More than 200,000 Beijing residents and visitors from across the country got up early Saturday morning to observe the national flag-raising ceremony at the Tian'anmen Square in downtown Beijing, as a way to celebrate the 56th anniversary of the founding of New China.

It has been a tradition of more than five decades that a grand national flag-raising ceremony is held in the early morning of National Day on October 1, which attracts hundreds of thousands of people to pay tribute to the motherland.

To the delight of those who were at the square to watch the ceremony before 6 AM, more than 10,000 doves were flied for the first time on the occasion after the military band performed the national anthem.

(Xinhua News Agency October 1, 2005)