China's military, The People's Liberation Army, the world's largest standing army, no doubt has some crack regiments somewhere, but the vast majority seem to be young kids, male and female, in uniforms obviously designed for their elder and larger siblings. It seems that they are not issued with regulation footwear either. I often see groups of soldiers in uniform, all wearing different shoes - mainly sports shoes or a type of green plimsoll which my Chinese friends refer to as "peasant shoes".
Of course, I have no idea what training they are given, if any, but they seem to spend much of their time doing stuff which isn’t normally regarded as military duties. For example, when they decided to carry out a road widening scheme to the north of Liuzhou, it was soldiers who cut down and removed all the trees lining the road.
And they have the distinction of having released what is probably the worst music video in the world. Or perhaps it’s a secret weapon – surrender or we will sing this again!
tags: china army pla soldiers uniform liuzhou music video
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