Watching a Parade

So we are watching a parade today, not the usual one, but it is fascinating nonetheless. Today is National Day in China, and Beijing is celebrating the foundation of "New China" or as we would term it Communist China with an amazing parade. It is quite interesting to be here during this time as most Chinese do not truly understand what took place in the Cultural Revolution and during the time before China opened to the West, yet they truly are proud of what they have accomplished. While I am appalled by what took place during the Cultural Revolution and during the time after before they opened to the West, and what took place in a certain square when I was young, these past few years do give me some hope for China. I do hope they continue to push forward to open to the west and seek freedoms for their people.



The parade itself was quite a show of military, people and floats. Along with a huge choir of thousands of people. What is amazing is that (we have saved this article) that the military involved in today's parade have been sequestered and practicing for 8 hours a day each day for the past 6 months. Can we just collectively say wow! That is a lot of practice to walk in a straight line, yet, they were quite precise in their movements.

The rest of the day we tasted moon cakes (the other part of the holiday here--they combined two to make a week long celebration) and just relaxed. Cannot say that I enjoyed the moon cakes, but Dustin did not mind it too much.