News & Updates
National Day 60th Anniversary Celebrations
October
1st is the anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic
of China in 1949, and is celebrated as the National Holiday all over
China. In 1949 a grand ceremony was held at Tiananmen Square at which
Mao Zedong, solemnly declared the founding of P.R.C. and raised the
first national flag of China in person.
Beijing Celebration:
The National Day Parade is an important component of the celebrations and President Hu Jintao is expected to deliver a keynote speech and inspect the military parade at Tiananmen Square. The parade will highlight the accomplishments China’s military has made with a mass pageant, with the theme “Motherland and I Marching together.” This will involve an estimated 200,000 citizens and 60 floats. There is a background performance also which involves 80,000 primary and middle school students. On the evening of October 1, a gala themed “Praising our Motherland” will be staged at the Tiananmen Square, featuring a large-scale fireworks display.
Other Cities:
Beyond October 1:
The National Day marks the start of one of the two Golden Weeks in the PRC. The other Golden Week will be during Lunar New Year festivities. For both events, many people travel to visit family and take time off from work. There is one week off for the whole country for this holiday. This year, Mid-Autumn Festival, an important Chinese traditional festival, falls on October 3rd, during the National Day Holiday, will add to the joyous atmosphere of the holiday.
Travel Considerations:
The Beijing capital airport will shut down for three hours starting
from 9:30 am on Oct 1 for the National Day parade. The capital airport
is the busiest airport in the country, with at least 1,000 flights taking
off or landing per day, or at least one flight every minute.
Similar restrictions were adopted on the opening night of the
Olympic Games last year, as more than 300 flights were cancelled or
postponed. It is wiser to simply travel at another time. Beijing resident,
Wang Yingchao said, “I want to sit in front of the TV and watch
the live broadcast of the parade that morning anyway.” She planned
a trip to Hainan province during Golden Week and has now decided to
leave on Oct 3.
Meanwhile, Beijing will see large-scale traffic control on Oct 1 to make way for the National Day parade, officials said. Since more than 200,000 people and 8,000 vehicles will descend on Tiananmen Square from all corners of the city for the parade that day, traffic on main streets and ring roads in downtown Beijing will be affected, said Shao Jie, head of Beijing's traffic command center. Some 7,000 traffic police will be dispatched onto the streets that day, he said.