tanks in beijing

1 october is national day in china, which celebrates the founding of the people's republic. this year is the 60th anniversary, and every ten years the communist party literally rolls out the big guns and parades them down the street in beijing. so we've been treated to another round of traffic restrictions and heavy police presence. on the actual day of the parade, most people seem to believe it's unlikely that any joe shmoe (or laobaixing as they're called here) will be allowed down to chang'an avenue, and i'll be in taiwan anyway (sticking it to the man), so i've had to get what little exposure i could to the military madness in the meantime.

the first real glimpse of the preparations was three weeks ago, when one night stumbling out of a bar i came across an endless line of enormous trucks covered in tarps driving at about 5 mph one of the main drags. these i assume were the structures of some of the floats in the parade, which are being stored in worker's stadium, near where i used to live.

the second, and more exciting, exposure to the preparations came this past friday night/saturday morning. pretty much everybody in the central part of the city was forced to go home early, as they were closing chang'an avenue and one of the subway lines in preparation for a full rehearsal, which took place at 3 am on saturday morning. so after an afternoon of lazing around and making t-shirts, emmy and i headed out to meet up with jeff at a notorious russian club called chocolate for his birthday. (yes, russian clubs. i am that much of a baller.) as soon as we got in a cab (this is around midnight), however, the driver told us he couldn't take us where we needed to go, because the entire second ring road and several other streets were shut to traffic. so after bailing from the cab and walking over to the second ring, we were treated to the tail end of a line of tanks, armored personnel carriers and missile batteries driving to the starting point for the parade.

i imagine on the actual day of the parade, the whole city will be a mess. they are shutting down all flights into and out of beijing (just announced) for the whole morning, which should also be fun (i'll be long gone at this point).

in other news, i have had many encounters recently with the huang shu lang, an odd ferret-type thing that lives in the hutong areas in beijing. i've seen them twice before, but just this weekend one appeared in our apartment complex (confirmed by emmy and clark). they are supposed to be good luck, unless they steal your chicken or soul, so i'm feeling as lucky as can be.