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Home → Beijing Tours → Beijing China Travel Blog → See Sunrise National Flag Raising Ceremony

See Sunrise National Flag Raising Ceremony
( 5:52am on Tiananmen Square May 24,2008 )

People tend to neglect something not urgent, but important. Some local people in Beijing never go to visit the Great Wall in their life and many haven't seen the Great Wall yet. The reason is simple that the Great Wall is close to them and they have enough time to do it in their lifetime based on the unlogical thinking - they have many many tomorrows and all the tomorrows will come! Sometime tomorrow will never come and very often the coming tomorrow is too late for you. Actually we can find the word "tomorrow" in a dictionary, but in real life we cannot find the word "tomorrow". If tomorrow comes, then it is Today! We will become losers if giving too much for "many many tomorrows". I don't want to a loser and I don't know what will happen tomorrow - 5.12 earthquake in Wenchuan or Cyclone in Myanmar? Who knows? Do what you think important or you like right now, don't leave them for the never know tomorrows.

Seeing national flag raising ceremony at Tiananmen Square is something important, but not urgent for me. But I want to do it now and don't want to wait for the many many coming tomorrows to do it. So I decide today - May 24, 2008 to finish my long-expected wish - watching the sunrise national flag ceremony at Tiananmen Square. The national flag is raised with the time for the sunrise. So each day has its different time for flag raising. You can check the timetable for flag raising for more information. The exact time for flag raising on May 24, 2008 falls on 4:52am.

Yesterday evening I tried to persuade my son and wife in joining me for the early morning plan. The answer was "No!". What I got was " you are a crazy old boy!". Saterday morning is a good time for the body-repairing deep sleep after a week's hard work at office and study at school. I had to set my wake-up alarm call at 4:10am through my iphone - Apple, a very nice mobile as a gift from my friend in Romania - Ms Crisitna. At 4:10 am, I jumped up with the beauiful musical alarm and went out of my bedroom and got dressed up. I quickly washed and shaved. Taking my camera, I flew down to the underground parking lot. I was in my car and now it was 4:28am! I had to hurry up! I had only 24 minutes left. The outside was still a little dark. The streets were for the most part empty. The road was wet due to the water sprayed by the earlier watering trucks. I had to drive fast and steadily keeping from the possible water splash. When I drove to the square, I found a hude crowd of people already gathering on the south of the flag pole. A good parking lot is diffecult to find around Tiananmen Square. I was lucky enough to park my car on the west of the square. Now only 8 minutes left, I runned to the crowd. I saw the flashing lights of a police car by a temporary fence gate as a check-point. You know the square is surrounded by the chest high fence. If you have hand bags, you are supposed to show for the security check for the ceremony. More police cars were here for the ceremony. Now the dark night had transformed into pre down glow. The bad thing was that it was a little cloudy in this early morning. We would miss the glow of the sunrise. The crowd gathering there were like many layers of walls, I had to raise my camera overhead to take the pictures of the important and solemn moment! They were coming! I saw a group of soldiers of guard of honor coming through the gate of Tiananmen Tower, south of the Forbidden City. It wasn't long before the music started. Chinese National Anthem was being played when they ceremoniously attached the flag and slowly raised. The whole ceremony lasted only 3 munites. They time the flag raising at the exact moment of sunrise. Many people singed along the national anthem. Many of the Chinese here were domestic tourists coming from all parts of China. Still some unlucky people were a little late for the ceremony. Even after the ceremony, you could find many people coming to the reluctantly leaving crowd near the pole. Most of the police and soldiers began to leave the square and opended the side gates for more people to come for the day. I took several pictures of the familiar Tiananmen Square to record the special moment.

The ceremony security check at the fence gate to the square


A procession of soldiers carrying the flag emerging from Tiananmen Tower marching toward the flag pole.




The national flag was being raised




The soldiers leaving and marching inside Tiananmen Tower where they stay.


People seeing the flag raising ceremony






A domestic tourist group with the background - Grand Hall of people


The Nationa Museum is under repair.


The monumentto the national heroes.

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