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Togs of war

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DINERS GOT MORE than they bargained for recently when men in military garb walked into the Moscow Restaurant in Beijing's Haidian district. Wearing uniforms from the former Soviet Union, its satellite states of East Germany and Yugoslavia, and the People's Liberation Army, the group sat down at a long table and launched into animated discussion. It might have been a rare reunion of officers from the communist bloc. Except the men were all Chinese, and were more likely to wield camcorders than Kalashnikovs.

'It was very funny,' says Liu Zhengnian, who organised the meeting. 'Each one had a role to play and was asked to deliver a speech. We were back to the 1950s, the honeymoon days between China and the Soviet Union.'

Liu heads the Dragon Knights Club, a Beijing-based group of military hobbyists. With 5,800 members across the country, it's one of the biggest clubs of its kind on the mainland. Others include the Shanghai-based Alliance for Day of Defeat and Combat 2000 in Guangzhou.

A photo editor, Liu founded the club with two schoolmates in 1995 as an online forum for enthusiasts, but the group has since expanded its scope of activities. 'We focus on collection - uniforms, medals, badges, anything military except for weapons,' he says. The members are a diverse group, including shop owners and workers, as well as journalists and college students.

Running a military-themed club on the mainland is a challenge. Private ownership of guns, including antique weaponry, is banned. And, unlike in Hong Kong, war games fought with paintball or pellet guns are also banned, which limits military buffs' hopes of pretend soldiering. Neither can students of military strategy get to re-enact key manoeuvres. Some renegade clubs, however, are rumoured to sneak off on weekends to play in more remote hillsides. Other hobbyists have been known to fly to Hong Kong and parts of Southeast Asia for similar thrills.

But for all its restrictions, the mainland has advantages: it's among the best places in the world to collect knock-off or surplus military gear. 'China is the fourth biggest military products exporter in the world,' says Liu, whose father and grandfather were soldiers.

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