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Tian'anmen Square Greets First Day of New Century
The first drop of golden sun did not yet shine down, but Tian'anmen Square has been immersed in the warm golden lights which have been turned on overnight, making the square even more eye-catching than it is in daytime.
It was thronged with people, young and old, waiting for the first national flag-raising ceremony of the 21st century. Many held in hands mini-flags bought from sleepless peddlers outside the Square.
At 7:36, Tian'anmen Square, known as "the heart of China", greeted the first dawn of the new century while the National Anthem was being played.
Tian'anmen Square used to be the front yard of the Forbidden City where emperors of Ming (1368-1644) and Qing (1644-1911) dynasties had lived. Even a queen used to have only one chance to walk down the square in her lifetime: her wedding day.
Today Tian'anmen Square is the largest city square in the world with a floor space surpassing that of nine football fields.
The crowds burst into applause and cheer as the five-star red flag was hoisted to the top of the pole with a strong end of the National Anthem.
At around eight in the morning, the crowd began to disperse. Tourists from home and abroad, either by themselves or led by tourist guides with symbol flags above their heads, entered the granite-floored Square. In eyes of the tourists, the Tian'anmen Square is a place of must to visit in chilly winter or fervent summer.
A police on duty said that there were more people here than last New Year Day who were hoping to have a look at the People's Republic on the first day of the new century.
However, few Chinese knew the Christian way of numbering the years when the Westerners flooded into churches or squares going crazy for overnight celebrations at the dawn of the 20th century.
Only a few months later, the Allied Forces made up of over 2, 000 soldiers from Britain, the United States, Germany, France, Tsarist Russia, Japan, Italy and Austria gunned their way into Beijing and looted the 3,000-year-old city.
To Chinese historians, the Tian'anmen Square concentrates China 's modern history. In June, 1900 Yihetuan, an anti-imperialist group formed by Chinese farmers, fought against the Eight-Power Allied Forces near the Square. Two months later, the Allied Forces lined up on the Square for an inspection. On May 4, 1919, over 3, 000 university students initiated a famous campaign of May 4 Movement. On October 1, 1949 tens of thousands of people celebrated the founding of the People's Republic of China here in the Square.
The Square has become a center of China's political activities. Grand ceremonies such as the National Day parade, celebrations held on eve of the handover of Hong Kong and Macao. Some of the significant events were selected by Chinese media as the most influential events that have impact on the historical process of China.
"The past century is a century that the Chinese nation has weathered vicissitudes and marched toward prosperity from poverty, " said Zhang Xiqing, history professor at Beijing University.
"There will be no difficulty that one nation can not overcome if it unceasingly makes earnest efforts to stand on its own feet and always unifies as one."
More people associate in mind the first day of the new century with future.
"It is meaningful that I can spend the first day of the 21st century here in Beijing," said Woo Fook-tien, a student of history major at Hong Kong Baptist, who was here on an educational exchange program.
"I'm confident that Taiwan will surely return to the motherland, " he said.
Zhao Xizhong, a national model worker from northeast China's Liaoning Province, said that this was the moment that people are mostly likely to look into the future.
Liaoning, home to one tenth of China's large and medium-sized State-owned enterprises, has obtained the goal of extricating most of the SOEs out of difficulty within a three-year time period.
The new century will make the province a pilot place for the reform on China's social security system, which means more people in the future will benefit from the social security network.
In the subway station of Tian'anmen, a popular newspaper published a special issue which invited people to imagine what the whole world would become in the future which could be as far as in 2999.
People stopped to buy the colorfully printed paper as a souvenir of the new century.
Sennam Chipa, a living Buddha from Garze Tibet Autonomous Prefecture, southwest China's Sichuan Province, got up at three early in the morning to chant scriptures in Beijing.
He left for the Tian'anmen Square soon after his daily work to pray for the New China and Beijing.
Laura Survant, from Los Angeles, the United States, came to China a week ago for the first time. It was exciting for her to start a new century journey at Tian'anmen Square which "is beautiful and symbolic".
"I will always remember my stay in China at the turn of the millennium," she said, "It's so interesting that I watched the sun set at Mutianyu Great Wall yesterday and waited for the sun rising at the Tian'anmen Square today."
It's true that yesterday is like the past of China and today is the first page that China writes down on her book of future.
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