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.

Thank you for giving us our todays

Ravi Shankar

EXECUTIVE EDITOR OF CHINA DAILY OVERSEAS EDITIONS

I am a nocturnal person. Years of working in newspapers that are published past midnight mean I rarely go to bed till well past that time.

So my delight was mixed with some trepidation when I had the privilege of being invited to the Sept 3 parade. The schedule went against my body clock. Wake-up call at 4 am, breakfast at 5 am, board bus to Tian'anmen Square at 6 am and be seated by 8 am after security checks.

But there are days when waking up early is more than worth it.

Pomp and pageantry. Sound and spectacle. What were cliches till Thursday turned into a spectacular live show from my vantage point bang opposite the Tian'anmen Rostrum.

Those magnificent young men in planes and tanks or marching in perfect step－including about 1,000 foreign troops from 17 countries－held us in thrall for two hours.

The veterans, living, breathing heroes, most of whom saw comrades fall in war, received the biggest applause when they led the march.

Yes, this was a celebration－but also a somber moment of reflection.

Yes, there were murmurs of political motives behind the parade in some quarters－the event has not been celebrated in China on such a scale－but the victims deserve the remembrance and gratitude; the veterans their day under an early-autumn sun.

In the run-up to the parade, I picked up where I left off with Rana Mitter's Forgotten Ally: China's War with Japan, 1937-1945, described as "the epic, untold story of China's devastating eight-year war of resistance against Japan".

If there was any doubt outside China about the tremendous sacrifices made, they would be dispelled by the book.

During the campaign in the Burma Theater in 1944, the Japanese were held off for the first time in the northeastern Indian state of Nagaland－the fierce battles are reported to have taken many lives on both sides.

At the war cemetery in the state capital Kohima lies an epitaph to the mostly British and Indian soldiers:

When you go home,

Tell them of us and say.

For your tomorrow,

We gave our today.

On Thursday, I fully understood what it means and why the commemoration was needed.

The writer, a winner of the China Friendship Award, was among 50 invited to the parade by the State Administration of Foreign Experts Affairs.

Elderly veterans earned praise

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.