All the guards everywhere in the city are now in full military uniform, standing straighter than ever (how this is possible I don't know, since their posture seemed impossibly perfect beforehand), and men have been hanging from ropes off the roof of the giant white-tiled buildings that comprise the China Daily offices with rags in their hands, scrubbing the accumulated grime of the city off the tiles until they gleam like new.
Patriotic posters in vivid red line the walls of our apartment lobby, and there is a 20 foot billboard in front of China Daily, and all the gates to all the neighborhoods have been repainted and hung with banners and silky red lanterns, and our next-door neighbor who spends all day smiling vaguely and chain-smoking in the hallway has taken out his buckets of bleach and scrubbed down the hallway.
For National Day!
There are vibrant flower arrangements on every stretch of green grass along the major roadways and intersections; there are old people in yellow polo shirts directing traffic or sitting on low stools to, I don't know, keep the peace I suppose, and one of them, an old man who is posted at the gate to the apartment complex directly opposite ours, plays an accordion and little children run up to him to dance or stare. The music is very lovely and filters up and down the street, the red lanterns on the gates bobbing whenever a breeze blows through.
As for the general preparatory attitude, the New York Times captures it pretty well:
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