PRC Turns 60

October 1 is National Day in China. This was covered by every major newspaper and from many different angles.

The photo to the right is a picture of the fireworks over Victoria Harbour in Hong Kong. One of the faculty members commented the next day that he was left unimpressed by the spectacle. South China Morning Post reported that Hong Kong spent $400,000 USD on the show.

Truthfully, I wasn't very impressed by the fireworks either, but this might be due to my vantage point and expectations. Because I don't have class on Thursdays, the national holiday didn't really open up any extra time in my schedule and I spent the day like a normal Thursday, cleaning up whatever assignment I didn't read for my classes earlier in the week and getting ready for Friday's class. So, I left home a few minutes before the show started and simply walked out to the harbor between Sheung Wan and Central. I soon learned that the fireworks were to originate in Wan Chai, maybe 1.5 miles away. As you can see from the photo, the fireworks just barely cleared the treetops visible in the foreground. The distance was even more obvious from the sound. I think that the sound is equally important for the effect of a good show but the distance created a lag that lessened the power of the fireworks. I'm sure that it was great if you were right underneath.

Considering China to be the land of fireworks, I thought that this would be an absolute blowout fireworks show, making anything that I had ever seen on the Fourth of July seem like child's play. The show was a steady stream of shots with a slightly ramped up tempo for the grand finale. However, I was definitely impressed during the grand finale when fireworks were being sent that spelled out "China" and "sixty" in Chinese. I recognized one Chinese characters, but a local told me what the others meant.