Tomorrow, October 1st, is the 69th anniversary of Mao declaring the People's Republic of China from the gate of the Forbidden City in Tian'anmen Square, Beijing. This is celebrated each year with a week long holiday*, giving the government a chance to pretend they are communists and the people to go shopping.
Liuzhou traditionally celebrates this with yet another:
This is basically an excuse for a bunch of foreign, thick, rich kids to show off their powerboats and act like utter morons. We have competitors deported and charged with sexual assaults on local girls in past years.
So, today I was busy helping with translation duties for more boring speeches and came home almost too exhausted to cook or eat. I managed to prepare a very quick dinner of fresh ramen noodles fried with chicken and some very fresh straw mushrooms I managed to pick up at noon. Garlic, ginger and chillies and some soy sauce.
Tomorrow I have a 6 am start so I'm off to bed.
* Actually it's only a three day holiday, but they manage to fool themselves into thinking it's a 7 day holiday. Under Chinese law, the statutory holiday is only three days , Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, but to stretch it out they worked both Saturday and Sunday this weekend. So on Thursday they tell themselves we have already worked for Thursday and Friday last weekend, then they have next weekend off, which they do anyway. Somehow they equate this to seven days off work. This bizarre practice of working what they call "make-up" days happens at other public holidays, too.
