Guangxi, Happy Birthday!

The 11th of December, 2008 Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region is celebrating the 50th Anniversary of its founding. A public holiday has been declared throughout the region.
China consists of 23 provinces (including Taiwan), 4 municipalities (Beijing, Shanghai, Chongqing and Tianjin), 2 Special Administrative Regions (SARs) (Hong Kong and Macau) and 5 Autonomous Regions (Inner Mongolia, Ningxia, Xinjiang, Tibet and Guangxi).

The mascot of the anniversary

Prior to 1958, Guangxi was a province like all the others but, because of its high percentage of Zhuang people, at Zhou Enlai's prompting, it was given autonomous region status. In practice there is no autonomy. The only benefit is that the governor of the region must be a member of the Zhuang ethnic minority. However, the region's party secretary, who is more powerful, is always from the majority Han Chinese. The same applies in all autonomous regions. The local guy gets to be governor, but the real power stays firmly in the hands of the Han. Current Chinese president, Hu Jintao, born in Jiangsu in eastern China was the party secretary of Tibet.
It's a beautiful day; the city has been festooned with flags and lanterns. Schools, Government offices, most banks etc are all closed.

Centre Square in Guilin