Freshers' Military Show

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On the day the Freshers had all been training for, we made it a priority to find a way into the show. If you haven't read the previous entry, basically all of the First Year students are required to do military training for 17 days when they first arrive at university, and on this day, there was to be a climactic show on campus where they would show off what they had learned.

A guard at the entrance to the sports ground told us we weren't allowed in. We walked through a different entrance via some open tennis table rooms and toilets, which made the guarding system seem silly. As is often the case, once you are inside there is no problem, because everyone assumes that someone more important than them has given permission, and they don't want to embarrass themselves. More to the point, so as long as we were doing nothing harmful they preferred to just let us stay there - it would look worse to make a scene by escorting two people in front of all the people watching.

We started off in the stalls sitting near the only other plain-clothes people in there - about ten Chinese photographers and writers for student newspapers or projects and that kind of thing. We did have one commander man standing behind us keeping an eye on us the whole time, and there was one embarrassing moment when everyone in the stalls suddenly stood up for a song like in church: we were still sitting, engaged in checking photos and didn't notice until a student next to us tapped us on the shoulder and gestured to stand up. It turned out that more than just the Freshers were taking part in this show. It was a once-in-5-years, special display with Fractions of the Navy, special police and someone who seemed like a government official. As the important man walked down the entire line of hundreds of participants standing to attention, each regiment saluted and shouted the same thing when he reached them. I shouldn't forget to mention that the whole show was really quite impressive, if a little overwhelming and spooky.

Throughout show, the student photographers were slowly edging further down the stalls and on to the running track to get closer shots, and each time they moved, we decided to follow them, guessing that if we were all in one group it look bad if anyone came along and told the white people to go away and let the others stay. Soon we found ourselves standing right in the middle of the stadium with these people, as you can see, taking really close up shots of the display!

Eventually, someone did actually come along and tell the whole group to go and sit back down, which was fair enough and everyone went straight back to their seats. When all was finished and we left the stadium, I gave the entrance guard a little wink.

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Photos

P1010417
you can see the artillery guns in the background

P1010440
the important guy on stage ordering everyone around