Jennifer, G10D, RDF International School 瑞得福國際學校 劉子婕 October 1 is very meaningful to every Chinese, especially in 2019. Since new China was founded on October 1, 1949, it has now been 70 years. On this day, a grand parade was held in Beijing’s Tian’anmen Square. The parade began at 10 a.m. The 70th anniversary parade consisted of about 15,000 officers and soldiers of the People’s Liberation Army, armed police forces, and militia reserve forces. The parade was made of 15 ground formations and 32 equipment formations with 580 sets of equipment. More than 160 aircrafts from the army, navy and air force formed 12 air echelons. The scale of this parade was larger than any parade before. The soldiers’ uniform actions shocked me. When they shouted the slogans out loud, I strongly felt that it is fortunate to be a Chinese. Seventy years ago, when new China was just founded, most weapons on the parade were made by other countries. But now, so many advanced weapons are all made by China. We can see that China is at a high level of technology development in the world. For the first time, the female soldiers were introduced in the form of hanging guns; for the first time, the rocket troops joined the parade; for the first time, a scientific research team was set up in the parade. As seen by these “first times,” China is becoming stronger. There were a lot of moving details in this parade. For instance, at the beginning of the parade, President Xi was in a car viewing the forces. There were three cars and each of them had a different license plate number. The plate number of the car that President Xi was in was the Chinese national emblem. One of the cars had the number “2019” and another had the number “1949.” This was to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the founding of new China. More importantly, there was nobody seated in the “1949” car yet there were still four microphones on the car. After a few seconds, I realized that the empty car was for the martyrs, to let them see how resplendent China is now. This car represents the martyrs who sacrificed themselves for us to have a peaceful life. My tears poured out immediately with a deep respect for the dead martyrs. The National Day military parade was spectacular. These advanced and developed weapons and equipment, those soldiers and generals are the pride of our motherland! I am proud that I am Chinese; China, I am proud of you! | 