May 5th, 2020
Takao Harbour was abuzz with activity in the mid-afternoon of the Fifth of May, the traditional Labour Veneration Day in the Social Republic and the second-to-last day of the five days of holiday typically known as Golden Week in the Republic. Though the nights were still somewhat chilly, the return of warm temperatures and sunny skies for this year's start of May gave the impression of the halcyon days of high summer, as it seemed almost the entirety of the world's second-largest city was out to enjoy the weather and congregate at parks and festival grounds or along the boardwalks overlooking Taihou Bay.
Labour Day or, rather, Labour Week at the start of May carried the importance of a second national holiday of the Republic, a holiday which despite its name had existed in tradition long before the Red Blossom Revolution and was predominantly a very class-specific holiday originally. Traditionally it had originally been called during the near-mythical time of the Dai-Heian (Great Peace) Period first by the shaman-queen Empress Minako in 317 CE, as a way to provide some revelry and entertainment for the peasantry after the hard work of plantation of the start of the current year's crop, arduous work beginning with the last frost and directly after the hanami viewing of the first blossoms. It had largely become more obscure and regional during the Taishogunal period with the end of the clerical government but found renewed meaning with the various successful Ikko Ikki rebellions of the 1300s-1700s, always selecting the start of May for the start of their campaigns at various periods to rally the peasantry to either restoring magistral rule or proto-republics and peasant-rule in the three provinces of central Honshu where they thrived, ultimately forcing the samurai class to the negotiation table. Labour Veneration reappeared at the height of the brutal and often corruptly-managed period of rapid industrialization in the late 19th century with a new meaning - one of agitating the working classes against the various harsh injustices, both real and imagined, perpetrated by robber barons and industrial moguls, often formerly of distinguished samurai families. Its coincidence with what became the modern May Day of labour unions had tied in nicely with the syndicalist movement which came to triumph against the Taishogunal state in the Revolution. It proved to be politically expediant to elevate to national status with the democratic-socialist cultural milleu subtly cultivated in the last century, granting the impression of a natural and organic continuation of a longstanding cultural tradition blended seamlessly with newer ideology.
Not just in Takao itself but in cities throughout the Social Republic - from Haisenwa on the Asian mainland to Tahiti on the other side of the Pacific - the day was one of both rest and spectacle. Parks and squares turned festival grounds offered all manner of diverse street food both traditional and foreign-inspired. Parades featuring various artistic floats melded along with worker unions on demonstration or marching soldiers and armoured vehicles while commentators gave patriotic speeches with flowery language about the hard-fought rights, freedoms and fraternity that all in the Republic enjoy today. Air shows soared overhead near sundown and lavish fireworks displays - otherwise reserved for the hanabi festivals of the high summer - dominated the night sky.
Two Ki-99 Raiden multirole fighters prepare to takeoff from Kennai NAS for a flyby of the Taihou Bay area
As with every Labour Day procession, a host of ambassadors or foreign national leaders were invited to take part. The Directory was eager to showcase to the world that Tsurukai was ready to eventually see an Asia of equals, free of foreign empires and interference, but also show that the Tsurukaian islands were open and welcoming to the world, and willing to work with anyone from any nation looking to build a better world and coexist in peace. At the very least, that was the official rhetoric behind the government of the past hundred years and its drive for prominence in the Pacific. Dignataries from friendly nations in Asia and beyond had already been welcomed the day prior at Kennai Naval Air Station, predominantly from the Shenzhen Pact as its defacto ringleader, the Nanfang Republic, was both a valued neighbour and trading partner and a nation with a somewhat similar political outlook.
Like many of her countrymen, Sosai Kawakita Sayuki had attended the shrine closest to her home in the morning to symbolically pay her respects to the kami of the natural world in appreciation of the environment and world around and to leave behind an ema inscribed with wishes for a peaceful summer and a prosperous growing season. In this respect, she still followed the lifestyle of a commoner unchanged from her time as an educator before entering politics. She had been selected as Sosai, a President of sorts, at the start of the year by anonymous election, on a ballot where only her policy proposals and desire to represent the nation was selected by the Directory of experts and guild representatives which form the executive branch of the Republic to lead them. In joining the Directory she, much like a lot of her fellow directors, had to temporarily but significantly change her life: renouncing her personal wealth as well as privacy in the hopes of serving the people in a selfless, virtuous manner (at least in theory). She was in her 40s and still relatively young and idealistic, which some of her peers found refreshing and necessary to keep the Directory in touch with progressive reforms and insight outside of the syndicates and bureaucracy. Sayuki had nonetheless found some others of her fellow directors unhelpful or jaded, often looking at her role with cynicism as just a figurehead to represent the overall structure of meritocratic public servants. The stress of the two camps and navigating the competing interests weighed on her, giving her some doubt if she is as able as her predecessors who were perhaps more pragmatic, and she found a level of comfort from these newfound challenges in mundane activities that reminded her of a normal life again.
Now, with the noon hour passed, she found herself once again returned to a professional demeanor. To lend some gravitas and make a point to her fellow directors, she was in the viewing box of the parade in an immaculate pressed white officer's uniform from her time in the Republic of Japan Navy (RJN). She had been a flight systems officer during her period of national service in her twenties but now her old modest rank insignia of Lieutenant had been swapped for one of commander-in-chief. Looking out across the road to the Bay, Sayuki remembered she had been here once before. As a child she had once been in the crowd on the other side of the promenade looking out over the bay, her father had taken her on the train from their home in Kurashiki for the Labour Day parade and fireworks, camping out a day in advance to be in an optimal spot. Later in life during her college years in Takao, she had never placed as much importance on being so close to the harbour on Labour Day celebrations, mostly watching the event from afar with enough clarity to see the air show and the fireworks though, perhaps, with less wonder than when she was a child. Now, some fourty years later, Sayuki found herself directly in the protected viewing stand she had caught a glimpse of from atop her father's shoulders when she was younger, and in the centre of it all. Seats were open next to her as she awaited to once again greet the delegation from the Nanfang Republic and the Manchurian Empire.
