China Trip: Chapter 4 - Nanjing

Day 10

Time: 9.40am
Place: On a high speed train somewhere between Suzhou and Nanjing.

And so we are finally going to Nanjing. Nanjing was a famous site of World War II, made famous in the non-fiction book "The Rape of Nanking". I wiki-ed that event and it really is quite gruesome, probably exceeding, amazingly, the brutality demonstrated by the NAZIs on the Jews in concentration camps. Even if, perhaps, the NAZIs' treatment of the Jews may have been more widespread. And so a year after visiting Dachau, I'm on my way to visit Nanking.

Ironically the hero of Nanking, John Rabe, was a member of the NAZI party, and used that fact, together with the fact that Germany and Japan were war allies, to save as many local Chinese as possible. But I'll tell you more later in this account when I get home. What I know now is purely from wikipedia.

We had to leave early this morning, the same time as Eugene, because we didn't want to hold on to the apartment key or else he would have been stuck outside the apartment. He said he didn't mind, but we did. Our train was at 9.26am so we had some time to kill (we left at 8am).

But, importantly, we needed to change our departure timing from Nanjing because we realized that we had booked too early a departure time from Nanjing. We managed to, so now we don't have to keep rushing in Nanjing. And may get to visit the mighty Yangtze River flowing through Nanjing.

Originally we had planned only to visit the Mausoleum of Sun Yat Sen (whose Mausoleum is probably more worth our while visiting than the Mausoleum of Mao in Tienanmen Square, Beijing), as well as the memorial of the Nanking Massacre. Note that I use the names Nanking and Nanjing interchangeably, but that's only because they refer to the same city.

After changing the train timing, we still had enough time to get breakfast at KFC at the station, and boarded the train after the horde of crazy Chinese people who for some reason think that there is a necessity to board the train first.

Okay, that's it for now. I'll be back tonight.

*

Time: 8.40pm
Place: On the train back from Nanjing.

What a day. I doubt we can do anything else tonight. Though I still hope we get to go down to Cold Stone to eat ice cream later, even though our money supply has nearly all but depleted. I am going to change money tomorrow. Will probably be able to get about 500RMB extra for spending, but I doubt that's enough for my shopping needs, if I want to buy more electronic stuff. We'll see, though.

Anyway, back to today.

First, a little fact. Bei Jing means Northern Capital, Nan Jing means Southern Capital. So probably it was no surprise that the Japanese decided that it was a priority to invade this city back during the invasion. And of course, as I mentioned, Nanjing is famous for a less than pleasant reason - it being the site of horrendous war crimes by Japanese soldiers back then.

But first, it's to Purple Mountain, so named because of purple clouds that apparently cover it. I say apparently because we didn't see it for ourselves; it was clear skies today. Purple mountain has a couple of tombs, but we only visit the one of Dr Sun Yat Sen, widely known as the one who revolutionized China from its archaic imperial structure.

Ironically, Dr Sun was a member of the Kuomintang Party, which ultimately lost to the Chinese Communist Party. I'm not sure how accurate this comparison is, but at this time, it seems that an accurate comparison would be a monument to an opposition party member in Singapore. Perhaps David Marshall. Or Lim Chin Siong. I don't know. And I don't think that will ever happen, at least not in the near future of my country.

Anyway, the view from the Mausoleum is quite fantastic, but unfortunately pictures inside are not allowed. The inside of the mausoleum is very unlike the other architecture that we have experience during this China Trip. But that's only because the architect was French, and worked to integrate western style of architecture with eastern styles.

The walk down from the mausoleum, which is at the top of a very long walk uphill, is much easier than the walk up; and sooner rather than later we were back on the ground(ish) level where we started. And much sooner than expected, considering the rural nature of where we were, we managed to get a cab back to the main city.

Our plans adjusted slightly, because we realized we could slot in a visit to the Chang Jiang Nanjing Bridge. So we told the taxi driver to bring us to that bridge. Unfortunately, he told us that he couldn't bring us all the way so he stopped us at what was, according to him, the safest place for him to drop us off.

However, from there, the bridge seemed an endless walk away, with not much scenery to view. And considering the fact that Wee Long doesn't really like bridges, and I'm not sure exactly how far there is to walk and what there was to see, we decided to abandon the plan and walk to get some lunch.

In the end, the walk to lunch turned out to be longer than the walk to the bridge; and the bridge appeared to be worth visiting, so it was a case where perhaps we shouldn't have abandoned the plan. In any case, goof ups happen on trips, and it's about time that happens on this trip.

Anyway, after lunch (at KFC again) we were left with only one more sight to see - the Memorial of the Massacre, and we had quite some time left before our train to Suzhou. But that just meant that we would have more time to visit the Memorial. Which turned out to be a blessing because that visit was not one to be brief about.

*

The Nanjing Massacre took about 300000 lives, starting from 13.12.1937, till January of the following year, according to the first monuments that we come across. The monuments actually remember these facts in strange way.

For example the diameter of the bell is 1.937m (which is too accurate a reading in my opinion given the allowance given for expansion and contraction) and the stone cross is 13.12m tall (I think).

The memorial itself is a large building dedicated to telling the story of the Japanese attack, occupation, and defeat in Nanjing and surrounding regions. Unfortunately, photography in the building is prohibited, so I can't show you, but to summarise, there are many testimonies of survivors of the massacre (including those who were actually machine-gunned and stabbed but yet managed to survive), foreigners staying in Nanjing who were helping the locals (eg John Rabe) as well as confessions of actual Japanese soldiers who partook in the events.

In fact, Herr Rabe's tombstone is on display in the building. It was quite strange to see Swastikas being shown in a good, humanitarian light, when in most places in the world, thanks to the atrocities committed by the NAZI party, it is more closely related to evil.

Prior to the building of this memorial site, physical evidence of the mass murder committed by Japanese forces included two mass grave sites that had been excavated. During the building of this memorial site, during excavation of the ground at this very site, another mass grave was discovered.

So, adjacent to the memorial building, there is another building enclosing the grave site, fully visible to the general public. Outside the sign says "respectful silence" but some of the visitors to the grave site, uncivilized barbarians no doubt, didn't understand that concept and were talking at the top of their lungs into their cellphones.

That's the peace monument at the Massacre Memorial Site.

Anyway, I better stop writing now - no battery on the iPad. Till later, then...

*

Time: 12.55am
Place: The floor in Eugene's apartment.

Good news has come. My new toys have arrived. So right now I'm typing with my new keyboard for iPad; and just now I was using my new iPad stylus to scribble down some notes too. After we got it we checked the price on Amazon and it was significantly cheaper. So overall good investment.

Anyway, back to the original story; from before I was interrupted by the diminishing battery on my iPad...

The Memorial Hall for the victims of the Nanjing Massacre was the last item on our itinerary today, so after that we had about 3 hours to kill before our 8.20pm train departed from Nanjing. So, unlike most people on the subway, we were calm and collected and not in a hurry.

We made our way slowly to the Main Train Station of Nanjing and were there with about 2.5 hours to spare. It was still too early to have dinner, considering that we did have a late lunch. So we stoned by the lake (yes, another lake) and watched yet another non-visible sunset.

Again, the clouds were blocking the descent of the sun beneath the horizon. But, had we caught sunset today, it would have been a major bonus. Anyway, it was not to be, and at about 7pm we decided we could move to eat and stone further at the eating place.

KFC is ubiquitous in China, so there was one more at the train station. But by now, I at least was fed up of eating at KFC, so we opted for the less popular (never though I'd ever be saying this) McDonald's. There had been another option, dumplings, but ordering there seemed unnecessarily complicated and we decided against it. Wee Long promised that there will be no fast food tomorrow. We'll see.

*

Tomorrow we have to wake up relatively early to go to Shanghai, but I myself am not too sure about what's there to do in Shanghai. Personally I'm glad that this trip to China is coming to an end because its getting a little annoying not understanding anything that is going on since everything is in Chinese.

I think I'm just crabby because its been a really long day, and I hope I'm back to my positive self by tomorrow.

Previous: Chapter 3 - Suzhou

Next: Chapter 5 - Shanghai