Back in October 2007, with the Olympics still almost a year off in the future, I devised a twelve-step reading plan for Outlook India, the goal of which was to help interested observers (and maybe even journalists who would be covering the event) get ready to make sense of the Beijing Games. And later I followed up, here at the Huffington Post, with a somewhat more specialized five week plan for couch potatoes eager to get in shape for some thoughtful Olympic viewing.
I've been thinking for some time that I should do something similar for this year's National Day along the lines of what I did for the Olympics at Outlook India. After all, 10/1/09 will have some things in common with 08/08/08, even if National Day is a thoroughly, well, national holiday, while the Olympics by definition is an international event. For example, when the PRC turns 60 at the start of next month, the main focus of attention will be a spectacle that, like that which opened the Olympics, will be choreographed by Zhang Yimou and intended to awe. And the rituals of this particular National Day, like the rituals that began that particular Olympics, will evoke China's past glories while continuing a rebranding exercise designed to show local and international audiences that the PRC is now a thoroughly modern country that can hold its own in the 21 century.
Due to various reasons (including other commitments and procrastination), I did not do this far enough in advance to justify a twelve-step plan, so I cut it in half this time and came up with a six-step program of reading and watching. And maybe that actually makes sense, as 10/1/09 may have the same director as 08/08/08, as well as a similarly massive or even bigger cast of performers, but it doesn't seem likely to have the same far-reaching impact. For China had never before hosted the Olympics, but this is far from Beijing's first National Day extravaganza -- even though the number "60" (marking the completion of five twelve year cycles) can have a special resonance in Chinese culture not unlike that the numbers 50 and 100 have in Western ones.
Without further ado, here are the first three exercises in my six-step plan to get ready for this National Day of special numerical significance, with a link at the end that will take those who want to continue on to read the rest to a longer post at "The China Beat" blog/electronic magazine that carries the program through to its conclusion:
1) Check out the sneak peeks of the spectacle that are beginning to make their way onto the web, often via sites that the most plugged in people concerned with China will already have on their RSS feeds, such as Evan Osnos's "Letter from China," "Shanghaiist," and "China Digital Times." (And come to think of it, sneak peeks slipping out in advance provides another Olympic parallel, as this Miri Kim China Beat commentary, which was republished in the blog-based book China in 2008: A Year of Great Significance, shows.)
3) For a more localized historical perspective, read the retrospective looks at past PRC National Days published in two recent issues of the always worth perusing China Heritage Quarterly that focus on commemoration. Of particular interest is this essay by Sang Ye and Geremie Barmé that compares and contrasts no less than 12 previous 1949 through 1999 October 1 events (and brings the total up to 13 with comments on what's planned for this year). Also worth a click and some time is CHQ's reprinting of a pair of interviews reflecting on 1949's National Day, which first appeared on the "Danwei.org" website a few years ago and are reprinted here with the addition of some stunning images from the Long Bow archive...
For three more things to do to get ready, just click here.
* Adapted from a September 10, 2009, China Beat post titled "Getting Ready for National Day: A Six-Step Plan."