are something I deeply respect. They really have their shit together, I would say. Yeah, the wealth seems to be spreading more evenly than in our democratic western socities. Eat that!

In the evening of the 1st of October it was the grand Gala, in which singers, performers and all kind of whatnots did their part in this great fiesta. Fireworks were grand and were accompanied in nearly every performance. There was also this amazing massive human display, which, when seen from the air, was like any display with different colours and simple, fast moving symbols (the people responsible could change to 7 different colours, and they worked with amazing accuracy and synchronicity). I was waiting for a big fireworks after the event, which never came, so all the fireworks I saw was from the TV. Cool party nevertheless!

Yeah, so that was that. Yesterday I also wrote 176 symbols and 280 English-Pinyin translations on some paper just to try to learn them during some freetime on this holiday (lasts until 11.10.2009).

We will travel with Silja to Tokyo tomorrow morning. Our taxi comes at 5.00 A.M. to pick us up for the Beijing Capital Airport for the unbelievably long flight of 4½ hours to Narita Airport. This day I've tried to research Tokyo and what could we do there in a week. It seems were up for quite a treat! Harakiri!

PRC 60 years