National Day Holiday Notice

National Day of the People's Republic of China And The 60th anniversary of the People's Republic of China (October 1)

Dear friends,
Thanks for your consistent support for VisitCHN During the National Day and Mid-autumn Festival, VisitCHN will stop releasing news for 8 days from October 1st (Thursday) to October 8th. We will come back on October 9th, see you then.
Enjoy the holiday.

Events

National Day of the People’s Republic of China And The 60th anniversary of the People’s Republic of China (October 1)
Mid-Autumn Festival(The Mid-Autumn Festival is held on the 15th day of the eighth month in the Chinese calendar,)
Bids for the 2016 Summer Olympics(Copenhagen, Denmark, on October 2, 2009)

National Day of the People’s Republic of China

The National Day of the People’s Republic of China is celebrated every year on October 1. It is a public holiday in the People’s Republic of China to celebrate its national day.

The PRC was founded on October 1, 1949 with a ceremony at Tiananmen Square. The Central People’s Government passed the Resolution on the National Day of the People’s Republic of China on December 2, 1949 and declared that October 1 is the National Day.

The National Day marks the start of one of the two Golden Weeks in the PRC. However, there have been some recent controversies over whether Golden Weeks should be kept.

The National Day is celebrated throughout mainland China, Hong Kong, and Macau with a variety of government-organised festivities, including fireworks and concerts. Public places, such as Tiananmen Square in Beijing, are decorated in a festive theme. Portraits of revered leaders, such as Sun Yat-sen, are publicly displayed.

When the anniversary is a multiple of five (e.g. the 50th, 55th, or 60th), large-scale official celebrations may be held, including an inspection of troops on Tiananmen Square. More notable of these events included Deng Xiaoping’s inspection in 1984 and Jiang Zemin’s inspection in 1999 and Hu Jintao’s expected inspection in 2009.

The Mid-Autumn Festival

The Mid-Autumn Festival, also known as the Moon Festival, or in Chinese, Zhongqiu Jie (traditional Chinese: 中秋節), is a popular harvest festival celebrated by Chinese people, Koreans, and Vietnamese people (even though they celebrate it differently), dating back over 3,000 years to moon worship in China’s Shang Dynasty.[1][2] It was first called Zhongqiu Jie (literally “Mid-Autumn Festival”) in the Zhou Dynasty.[3] In Malaysia, Singapore, and the Philippines, it is also sometimes referred to as the Lantern Festival or Mooncake Festival.

The Mid-Autumn Festival is held on the 15th day of the eighth month in the Chinese calendar, which is usually around late September or early October in the Gregorian calendar. It is a date that parallels the autumn and spring Equinoxes of the solar calendar, when the moon is supposedly at its fullest and roundest. The traditional food of this festival is the mooncake, of which there are many different varieties.

The Mid-Autumn Festival is one of the two most important holidays in the Chinese calendar, the other being the Chinese New Year, and is a legal holiday in several countries. Farmers celebrate the end of the summer harvesting season on this date. Traditionally, on this day, Chinese family members and friends will gather to admire the bright mid-autumn harvest moon, and eat moon cakes and pomelos together. Accompanying the celebration, there are additional cultural or regional customs, such as:

* Eating moon cakes outside under the moon
* Putting pomelo rinds on one’s head
* Carrying brightly lit lanterns, lighting lanterns on towers, floating sky lanterns
* Burning incense in reverence to deities including Chang’e (simplified Chinese: 嫦娥; traditional Chinese: 嫦娥; pinyin: cháng’é)
* Planting Mid-Autumn trees
* Collecting dandelion leaves and distributing them evenly among family members
* Fire Dragon Dances

Shops selling mooncakes, before the festival, often display pictures of Chang’e floating to the moon., also known as the Moon Festival, or in Chinese, Zhongqiu Jie, is a popular harvest festival celebrated by Chinese people, Koreans, and Vietnamese people (even though they celebrate it differently), dating back over 3,000 years to moon worship in China’s Shang Dynasty. It was first called Zhongqiu Jie (literally “Mid-Autumn Festival”) in the Zhou Dynasty. In Malaysia, Singapore, and the Philippines, it is also sometimes referred to as the Lantern Festival or Mooncake Festival.

* Eating moon cakes outside under the moon
* Putting pomelo rinds on one’s head
* Carrying brightly lit lanterns, lighting lanterns on towers, floating sky lanterns
* Burning incense in reverence to deities including Chang’e
* Planting Mid-Autumn trees
* Collecting dandelion leaves and distributing them evenly among family members
* Fire Dragon Dances

Shops selling mooncakes, before the festival, often display pictures of Chang’e floating to the moon.

The 2016 Summer Olympics

The 2016 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XXXI Olympiad, are a major international sports and cultural festival to be celebrated in the tradition of the Olympic Games, as governed by the International Olympic Committee (IOC). The host city of the Games will be announced at the 121st IOC Session (which will also be the 13th Olympic Congress) to be held in Copenhagen, Denmark, on the 2 October 2009. The 2016 Summer Paralympics will be held in the same city and organized by the same committee.

Seven cities submitted bids to host the 2016 Summer Olympics, formally known as Games of the XXXI Olympiad, which were recognized by the International Olympic Committee (IOC). The Games are to be held in mid-2016 as part of the Olympic Sports movement. After a technical evaluation of the seven original bids, the top four were shortlisted on June 4, 2008, becoming official candidates—Chicago, Madrid, Rio de Janeiro, and Tokyo. The remaining applicant cities—Baku, Doha, and Prague—were eliminated.

Tokyo and Madrid earned the top technical scores during the application phase and are highly recognised national capitals, which lends an increased competitive interest to the final bidding phase. However, recent games held in Asia and Europe could hinder their applications. If the Summer Games return to the Americas (for the first time in 20 years), Chicago and Rio de Janeiro have an edge; Rio would become the first South American city to host the Olympics.

The lengthy and intensive bidding process will finish with the election of the 2016 Games host city at the 121st IOC Session in Copenhagen, Denmark, on October 2, 2009.