On the eve of National Day this year, the reporter visited some special "national flag people". Because of some chance or personal persistence, their career and life are inextricably linked with our national flag. In the process of telling those vivid stories, we can feel that a force called the spirit of the national flag is flowing out of their hearts and injecting warmth into our hearts. In fact, isn't it just to find this motivation to watch the flag-raising on National Day?
Wu Meng, 20, has an important task today: to raise a five-star red flag in Tiananmen Square for the 55th National Day of People's Republic of China (PRC).
Although young, Wu Meng has served in the flag class of Tiananmen National Flag Guard for four years and is the "oldest" flag bearer in the flag class at present. Standing upright, with steady steps and powerful movements, he is the best candidate to undertake the task of raising the flag on such a major festival as National Day.
But it is not easy to achieve the "best" day.
Wu Meng said that when he first joined the army, the Tiananmen National Flag Guard went to recruit soldiers, and the conditions were quite harsh. Only four people were selected for a brigade. When Wu Meng was still immersed in the joy of being selected, the hard special training came on. Standing in the military posture is the first lesson of basic skills. One stop is four or five hours. The nerves on the soles of the feet have been oppressed for a long time, and he often feels dizzy when standing.
The action of collecting the flag in one go is dubbed "cutting the flagpole" because this action requires the right hand to "cut" the flagpole continuously and quickly to ensure that the flag surface will not be blown away in windy weather, and it will be completely collected in the "cutting" action from 13 to 15. "We can't let everyone see that our movements are silent," Martin said with a simple and honest smile. "So when we chop, we must chop, slowly and rhythmically, to encourage the people."
At the beginning of the training, Wu Meng and his comrades in the flag class "cut" blood on the flagpole, and their fingers grinded out blood marks on the flag surface. The wound is often a bad and painful layer. "The flag we used for training at that time was really stained with blood." Wu Meng smiled and said.
The most exciting moment when raising the national flag is the moment when the flag raiser throws the national flag obliquely above. This action seems simple, but it is also a "kung fu job" to stretch and unfold the national flag. To grasp the rhythm of music, the direction of power should be accurate. In addition, the most important thing is to have strong arm strength. In order to practice flag-spreading, Wu Meng and his comrades in the flag class often use dumbbell pieces of 10 kg and 20 kg for continuous training, and one wave lasts for a whole half day. When they first started practicing, it was time to eat, because the trainers were shaking and could not hold chopsticks.
After all these difficulties have been overcome, there is still psychological quality. With so many pairs of eyes staring at the square, the flag-raiser's calm kung fu is not ordinary. After years of tempering, these are now a cinch for Wu Meng.
Wu Meng said that over the years since the national flag was raised, he witnessed that the number of people who came to see it increased year by year and the waiting time was getting earlier and earlier. Some people even stayed up all night, waiting to see the flag raised. Every time he throws the flag, he can catch a glimpse of a flash, and his heart will be filled with pride and emotion.
"Every time the flag is raised, no matter how many people are in the square, it will immediately be quiet. Once, a group of kindergarten children came to watch the flag raising. When the national anthem rang, the children who were still playing were silent, which was very cute. Sometimes, people will clap spontaneously when the national flag is raised to the top. The scene is particularly touching. " Wu Meng said that seeing people love to watch the national flag more and more, he felt that the suffering during training was nothing. It was his happiest moment.
Peng Guanghan: The five-star red flag once came back to life.
This year, the white-haired Peng Guanghan is 86 years old. On the eve of the founding of New China, the Sixth Group of the Preparatory Committee of China People's Political Consultative Conference was responsible for studying and drafting the national flag, national emblem, national anthem, calendar and capital. Peng Guanghan was the secretary of the Sixth Group at that time. He remembers that the public solicitation of the national flag pattern caused a very strong response. In just a few days, he received 2992 national flag patterns from all over the country.
After two screenings, 38 sets of national flag patterns were successfully selected, and the designed "Red Five-Star Red Flag" ranked 32nd ... But in the original design at that time, the largest star also included the patterns of sickle and axe. At that time, some people thought it was too much like the flag of the Soviet Union. As a sovereign country, our national flag pattern must be independent. As a result, such a model was rejected.
So, everyone asked Peng Guanghan to report to Chairman Mao. Chairman Mao was not satisfied with several schemes, so he asked Peng Guanghan: You have been working on this to see if there is a good scheme. Peng Guanghan went on to talk about the plan of "Red Five-Star Red Flag".
After consideration, Chairman Mao still thinks that the "red five-star red flag" is well designed, and the representative meaning can be changed to "the great unity of our people under the leadership of the * * * production party". This method has been recognized by the delegates. Finally, the "Red Five-Star Flag" without the sickle and axe pattern was selected and renamed as "Five-Star Red Flag", which became the national flag of China people.
Hu: Electricians have raised the national flag for the square for 26 years.
For more than 20 years after founding ceremony, there has been no "professional flag raiser" in Tiananmen Square. The task of raising and lowering the national flag has always been the responsibility of Beijing Power Supply Bureau. Two years ago, Chen Hongnian, a worker of power supply bureau, undertook this work; In the 26 years after 195 1, it was the young electrician Hu who was responsible for raising and lowering the national flag for the square.
1951On the evening of September 30th, Hu was suddenly informed that he would be responsible for raising the national flag from the next day, which made Hu, who was only 2 1 year old at that time, very excited. He worked the night shift that night, and it was past 3 o'clock, so he simply didn't go home and slept in the Tiananmen management office.
Nonsense, at that time, the national flag was not accompanied by the national anthem, and no one watched it. Besides, the national flag is not raised every day. Only on holidays and important foreign heads of state visit will he be informed to raise the flag. He always got the flag from the Tiananmen management office the day before, tied it to his bike the next day and rode it from home for half an hour to Tiananmen Square.
Go to work as usual after raising the flag. At that time, the time to raise and lower the national flag was completely estimated by him. Unlike now, the observatory accurately calculated the time when the national flag and the sun rose and set at the same time.
It was not until May 1976 that the troops stationed in Beijing took over the task of raising and lowering the national flag in the square, and Hu became the longest person to raise the national flag in the square so far.
Ji Ruxun: The national flag collected by Guo Bo has a story.
Ji Ruxun, research librarian of China National Museum, researcher of national flag historical relics. Among the cultural relics preserved and studied by him and his colleagues, there are nearly 100 national flags with special historical value. For example, Chairman Mao personally raised the first five-star red flag in founding ceremony, the first five-star red flag in Macau raised by Duran, the headmaster of Haojiang Middle School in Macau, at 1949, 10, 1, the first five-star red flag brought into space by American Chinese Wang Ganjun, and the first five-star red flag raised at the South Pole. The national flag composed of 1999 red scarf used by teachers and students in Tibet middle school is the largest national flag in the collection.
Ji Ruxun lamented that every flag they collected has a touching story, reflecting the imprint of the times. Although some national flags are damaged, its experience may be even more unusual. For example, the first five-star red flag raised at the South Pole in Guo Bo's collection is122cm long and145cm wide, which is 47cm less than the standard size. It turned out that although this national flag was made of strong linen, it was "eaten" by 47 cm under the violent extreme wind.
Han Buxin: Why is the national flag so red?
Han Buxin, a researcher at the Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, is one of the drafters of "Flag Color and Flag Lifting Device Standard". He and his colleagues have done a very interesting research: What kind of red is the national flag red?
Han Buxin said that when New China was founded, a National Flag Law Directive was promulgated, which generally stipulated that "the flag surface of the five-star red flag is red, the five-pointed star is yellow and the flagpole cover is white". Because there is no detailed standardization standard, the colors of national flags produced by different manufacturers or even different batches vary greatly. It is necessary to formulate a unified and detailed standard for the color of the national flag.
Experts first investigated the use of the national flag in various places and found that the sampled national flag red was so different, ranging from orange to purple. Then they measured these samples by spectrophotometry and selected more than 30 candidate colors. Next, experts began to investigate people's opinions on a large scale. In order to more accurately understand the preferences of all walks of life for the color of the national flag, they also specially invited people from various ethnic minorities to participate in this work. After the statistics of these screening results, the experts concluded that cotton, polyester and silk have the best red effect, which is the background for the evaluation and selection of pentagonal yellow. After screening, experts finally got the best chromaticity values of red and yellow of three fabrics as the preferred standard chromaticity of the national flag, and based on these data, a mandatory national standard for the color of the national flag was formulated, which has legal authority.
Li Yukun: The ordinary people's congress wrote a letter to formulate the national flag law.
14 years ago, the National Flag Law of People's Republic of China (PRC) was promulgated and implemented. Behind the national flag, a representative of the National People's Congress named Li Yukun contributed greatly.
1988, Li Yukun's visit to the United States coincided with the National Day. He saw the American flag hanging everywhere, whether in the streets, shops or loudspeakers. When he returned to his hometown, it happened on our National Day. On such a grand festival, there is not a flag or national flag of the people of China in the whole street.
1988 10 10 On 6 October, deeply touched, Li Yukun wrote to the NPC Standing Committee, suggesting that specific measures should be formulated as soon as possible to raise the national flag, strengthen patriotism education and arouse people's national concept.
Two months later, Li Yukun received a reply, which also included a report from the relevant departments of the State Council asking the leaders to formulate the national flag law. It reads: "The suggestion made by the representative Li Yukun is very important. So far, there is no legal basis for flying the national flag in China, and it is urgent to formulate laws and regulations in this regard. It is suggested that the Legislative Affairs Bureau of the State Council, together with the National People's Congress and the People's Political Consultative Conference of China, draft laws or measures for raising the national flag ". Shortly thereafter, the draft national flag law was put on the agenda. 1On June 28th, 990, President Yang of People's Republic of China (PRC) issued Order No.28, officially promulgating the People's Republic of China (PRC) National Flag Law, which came into effect on June 28th of the same year.
Zhao Xinfeng: The old squad leader of the national flag class retired the flag.
Since/kloc-0 joined the army in Tiananmen flag class in the spring of 1989, Zhao Xinfeng's fate has been inextricably linked with this bright red flag. Even after he retired, he still didn't leave the national flag.
1991April 15, 4 1 The flagpole of the motherland was gloriously "retired", and Zhao Xinfeng and two comrades lowered the flag at half mast for the last time; 1991April 16, the new flag pole of Tiananmen Square was opened, and Zhao Xinfeng personally pressed the button to raise the first red star and red flag for it. 1 991may1day, the "Tiananmen flag class" was expanded to "Tiananmen flag guard", and the original flag-raising ceremony was changed from a three-person flag-raising ceremony to a 36-person flag-raising ceremony, which was more magnificent. Zhao Xinfeng also became the first monitor of the flag class of Tiananmen National Flag Guard.
In 200 1 year, Zhao Xinfeng, who retired, founded Beijing Xinfeng Banner Cultural Communication Center, becoming the first institution specializing in flag education and flag cultural communication in China. He also founded the China Flag Network, and plans to establish the China Flag Foundation and the China Flag Museum. Zhao Xinfeng said: "Carrying forward the spirit of the national flag will be my lifelong career."