1. National Day is not a day – it’s a week. It starts on National Day, 1st of October, but the State Council adds another six days of holiday to turn it into Golden Week in the Mainland China.
2. Many people wrongly believe that the first National Day was Mao Zedong’s proclamation of the establishment of the People’s Republic of China on the first of October 1949. But at the time of Mao’s proclamation, China’s National Day was October 10th. The first 1 October National Day was held the following year, in 1950.
3. In the early years, the government decreed that money should be spent on people, not events. In the early 1960s, the government suggested holding a small public celebration every five years and a big parade every ten years.
4. But by 1984, China had started to develop rapidly and Deng Xiaoping introduced the idea of having regular larger events with occasional big parades.
5. In recent years, the focus on October 1 has always been on either military parades or flag-raising ceremonies. This year, there was a major parade in September to mark the 80th anniversary of the end of the war in which China and its allies fought the fascist armies of Germany and Japan. This year, that event was particularly poignant, as the west is pushing the re-armament of Germany and Japan.
6. On years without parades, there are early morning flag-raising ceremonies in Beijing, which are widely televised. Then the public celebrate with red flags, fireworks and concerts – not just in Mainland China, but also in Hong Kong and Macau.
7. The holiday is celebrated around the world. There are more overseas Chinese across the planet than the entire populations of Switzerland, Serbia, Bulgaria, Denmark, Finland, Norway, Slovakia, Ireland and Croatia, put together.