'Completely phenomenal' – what it's like to attend the V-Day parade

After China staged its V-Day parade in Beijing, one fascinated English-born observer told CGTN that the experience was "completely phenomenal" – and that she hopes she can help to increase understanding, tolerance and friendship between British and Chinese people. 

It was as Chair of the Society for Anglo-Chinese Understanding (SACU) that Zoe Reed was invited to the parade, marking the 80th anniversary of victory in the Chinese People's War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression and World Anti-Fascist War.

Reed had a prime seat – and thoroughly enjoyed the show.

"It was completely phenomenal," she told CGTN's Juliet Mann. "We were sitting parallel with where Xi Jinping was sitting and all of the main political leaders, so everything that came up to go past the leaders then came on past us."

Asked what impressed her the most, Reed cited the scale and precision of the display.

"I think the sheer volume of it, and the absolute precision of the marching troops," she said. "They were all different, but there wasn't a single tiny bit of people being out of step. It was absolute perfection. 

"Then at the end, we had the 80,000 doves of peace and phenomenal balloons as well. And Tian'anmen Square is sort of covered now in bird feathers, as they all fluttered around. So we picked up a couple of mementos…"

It wasn't Reed's first time in Tian'anmen Square. It was there in 1997 that she finally met her Chinese father, who had returned home in the 1950s unaware that Reed's mother was pregnant with her. 

BRIDGE BUILDERS: The fascinating story of Zoe Reed

Before meeting her father, Reed had lived a fairly typical British life – which, she said, means relative ignorance about China's wartime experience. 

"As someone born and brought up in Britain in the 1950s, 60s and 70s, I had absolutely no idea that China was in the war, or that China suffered the devastating, aggressive losses that they did, or that it went on for so long," she said.

"In Britain we've not had the experience of being invaded for 14 years, we've not had the experience of children being orphaned and hiding in ditches during the day and then running to safety at night – which was the experience of my father. 

"It kind of made me think that if this was the backdrop to our life, we might think differently, we might behave differently if we felt we were under attack, under threat. 

"So I think [the parade] was an attempt to show peace through strength: 'We will hold the peace by sharing our strength.'" 

After meeting her father, Reed was inspired to join SACU. She describes its mission as being "to build understanding amongst the British public that will then lead to greater tolerance and greater friendship between peoples of Britain and peoples of China. 

"And so we're very keen to make some of the connections we've made to get young people to understand the real China of today.

"There is a place for everybody in the world. We need to find a way of working together peacefully and ensuring that everybody develops and grows as they need to and as they can."