Pillow Fight Day returns to Beijing                  

Beijing is among 137 cities around the world to host the April 3 International Pillow Fight Day this year. After the police shut down the event two years running in Beijing and Shanghai, the organizers are keeping the location of the event secret until the last minute this year. So far around 30 pillow fighters have signed up.

Since 2005, on April 3, people in almost every major city in the world go to public spaces like town squares armed with pillows to fight each other for about an hour, as part of the urban playground movement, which is a series of free, social and non-commercial public events aimed to counter "passive, non-social, branded consumption experiences like watching television", according to the event's mission statement.

"I think it's really cool that Beijing can be part of a global fun movement," said one pillow fighter who signed up for this year's event.

Beijing joined another 110 cities globally to pillow fight for the first time March 23, 2008 in both Beijing and Shanghai. The Beijing event at the shopping plaza The Place ended with 60 policemen driving more than a hundred fighters armed with pillows to a second locale and then dispersing them. The Shanghai event also drew police attention.

The new organizer this year, who is referred to as C, told the Global Times that if the event is shut down again this year, they will just organize another one next year. Pillow fighters worldwide are aware of the difficulties of citizens reclaiming public spaces, as the international pillow fight website says: "the 'permit culture' we citizens witness in city halls around the world is perhaps the single largest barrier to experiencing the full richness of public life in the cities we live in."

International pillow fights were started by Kevin Bracken and Lori Kufner's and interactive public art group "Newmindspace" based in New York and Toronto.