The Chinese flag, in front of the Zhenhai Tower in Guangzhou, China

Happy Guoqingjie, or National Day, October 1, 2008. For more information on China’s National Day see my post: Happy National Day China

Flag waving in Tiananmen Square during the 2006 National Day celebrations. Photo by: People's Daily Online.

China’s National Day is upon us. October 1st will see the nation celebrate the founding of the People’s Republic of China. It’s a week-long holiday, the last of the year, with parades, gala television specials, and flags-a-waving.

Guóqìngjié (guo: country, qing: celebration, jie: day) or National Day turns Chinese cities and towns into a sea of red and yellow flags. Like the Spring Festival holiday (Chinese New Year) many people use the time off to travel home. My town will likely see 10 of the 12 million residents fly, bus, and train their way back to Hunan, Guangxi, Hubei, and Sichuan provinces. Like North America, businesses will offer sales ‘o plenty. Big box electronic stores will have more deals than you can shake a stick at.

China fought a 23 year civil war, much of it while trying to repel Japanese invaders during the second world war. The Kuomintang (KMT) and Communists forces battled across the nation in a conflict that left millions dead. After the Japanese surrender, the People’s Liberation Army was able to turn the tide against the nationalists, and push the remaining KMT forces into south China.

Mao Zedong proclaimed the People’s Republic of China on October 1, 1949 in Beijing. The KMT forces retreated to Taiwan, continuing the Republic of China and claiming the entire nation, in exile. There was no clear-cut resolution; no armistice has ever been signed in the conflict. Tensions have (and still do) flare over the issue. One KMT division, based in Burma (Myanmar) continued with a guerrilla campaign that lasted into the 1960s. (The Division eventually settled in northern Thailand. There is a Thai village, full of Chinese houses. The residents speak Yunanese, a Chinese dialect. It’s is on my list of places to visit when I return to Thailand.)

China’s National Day, Guóqìngjié, celebrates the birth of a nation.

Canada celebrates its independence, Canada Day, on July 1st. There’s flag waving in traditional understated Canadian style. If Canada had a Hockey Day there might be more intensity in the celebrations.

I’ll say that nations that fought for their freedom are more patriotic than those that have not. Example: America or China. They wave their flags and hold the deep-seated beliefs about their countries and lineage. Canada? I think the Dominion of Canada was created after a polite request to Queen Victoria. If it had been turned down there would not have been a revolt: No, not from reserved Canadians. They would have sent the Queen a thank you note, some beaver pelts, and tried again a few years later.

Happy Birthday China. Guóqìngjié kuai le.

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The Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival, the the 15th day of the 8th lunar month, was celebrated last week.  Here’s a before and after from my ‘hood.

Shenzhen, China, Boomtown: By day.

Looking skyward after dark, the city of 12 million would seem no different than a village on the Amazon.

Captured: September 14, 2008.

It’s party time in the Middle Kingdom. Well, er, no actually. June 8 brings the calendar around to the yearly Dragon Boat Festival, or duānwǔ jié (端午節).

Many cities in North America celebrate the Dragon Boat Festival, or the Tuen Ng Festival, as it’s known in Cantonese. My former Canadian city held dragon boat races each June, in which drunken and out-of-shape businessmen raced big boats on a local river. None of them knew what the races represented, except a reason to be publicly intoxicated, and risk drowning hoping to win a trophy.

Like most folk festivals, the roots of the Dragon Boat Festival are not particularly pleasant. In the days of yor (or China’s Warring States Period), lived Qu Yuan, a government minister with the Chu regime. He was a good man that wanted to maintain Chu’s sovereignty in the face of the Qin dynasty’s advances (Did you see Hero, with Jet Li? Same time period.)

Qu Yuan was cast out of court by jealous and corrupt ministers. Depressed by thinking about the future, he wandered the countryside composing poems from folktales. His works are still considered classics in Chinese literatures.

After the Chu capital was captured by Qin forces in 278 BC, Qu Yuan grabbed a rock and walked into a local river to commit suicide, a protest against the excesses and corruption of the new regime.

There a few different stories as to what happened next.

The more heroic version has local villagers racing across the river in their boats, attempting to rescue Qu Yuan. Today’s dragon boat races commemorate the villagers efforts to save the poet.

In an alternate version, the villagers take to their boats, bang drums and throw food into the water to keep the fish from eating Qu Yuan’s body. The zongzi, a reed-wrapped rice dumpling, was the food used to prevent aquatic creatures from consuming Qu Yuan’s remains. Zongzi, the traditional festival food, is still eaten each year during the celebrations.

Of course, just like Christian holidays (Christmas and Easter’s pagan roots), there is yet a third explanation. Scholars have discovered other festivals in China, celebrating the harvest of winter wheat, held about the same time each year as Qu Yuan’s protest. These agrarian festivals were held in areas that knew nothing of Qu Yuan or his final swim. Researchers speculate that the harvest festivals and Qu Yuan’s legacy merged.

This historic day was made a national holiday after a recent government revamp of days off. International Labor Day (May 1) used to be a three day holiday, which was usually extended to five days to stimulate tourism. It was a dandy break, exactly half-way through the school term. This was nixed, and three long weekends, one in April, May, and June were substituted. It’s a lot like Canada and her summer long weekends.

I’m always happy to have a day off, especially when it involves eating dumplings and listening to sad yet heroic old tales.
qu yuan image from: biografiasyvidas.com
dragonboatimage from: chinatownconnection.com
zongzi image from: china.org.cn

The Mongol army’s conquest was almost complete. China’s Song Dynasty lay in ruins at the hands of the invaders. The imperial court sent the emperor’s brothers, two young princes (and heirs), aged seven and nine, south to Guangdong Province. There, resistance and the dynasty, would continue.

The eldest, Zhao Shi, was declared emperor but became ill and died while holding court in what is now Kowloon (Hong Kong). The younger brother, Zhao Bing, took to the throne.

The Song army was defeated in southern China at the Battle of Yamen in 1279. Rather than let the emperor be taken prisoner, a court official, Lu Xiufu, grabbed the young royal and leapt into the sea.

The body of a child, clothed in the yellow dragon-embroidered robes of the emperor, washed up on the shore of Chiwan, near Shekou (now part of Shenzhen, Guangdong Province). After prayers at the nearby Tian Hou Temple, local people buried the boy on a hillside, facing the sea.

The tomb is a popular place with visitors and was granted historic status by local government officials. Prayers and offerings are left for the boy-king who died rather than surrender.

Captured: March 17, 2007.

Processing: Alien Skin Exposure - Fuji Pro 160C filter

It’s nearly May 1^st. In my part of the world that means it is International Labor Day. I wrote a post about this holiday a year ago. Take a look if you dare.

Labor Day used to constitute a 5-day holiday in China, three days being official and two optional to encourage tourism. It was a dandy break, half way through the school term. The government revised the holiday schedule, moving to a more Canadian system of long weekends, much to my chagrin. We now have three long weekends, one in April, May and possibly June (or September, no one seems to know). Folk festivals that were never official now enjoy mythical Day Off status.

I have been trying to take day off for two weeks. My three requests for leave were all approved, and yet I have found myself in the office each day I am suppose to be absent. Why? Loyalty, I guess. Fear, perhaps. I could leave but I worry about the store being properly minded in my absence. And, a series of misfortunes required me to stay each of the days I had booked off.

The Stevo has a little problem that requires a medical consultation in Hong Kong. Doctors in China are educated and efficient, but hearing that my problem stems for hou chi, or having too much fire within my body, is not a diagnosis I can readily accept (could you?). It’s a male-only problem, and not a serious one. No, it can’t be solved by taking a blue pill. Don’t think that way about The Stevo. His hormones are that of a young and randy buck.

Again, I digress.

One of my holiday days will be spent in a doctor’s office in Hong Kong. How much does that suck? I could be seeing China’s glorious landmarks, or chasing Mrs. Stevo around our small apartment with a potato-masher, playing randy chef and reluctant waitress, or, drinking beer, watching DVDs and sleeping. But nay, I will be poked and prodded in a city I despise nearly as much as Winnipeg.

Is it fitting that I am seeing a doctor during the Labor Day holiday, given that I had booked off work earlier to do so? Ironic? Loyal? Stupid? Both? Neither?

Meh.

My other May Day project is this:

The Stevo bought a massive desk, so large that it is nearly the width of the apartment’s main room. Why, you ask? Is The Stevo an impulsive buyer? Does he like big things? Does he have a brain in his head?

Sometimes. Yes. Opinions vary.

I measured the apartment and designed a floorplan. Said ginormous desk should fit. Yeah, should. I should never use the word should: Things don’t go well when I do.

Oh, yes: Why I bought the desk. The Stevo’s male problem is exacerbated by his current desk and the contorted posture he must assume to use it. He hoped with a new, larger desk, said problem, and his demeanor, might improve.

Only time will tell. Or I will tell time. Yeah, I’m rambling. I’m out of blogging practice, and it shows.

Happy Labor Day. That cursing you think you hear is me trying to fit the desk into the spot I thought it would fit into.

Long live the revolution.