Scenes from the edges of parade

From their various points of view, eight China Daily journalists share feelings, insights and observations about Thursday's events in Beijing marking the end of World War II.

XU JINGXING/CHINA DAILY

Elderly veterans earned praise

CHINA DAILY Wu Jiao REPORTER

When I left home at midnight for the victory parade, my WeChat was already flooded with various discussions of the event posted by friends and relatives.

Some mentioned their family's suffering and heartbreak during the Chinese People's War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression (1937-45). Others said they would watch the live broadcast with their children to teach them about history.

Many people outside China are under the impression that China intended to show its muscle by hosting, for the first time, a victory parade. For most of us here, it is more a kind of moment for us to review a history lesson, to remember those who paid the highest price for the peace we have now and to discuss what we should do later to make the country safer through retrospection.

My grandmother, in her 80s, recalled how her family fled into the forests in panic whenever the Japanese troops arrived at the village she lived in.

My 5-year-old daughter asked why some Japanese people wanted to invade China, which seemed so contradictory to the impressions she had from viewing the adorable characters in Japanese cartoons.

A Westerner on my team in the newspaper was interested in what staff at the Japanese embassy would be doing, as none of them attended the parade.

The extent of the sacrifices made by Chinese fighting and tying down the Japanese Imperial Army was little appreciated or even known about in the West, he said.

For me, a professional in her 30s, the most impressive part of the events marking the anniversary is that no matter how much we learned of the war from textbooks, it was only when we looked into the weather-beaten faces of the surviving soldiers and listened to their stories that we really understood what that period of history means for the nation.

When the vehicles carrying these veterans, with an average age of 90, passed by, spectators stood up and applauded them. This was not about flexing muscles. It was about saying thank you and expressing a deep sense of gratitude.

When the parade ended near noon, I could sense the hearts of many in the audience were touched by what they had seen.