In the Chinese traditions, turning 70-year-old is a big deal. Even A special Chinese word is reserved for those turing 70, 古稀 (Gu Xi, rare in the history). Usually, a family will host a big party for their parents’ 70-year-old birthday.
In my perspective, this serves as the fundamental background of the National Day celebration this year. Trade war is far from the end, the economy is slowing down, and Hong Kong is still a mess. These may as well be the reasons for the largest scale military parade, but for ordinary residents humming the rhythm of Me and My Country (我和我的祖国) on the subway, in the offices, or in the restaurants, the recent publicity efforts from the government made them believe that celebrating the birthday of their motherland is celebrating the the payoff of their own hard work.
Three keywords
Persons VS People
For the CCP, 人民 is a often-mentioned word. Most of the times it is translated into the people. In the Chinese context, 人民 represents a massive number of people. It highlights the sense of the group. However, this year’s celebration is tuned a bit different when talking about 人民. Individuals, rather than the group, are given more weight. Many details of the celebration events are designed to let each ordinary resident find some pieces of their ordinar lives when they watch TV.
For example, one of the parade team marching through the Tiananmen Square is made up by the scooter-riding delivery men (外卖小哥). Given Beijing government’s hard effort to limit the number of e-scooters in the past year, this is a true surprise. Another parade team is made up by people riding old-style bicycles, called Two-Eight-Model Bike (二八自行车). In the 1980s, these bikes were the most common means of transportation in cities in China. Both my parents burst into laughter when they saw the bike-riding parade team.
Each 10-year-celebration will witness one or two Theme Movies (主旋律影片), which serves as toasts to the country. In the past, these movies focused on the stories of the forefathers, such as The Founding of A Republic (建国大业) in 2009. This year, the most popular theme movie, My People, My Country, tells 7 stories of 7 ordinary persons related to 7 historical event of the republic. For example, the first story is about how an engineer struggled to fix the electric flagpole on the Tiananmen Square on the eve before the Founding Ceremony of the People’s Republic in 1949. The second is a young girl’s sobbing on his missing boyfriend who was secretly summoned for China’s nuclear project in 1960s. The third is about how a young boy, the son of a telecommunication technician, held the TV antenna on the roof so that hundreds of neighbors could witness the live of women volleyball team winning the championship. Judging from my friends’ WeChat posts, these stories are well received.
Another reflection is related to the emphasis on Heroes. On Sept 29, the country for the fist time hold a grand ceremony presenting Medals of the Republic to 8 senior heroes in the Great Hall of the People. Among them are agricultural scientist Mr. Yuan Longping who is famous for the hybrid rice, the medical scientist Mrs. Tu Youyou who got the Nobel Prize for discovering a new method curing Malaria, and the deputy county secretary Mrs. Shen Jilan who advocated for the gender equality in the 1990s. On the early morning of Sept 29, these heroes boarded their vehicles, and were escorted to the Tiananmen Square by the motor-riding guards-of-honor, which are usually reserved for welcoming foreign heads-of-states.
Women Volleyball Team
女排, or Women Volleyball Team, is a spiritual symbol for many Chinese people who grew up after Reform and Opening Up. In the early 1980s, the women volleyball team out-played many world-famous teams, including the US, bringing home many world championships. It was such a spiritual encouragement for the Chinese at that time that girls in the teams are as welcomed as supermodels in today’s sense. My mother recalled that all the neighbors would gather in the yard, and the only TV set in the neighborhood would be relocated to they yard so that everyone could watch the games. Due to the bad signal, the TV picture constantly moved on the screen, and people would move their heads along with the picture, like synchonized swimming.
The Chinese Women Volleyball Team is a famous for never giving up. Even in recent years it has brought many (good) surprises to the Chinese people. In 2004 Olympics final, it lost the first 2 sets to the Russian team, but in the end won the last 3 sets, getting the gold medal home. In the 2016 Olympics, it lost to strong teams such as Brazil and Netherlands during the groupgame stage, and nobody expected the team to win when they encountered the two team again during the knockout game. However, after lengthy struggles, the young girls brought back the gold medal again.
This year the World Championship of women volleyball was scheduled in late September. Again the girls brought surprises. They brought back the trophy with 11 victories (wining all the games in the round robin). In Chinese, 11 is written as 十一, which is the short version of Oct 1st (十月一日, the date of the National Day).
This coincidence is treated as a bless. As the only team that can deliver victories among the three Big Balls (football, basketball, and volleyball), the girls were invited by President Xi personally to attend the dinner reception on the evening of Sept 30, which were meant to be attended by government officials and ambassadors. Xi even met each of them in a conference room before the reception. During the Tiananmen parade on Oct 1st, they were standing on the last festooned vehicle-float, which was the only vehicle-float stayed in from of the Square rather than just passing by.
By the way, the currently chief coach, Mrs. Lang Ping, is a legendary lady. 30 years ago, she was one of the backstone of the women volleyball team getting all these gold medals and trophies. Her forceful smashspike earned her a nickname, 铁榔头（Iron Hammer）. After retiring as an athlete, she begun her journey coaching foreign club teams. In 2008, the US women volleyball team she led beat China in the quarter final, bringing a silver medal home. She assumed the chief coach of China team in 2013 when the team sliding down the hill.
Do the best of your own job is the best practice of patriosm. This is how people read into the honorary treatment of the women volleyball team.
Tsinghua and Peking students in the parade
Many of the 170,000 Beijingers participating the parade are university students. Both Tsinghua and Peking have their own parade team. 10 years ago, both university asked freshmen student who just participated the military training during the orientation to participate the team (in a sense, forced them to). This year all the students are voluntary sign-ups. However, even for Tsinghua, a university with always emphasising 又红又专（being RED while being professional）, it is hard to to attract 3500 students for the parade at one time. To draw students’ attention, each university put forward a list of coupons. Tsinghua waives the 5-credit deep-dive course for all students participating. Peking made special-edition student ID card and special canteen cuisines for participants. These students went through a 2-week closed-set training during the summer vacation, special trainings during weekends after school was in session, and three mid-night Tiananmen Square rehearsals in September.
Students from both universities have something to feel proud of. Peking students get to yell the slogan 团结起来，振兴中华 (unite together to revive the motherland) when they march across the Tiananmen Square. That slogan was drafted by Peking students in 1981 when the Chinese Men Volleyball Team won the game guaranteeing a ticket to the World Cup, and it became a famous slogan adopted by many other university students. However, comparing to Peking student surrounding a torch-vehiclefloat, Tsinghua students are much more excited that they surrounded the vehiclefloat carrying President Xi’s oil portrait. They joke that they were protecting their 学长 (senior classmate).
Assigning Tsinghua students, rather than their Peking mates, such a politically important task is no coincidence. Earlier this year, Peking University experienced a severe political turmoil. A group of students transformed the Peking University Marxism Club into a battle field for Marxian Fundamentalism. They blame the Reform and Opening Up as surrender to Capitalism, and helped organized a worker-strike in Shenzhen.
