A Special National Day
A Special National Day
Sunday, 27 September 2009
As we do every year on 1st October, we will have a holiday this Thursday to celebrate National Day. National Day marks the occasion when, on 1st October 1949, Chairman Mao Zedong stood on the rostrum of Tian An Men in Beijing and proclaimed the establishment of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Apart from the campaign in Tibet, the event ended the Chinese civil war, and it was called ‘Liberation’.
The photo at the top and the images below show some of the National Day decorations currently on display in Nathan Road, Kowloon’s main commercial street. A few decades ago, at the height of the Cultural Revolution, it would have been unthinkable to see the 5-star red flag of China flying above Hong Kong’s main commercial district. Today, it is simply a patriotic display of flying the national flag. As the photos below show, even some MTR trains have been given a special gold finish and decorated to celebrate this very special National Day.
Views of Nathan Road this week - click each image to enlarge
Ten years ago, when China celebrated the 50th anniversary of the establishment of the PRC, I was in Beijing. I was hoping to see the huge military parade that I had heard was scheduled to be held on 1st October. I stayed in a hotel that was only a couple of kilometres from Tian An Men Square so I would be able to get a good vantage point to see the parade.
What I didn’t realise was that the parade would not wind its way extensively through the streets of Beijing, as large parades tend to do in other cities. This parade started on the eastern side of Tan An men Square, proceeded west across the Square past Tian An Men Rostrum, and finished when it reached the western side of the Square.
Nonetheless, the parade comprised over 110,000 people, and the streets to the east of Tian An Men Square were closed and clogged from before dawn with people waiting their turn to march across the Square in the parade. Similarly, the streets to the west of Tian An men Square were clogged with people until early afternoon as they waited for the end of the parade before beginning to disperse. All the streets leading to Tian An Men Square were blocked by the police, so like most people in Beijing, I had to watch the parade that was taking place just a few streets away on television. The photos below are some of my memories of 1st October 1999 in Beijing:
Beijing, 1st October 1999 - click each image to enlarge
One of the aims of establishing Li Po Chun United World College in the late 1980s and early 1990s was that when Hong Kong returned to China it would enable the United World Colleges to have a physical presence in the world’s most populous country. It is therefore somewhat surprising (and annoying) that some people within the UWC Movement seem to forget that there is a United World College in China.
A couple of months ago, a draft Strategic Plan for the United World Colleges was released which contained the following aim (point 7f):
Where resources allow, UWC will actively seek opportunities that may lead to College proposals in parts of the world where we are not currently represented, including central and eastern Europe, Russia, central Asia, China and Africa as well as the Middle East (2012 onwards).
Needless to say, we were quite underwhelmed by this statement! As one of my colleagues commented, it would be reassuring for those of us who devote ourselves to the service of the United World College that already exists in China if those people responsible for strategic planning acknowledged our existence!
You can probably understand why the draft UWC Strategic Plan has not won many of our hearts here in Hong Kong, China!
National Day decorations in Nathan Road.