On October 1st 1949, Mao Zedong announced the founding of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in Tienanmen Square, Beijing, after a long and bitter civil war fought against the Kuomintang. National Day is held on its anniversary every year in China, with citizens granted a three day holiday in order to celebrate this occasion.
The Mid Autumn Festival has a longer history (research suggests the festival dates back over 3000 years), and is celebrated by the people of China and Vietnam on the 15th day of the eighth month in the Chinese calendar, when the moon is at its fullest and brightest. Families traditionally will gather to eat moon cakes (a pastry containing a lotus seed or red bean paste), share food and gaze at the earth’s celestial body. There are many legends associated with the moon in China. The most popular tells how Chang’e became the Moon Goddess after overdosing on a pill of immortality and floating into the sky. The Communist Party decreed that the festival would become a three day public holiday in 2008.
The Moon Goddess Chang'e (source)
This year the festivities happened to occur on consecutive days, resulting in an eight day holiday (3 + 3 = ?). I spent the time in Chengdu with my friend Peter and his family. Naturally we ate vast quantities of delicious food, and got very, very, drunk.
I was the first foreigner to ever set foot in Peter's parent's house
My favorite moment took place when I happened upon this scene, the day after National Day.
With the Chinese national anthem playing full blast behind him, Pan Zheng, a student from Chengdu, was vigorously flourishing the Chinese flag outside a mobile phone shop, in an attempt to entice people inside to buy an upgraded version of a consumer product that they probably already own (in a recorded population of 1.3 billion, over a billion cell phones are currently in use in China, despite estimates of approximately 254 million citizens living on under $1.25 per day in 2009). China Mobile is a state owned enterprise – despite embracing “Socialism with Chinese Characteristics” (externally viewed as “Capitalism with an Authoritarian Government”), and a perception that private enterprise has wholly fueled the economic boom, state owned companies still account for a huge proportion of GDP and, according to the World Bank, control 44% of assets in industry – but I wonder if on that historic day in 1949, with fresh memories in their minds of the Long March, the years in Yan’an, guerrilla warfare, starvation, death and disease, this is what Mao and the rest of the PRC founders had hoped for.
"Buy more shit!"
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