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Greeting the new century
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Capital embraces New Year
THE night of December 31, 2000 in Beijing was turned into daytime with big celebrations to welcome the New Year. Citizens waited late into the night to feel the physical coming of the 21st century.
When the clock stroke 12, the whole city of Beijing was in a sea of joy. Department stores prepared versatile festivities which lasted from the last day of 2000 to the dawn of 2001.
Over 60 performance teams presented their best in music, dancing, plays and acrobatics during the night while films to welcome the New Year brought people with an unforgettable night.
At 11pm, fireworks glazed the sky over the China Century Forum, marking the opening of various folk activities to greet the new century. At 11.20pm students from China, Japan and Korea tried to break the Guinness record in Domino. Since 11pm, TV audiences and internet surfers watched the live programme of the birth of two babies, who were born only a few minutes apart but in two different centuries. Their hands were held together.
One thousand newly-wedded couples from 56 nationalities across the country attended a New Year Concert in Beijing. On the morning of today, after watching the solemn national flag raising on Tian'an Men Square, they tied their knots on a grand wedding ceremony held in the Great Hall of the People, reportedly the biggest wedding since the founding of the People's Republic of China. (Zhang Zhiyong)
Villagers greet first twilight
VILLAGERS in Shitang Township, Wenling City in East China's Zhejiang Province, which astronomers said was the first in the Chinese mainland to see the first twilight of the new century, were on Saturday set to greet the new century amid a “twilight boom" that has turned the otherwise obscure and outlying township into a tourist attraction.
An archway made of pine branches and red silk stood at the entrance to Qianhong Village. Red lanterns were hanging in front of the door of every household, adding to the festive mood.
Not far away, the Yuanlong'ao Village, a small village built on a seashore cliff, is located at the east end of the township. A Millennium Twilight Monument was erected on the cliff to mark the arrival of the new millennium at the end of 1999. The Twilight Park was built afterwards. Villagers then reconstructed the monument as a 21-metre-tall structure to symbolize the arrival of the 21st century.
Colour flags, which decorated the road to the park, serve as road signs for tourists. Even hawkers selling candied haws used small flags to attract buyers. Posters which read “Greeting the twilight of the new century" as well as flags could be seen elsewhere.
Wenling City held an entertainment party at its stadium on Saturday evening to mark the beginning of China 21st Century Twilight Festival. A ceremony to greet the first twilight of the new century was held in the Twilight Park at 6am this morning. (Lin Min)
Best places to welcome first sunlight
THE sun set in China's Xinjiang Urgur Autonomous Region at 7.40pm yesterday, December 31, 2000, marking China's farewell to the 20th century. And greeting to the 21st century was accomplished during the sunrise at the dawn of today, January 1, 2001, in eastern Zhejiang Province's Shitang, Kuocang Mountain and North Yandang Mountain and northeastern Jilin Province's Senlin Mountain, best places to see the first sunlight in China on the first day of 2001 announced by China's authoritative National Observatory.
Shitang, a small township at seaside in Wenling, Zhejiang Province, became famous overnight when its “millennium sunlight" attracted hundreds of thousands of visitors last year. Kuocang Mountain in Linhai, if calculated in a different way, is the place to see the first sunlight in China. And this year, celebrations were prepared to make a tourist harvest. Another place in the same province — North Yandang Mountain, is a national-level scenic spot.
When Jilin's Senlin Mountain was announced as one of the best places to see the first light of the new century, few were familiar with the place. It is the highest mount among the neighbouring ones. Two observing sites were set for visitors.(Silvia Liu)
Seeing off the last ray
YESTERDAY, thousands of people came from every corner of the country to see off the last ray of sunlight for the 20th century in Simuhana Village, Kezile Kirgiz Autonomous Prefecture of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. At 7.40pm Beijing time, the sun sank among the mountains of Pamirs on the west border of China.
Sponsored by the local government, this series of celebrations to see off the old century and welcome the new century started with a sacrifice ceremony and were followed by other traditional festivities like horseracing, eagle hunting and playing on swings. The most impressing was the chorus of an epic by 70 singers led by 84-year-old Jusupu Mamayi, contemporary Homo of Kirgiz.
Another ceremony, Kindling the Light of One Thousand Years, was held simultaneously. A Kirgiz girl got the kindling with a magnifier accompanied by 39 others dressed in their traditional apparatus, lit a torch and handed it to a local official, who passed on the torch to the director of the China Year 2000 Committee. After lighting the main torch, the kindling was kept in a box and sent by plane to Wenling, Zhejiang Province to meet the first sunlight of the new century. As “sunlight messengers", two Kirgiz girls escorted the kindling to the very east of China.
With the last drop of ray disappearing on the square, people started to sing and dance out their wishes for the coming new century, surrounding eight campfires that lit up the western sky.(Dawn Li)
Youth's new century dreams
ON the threshold of the new century, 2,100 high school students in Guangzhou sent in their dreams in sealed envelopes, which will be opened and reread in 20 years' time.
Co-sponsored by Yangcheng Evening News Newspaper Group and Guangzhou Committee of Chinese Communist Youth League, this “century dream" activity was applauded by thousands of kids. Ranging between 13-19, they seriously wrote down dreams for the future and their biggest wishes for the first year in the new century. Some dream to become IT engineers, explorers, CEOs for international companies, music makers; some want to teach, write and cure patients.
A little bit naive though, these kids are pious in drawing out their future blueprint. One-fifth of them hope to be engaged in careers related to environmental protection, genetic engineering, computer network and social services that mark this technology-boosted era and the common wish for a better life for the whole human race. Most express a craving for an energetic and creative life style, and some show enthusiasm for explorative and risky jobs such as being an astronaut, war correspondent and archeologist. Still others depict their hope for China and the world in 20 years' time. (Li Dan)
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