This week has seen an interesting juxtaposition of two events, the 60th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China and the Mid-Autumn Festival. Both were pretty big events, though not necessarily to the same people, and I enjoyed being a casual observer of both.
The build up to the 60th anniversary has been quite pervasive and long lasting. We have been aware of it since we arrived here, with lots of posters, neon displays, artistic performances etc., etc. It all came to a head on the day itself, Thursday October 1st. That day marked the beginning of an unprecedented 8 day holiday on the Mainland (though not in Hong Kong), which conveniently included the Mid-Autumn Festival. Thursday was a public holiday in Hong Kong. I don't know how people treat public holidays here, but as far as I could tell for the most part it seemed like a good reason for not going to work. I decided to take my parade watching semi-seriously, although since it was in Beijing that meant sitting in front of the TV. As anybody who watched the last Olympics knows, the Chinese know how to run a parade. This one was divided into two parts, the military and the cultural. I found both surprisingly interesting. The soldiers, for example, were selected for being in the parade on the basis of height. They were all the same, being between 1.8 and 1.9 m, I think. That makes it look very good, because you see an array of soldiers, aligned in perfect rows and columns, all the same height. It is a 3-dimensional masterpiece! We were wondering if some of them were wearing lifts in their shoes to make up for small differences in height. And then they drill those soldiers to such an extent that all movement is perfectly synchronized. Actually, that part goes for the cultural portion of the parade as well - they must spend a phenomenal amount of time practicing. I did not pay too much attention to the military hardware although there was a lot of it.
The cultural part of the parade was much more colorful. As a backdrop, Tienemann Square was filled with people who were holding up, probably colored cloth, so that all you see is a sea of color. But the sea has Chinese characters in it that are spelling out something. Then, almost instantaneously, the colors of the background and the characters change to spell out something new. My conclusion was that each unit of space was occupied by two people, one standing and visible and the other crouching and hidden. At set times they would swap positions, to make the color changes. In front of this backdrop they had a very impressive parade. We are already planning for the boombox parade in Willimantic next year. Do you know that China has only had 4 presidents in the past 60 years. They tend to be long-lasting. Each was represented by a large painting drawn on a float surrounded by colorful dancers.
I could go on, but I won't except to say that the commentary was very interesting. The Hong Kong TV station took the direct feed from China, complete with audio. It was totally gushing, I guess like the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade, except that it does come across a little differently when it is tanks rather than an inflatable Snoopy going past. But then the Beijing commentary was regularly interspersed with that from the Hong Kong station, which, while not being overtly critical, was certainly questioning. This Hong Kong attitude towards the mainland is well illustrated by the coverage in the South China Morning Post. They devoted a lot of space to the anniversary, with diverse perspectives represented. There was a table of 60th anniversary events in Hong Kong that included all the official stuff, but then just as many, if not more, protest activities focused on human rights - marches, candle-lit vigils and so on. Another time I will have to write about Hong Kong attitudes towards mainland China/ the UK/ the USA and so on. These things are complex here.
The Mid Autumn Festival seems to me a lot more straightforward, although it is very old and has some connection with liberation from the Mongols. But everybody decorates with paper lanterns and gives their neighbors mooncakes. These are baked confections that come in many flavors; disc shaped and filled with locust bean paste and egg yolks. I would not rate them at the top of my list of desirable pastries, but people here are very attached to them. Then at night, the big thing is to go out and greet the harvest moon. The children take their lanterns with candles when they do so and get up to interesting tricks with the hot wax. I did not get to see that myself, because we had spent the day hiking on Lamma Island and were pretty exhausted by the heat. More of that another time.