Happy Birthday, China!

This weekend everyone in China celebrated its 61st birthday.

Funny, I thought China was older than that.  Like, thousands of years older.  But all the banners declared it was only 61 years old.  

the Fam and I spent the day prowling about the Hong Kong main island (yes I know in a previous post I swore off the main island, but it is interesting to visit).

We saw a parade.  It has singers, dancers, and a marching band.  However, we were utterly surprised when we read the banners, in Chinese  and English.  this was not your typical national day celebratory parade.

They were singing and parading against communism, stating it was the most evil thing ever, and ought to be abolished.  they were marching in the middle of a very heavily traveled street, and the police were simply moving traffic around it as it went along. 

It was the most festive political demonstration I ever saw.   And it was in China.  On the birthday of Communism.  My question is: could this have happened in Shenzhen, which I can see from my bedroom window, where many of my children live?  Or is this a privilege only the people in HK enjoy?  Is China more open to peaceful protest than the mass media portrays?

I had a lot to think about while on my way to a market Mabo wanted to check out.  the market itself wasn't so interesting, but while wandering about, we happened upon a sweet young girl who was handing out bread to people so they could feed the fish in the harbor.

We learned two things from her: If you ask nicely, the local bread shops will give bread scraps to you for free or sell them super cheap.    Also, HK fish LOVE bread.  There were literally thousands of them jumping over each other to get at the bread, swallowing entire slices in mere seconds.  I'm really glad they are vegetarians. 

At the end of the day, we saw fireworks.  No one does fireworks like the Chinese.  I saw fireworks shaped like the flower of Hong Kong, the Bauhinia.   Kai liked the heart shaped fireworks and the ones that changed colors multiple times.  Mabo pretended to be unimpressed.  Of course,  to him, Japanese fireworks are much cooler.

 What did impress us is the orderliness and expediency with which the several hundred thousand people dissipated after the fireworks display was over.

Rather than be crushed by hundreds of thousands of people getting out of the area and into trains, we brought lots of snacks to help pass the time and waited by a blocked off street  where no one would disturb us and where we ourselves wouldn't be in the way.  there were so many people we assumed  it would be one hour or more before the crowds got to a manageable size that we could navigate our way home safely. 

15 minutes and just one pomelo fruit later, the streets were completely empty and the clean up crew was hard at work sweeping left behind bits of trash.  in a dazed shock, we got up and left to get to the train station, fully expecting to be shoved into cars like sardines, like in japan, with the other bazillion people in the subway, but again, that never happened.  Sure, the trains had more people than usual, but we were able to sit or stand comfortably the whole way home.

In a mere 15 minutes, millions of people around the harbor went their various ways without causing much congestion in the streets or in the subways.  How did they accomplish this feat?  It was utterly astounding.  No one was trampled, no one needed rescuing, and the streets were as clean as ever in a snap, partly because the people themselves left their areas completely clean.

I remember we celebrated Chinese new year in SF Chinatown last year, and the place was a complete disaster area by the end of the night.  there was so much trash you gave up trying to avoid it and just stepped on it.  July 4th was no different.

And I have never ever seen a crowd that big disappear so quickly into the night.  Utterly astounding.  Good job, Hong Kong!