National Day Demonstrations in Hong Kong Turn Violent, as Police Shoot Protester – The New York Times

Our correspondent describes when his father saw Mao.

The first and only time my father saw Mao Zedong in person was in the October 1 parade of 1950, on the first anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic

In the fall of 1950, there were not many students in Beijing, and the call to attend the parade went out to all the universities. My father had started classes a month earlier at Beijing Agricultural University. He wore a long-sleeve white shirt and blue pants and held a simple red flag in one hand.

Those assembled for the parade were grouped by work affiliations: there were farmers and factory workers, and in front of them all stood the soldiers of the People’s Liberation Army. My father was far back with the students.

“Everybody was excited,” my father said. “You could imagine it! It was our first time seeing Mao.”

The students marched in rows of ten. My father was at the left end of his row and walked next to Tiananmen Square, which meant he was far from Mao, who stood atop the gate to the Forbidden City. My father could not see Mao clearly, but could make out the chairman raising his right hand and waving. “Greetings, comrades!” Mao said.

The marchers shouted slogans. “Long live Chairman Mao!” and “Long live the Communist Party!” My father could also hear music, but it is the shouting that he remembers most clearly seven decades later.

— Edward Wong

Reporting was contributed by Russell Goldman, Gillian Wong, Keith Bradsher, Mike Ives, Andrew Jacobs, Ezra Cheung, Li Yuan, Elsie Chen, Tiffany May and Elaine Yu in Hong Kong, and Christopher Buckley, Steven Lee Myers, Alexandra Stevenson, Edward Wong and Ian Johnson in Beijing. Claire Fu and Albee Zhang contributed research in Beijing.