The 60th anniversary of communist rule is officially Thursday, the first of October. There will be a massive parade in Tiananmen Square with about 200,000 people participating in it. However don’t expect to see any pictures on this blog about it. The people living in Beijing have been told not to go near the square, and all the foreign teachers here have received a letter telling us not to go to any crowded areas.We have been told to watch it on television.
The square itself can hold about a million people so if only a tenth of the people decided to go there it would be almost two million, so I guess it makes sense that people stay away. Also there will be so many dignitaries invited that the security will be very tight and probably not too enjoyable. People in the rest of the world will most likely know and see more than we will here in China.
For the school it means that it will be closed for eight days starting on Thursday. I have already worked this past Sunday to make up the days and I think I have to work a Saturday. I’m not sure about that because often we find things out at the last minute. That’s just the way it is in China and I’m beginning to get used to not knowing things in advance.
It will be nice to have such a long break already and we have three invitations to go to dinner and one to go to the Great Wall which we haven’t seen yet, so that should be a nice trip. We go back to school on October 9th.
The Chinese Moon Festival is on the 15th of the 8th lunar month. It’s also known as the Mid-autumn Festival. Chinese culture is deeply imbedded in traditional festivals. Just like Christmas and Thanksgiving in the West, the Moon Festival is one of the most important traditional events for the Chinese.
This year it will be on the 3rd of October in China.
Have fun!!
We went out to dinner last night with the director of the International Foreign Teachers department at a very nice restaurant, and the food was delicious. She gave all of us some moon cake before we left which is also a big part of the festival. Everywhere we went in China in the past few weeks they had moon cake for sale. And we did have fun!