Gently serene Guan Laoshi nodded. Tiantian, one of our office’s younger teachers and the subject of congratulatory office teasing for her upcoming marriage, stirred at her food quietly.

We probably started talking about TV after that.

This underlying sense of shame and redemption is something that no American pundit I have ever listened to understands, but every Chinese person with any amount of cultural self-respect (I’m looking at you, Arcadia – just having a lot of boba cafes isn’t good enough) feels deeply. It’s why everyone is looking forward so much to watching the celebrations for the 60th Anniversary of China’s founding tomorrow. It feels a little like how it felt when the Beijing Olympics were being broadcast. What! Celebrating 60 years of Communist rule! the rabid right would accuse…except nobody here really thinks at all about that. In fact, I’m dead certain that most Chinese remember quite well how bitter life was during most of those sixty years. It’s probably because of that hardship that everyone anticipates the ceremony and significance of tomorrow. The past was terrible, but at least we are here now today. And today we are strong.

A strength in no small part defined by military might, of course. I remember in 1999 when my parents watched China’s 50th anniversary celebrations from satellite television. They made me watch it too – I was 12 and quickly bored by all the tanks, planes and regiments that seemed to endlessly parade past Jiang Zemin’s dorky hand-wave. I had no idea that this thing I was having to sit through would be debated endlessly by American talking heads in the years to come as a demonstration of aggressive Chinese militancy, but I would certainly feel it in the 7th grade when Cory Greene asked “hey Chinaman, why’d you down our plane?” after the Hainan Island Incident and when my ears would burn upon hearing freshman Poli Sci majors try to sound important by speculating when the inevitable Chinese-American war would erupt in college dining halls. “What! Why would they think that!” flustered Nana when I mentioned this American paranoia to her. “Well…I guess, maybe, they did it on purpose too, to show the world they are strong,” she amended after a few moments of thought. “But still! It is also just a celebration! They are all being silly.”

In fact, I swear I once heard one of those talking heads on TV comment on how the Chinese seemed to be holding true to their promise of a 21st century “peaceful rise” based solely on how they had not “attempted any demonstrations of military antics like those parades before in the past.” The guy thought the Chinese were deliberately avoiding prancing around with guns in hand for these last ten years just to keep a low profile. I wonder what he’ll think when they do it again tomorrow, haha!