> ## Content Index
> Fetch the complete content index at: https://larrysalibra.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further.

# Happy 77th birthday China!
- URL: https://larrysalibra.com/happy-77th-birthday-china/
- Published: 2026-10-01T14:55:11.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-01T14:55:11.000Z
- Author: Larry Salibra
- Tags: parenting, china, day-84, daily

Today is the 77th birthday of the People's Republic of China. I've been celebrating the birthday of my adopted home for almost 2 decades. It's been absolutely mindblowing to watch the progress of the nation over that time period. Every year is bigger and better than the previous. 

This is our first holiday with fireworks where we considered taking our baby out to celebrate. We failed to plan in advance though and didn't have appropriate baby hearing protection. Baby hearing protection was a product category that I didn't even know existed until today. Friends suggested using noise cancelling headphones, but all we had were AirPods. AirPods on a baby seem to be just asking to spend the holiday in the emergency room, so we passed.

The lesson from both of these things...the fact that life in China keeps improving every year and we didn't go to fireworks because of lack of baby hearing protection shows us one thing: the importance of planning. Now that we have a baby, we need to plan much further in advance than we have in the past...even for mundane things like going to watch some fireworks. And likewise, a nation needs a long-term plan and the ability and competence to execute on it if one wants life in the nation to improve over the years.