Students training for National Day parade
- Source: Global Times
- [18:00 September 24 2009]
- Comments
By Lin Meilian
About 100,000 college students in Beijing have recently begun drilling in preparation for the National Day celebrations.
Students are organized to march in a grand military parade, complete with flags, flowers and coordinated flip-card routines, marking the nation’s 60th anniversary along Chang’an Avenue in central Beijing on October 1.
The massive training session, involving students from Beijing’s 50 colleges, will last from July till late August. In September all students involved will assemble for a joint rehearsal.
Practice time varies according to colleges. The preliminary training involves simple and basic exercises performed twice daily, one beginning at 6:30 am, and the other around 5:00 pm.
However, security is tight and the details of their training are “classified.”
Students train on sports fields where only the participants are allowed to enter. Many students declined to be interviewed for fear that media coverage may get them in trouble.
While photos and videos of the training are prohibited to be posted online, footage of the “secret drills” has leaked out and is circulating on youku. com, a leading video website. The video shows students at the University of Science and Technology Beijing (USTB) dressed in red and waving flowers to patriotic music.
The training for the coming celebration forced many students to change their summer vacation plans of going back home, getting part-time jobs or traveling.
Incentives such as admittance to graduate school, Communist Party membership and earning college credit are offered to the volunteers in return for their participation.
“I can’t decide if I’m in or out. But the four credits I could get will come in handy,” Liu Chao, a sophomore at USTB, told the Global Times.
Chen, another student from the same college who refused to give her full name, said around 3,000 students have been selected from her college to take part in this year’s event.
“In order to get all the volunteers needed, they’re not being too picky. If you’ve got arms and legs, they’ll take you,” Chen said.
Although participation is voluntary, not all students are enthusiastic about the training aspect of the event.
A student from Beijing Foreign Study University, who asked to remain anonymous, told the Global Times that it is exhausting to drill for hours under the sun.
“I don’t think it’s necessary to sacrifice the summer vacation of 100,000 college students to do something that anyone else can do,” said the student.
Nevertheless, thousands of students are participating, because they believe it’s an honor to parade on their nation’s 60th anniversary.
A series of grand events are planned to mark this year’s National Day, which is believed to include some of the largest display since the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949. The last parade was held in 1999 to mark the 50th anniversary.
Gao Yinan contributed to this story
