China, Cultural: May Day in Beijing

I expected something like this

May Day in a communist country! There was a time when that was a big deal. Today in China, not so much. Oh, it is still a holiday, but there are no big public celebrations of ‘International Workers Day’. There are a lot of reasons for that, I think. In my opinion, one of them is that China really is not a communist country anymore. Another, according to several of the Chinese people we met with whom we discussed the matter, is that the Chinese government really does not want to encourage any large-scale public demonstrations of any kind. They are very nervous. Things might get out of hand.

But it is still a holiday. People still get several days off. May Day is a good time to party. And so, there are a number of parties. We went to the Strawberry Music Festival. Set in the park on the eastern outskirts of Beijing, the Strawberry festival is a pretty big rock concert. It goes for three days, with bands performing simultaneously on six stages -more than 100 performers.

I went with high expectations of seeing China's youth’s wild side. One of the headline bands was named the “Omnipotent Youth Society”. The name screams ‘we have ‘tude!’ - but they didn't, really.

While it has been decades since I last attended what I would call a rock festival, (Day on the Green - remember old-timers?) from what I know of them, this one was pretty sedate by comparison. The music was routine. There was techno and ballads (or what I think were ballads, the lyrics were Chinese).  There was what seemed like head banger tunes. Pretty standard.  What surprised me was the crowd. There were couples with children (one each, of course) though most patrons seem to be 20 something. But there was no crazy hair or crazy clothes - people looked very normal. They listened politely, bobbed around a bit and moseyed on home when it was over. Very calm, very sedate. Not what you would expect from an ‘omnipotent youth society’.

WiT? clue.  You know I am a sucker for 'Father of his Country' types.  This one would fit the mold...