Chinese National Day memories and wishes(2)

An, then a primary school teacher in Tianjin, was among dozens of female teachers chosen to witness the grand ceremony in Beijing. They left their school to travel to Beijing at 2 a.m., crouching in the trailer of a truck.

"It was pitch dark when we arrived at Tiananmen, but many people were already there waiting for the grand ceremony to begin at 9 or 10," said An. "Some of them had arrived the previous evening."

Led by group leaders, An and her colleagues joined in a procession proclaiming slogans such as "Long Live Chairman Mao" and "Long Live the Communist Party of China."

"Many people cried. So did I," she said. "I said to myself, now at last, we can start our new life without depression."

Born in 1930, An's childhood memories were mostly about hunger and manslaughter by the invading Japanese troops between 1937 and 1945.

"The 1949 founding of New China turned a new page in history," said An. "The Chinese were no longer oppressed. Everyone was eager to contribute to his country's development."

At the end of the ceremony, An and her colleagues waited in long lines for their turn to retreat from the square.

They boarded the same truck, and it was late in the afternoon when they were back in Tianjin.

In a fit of agitation, An did not eat, drink or sleep for 24 hours, but felt "perfect."

GROWING UP WITH NEW CHINA

Tao Youlan takes pride in the fact that she was born on the day New China was founded.

The oldest of four girls in a coal miner's family in east China's Anhui Province, Tao had a miserable childhood: her mother died from hunger in the famine of 1959-1961. Tao and her three sisters fed on weeds, bark and tree leaves.

At 17, Tao became a worker at a local machinery plant, a much-coveted job in the 1960s. Like most of her peers, she worked on night shifts, from 5 p.m. to 5 a.m., to minimize pressure on the finicky power supply system. Her starting wage was 18 yuan ($2.9) a month and when she retired in 1998, she earned less than 500 yuan ($81).

For decades, her family of five huddled in a one-bedroom apartment and her two daughters shared a bed on the balcony. She never complained, because "nothing was too hard for someone who was almost starved at childhood."

In 1997, the year before she retired, their family moved into a two-bedroom apartment, where they have lived until today. The place becomes crowded once more when her married daughters visit with families.

But Tao does not care: she is rarely home anyway. Most time of the day she's busy dancing with her friends in a nearby square. "In my younger days, I always worried about food and clothing. Today, however, life is so much better and it's important for us to be healthy and enjoy life."

Tao said she would celebrate the National Day and her 65th birthday dancing. "It's the best way to express my happiness."