An Excursion to the Southern Capital

As the Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel warned years ago, to forget a holocaust is to kill twice.  --Iris Chang The Rape of Nanking

After bidding farewell to Joseph, Naomi and I returned to the Qingdao Train Station and headed south to Nanjing for a two-night excursion.  We were lucky to be there before this summer's heat wave swept through Jiangsu province, but still spent most of our time there drenched in either rain or sweat.  I remember being about 12 years old and taking a tour with my family to Nanjing and only hating it for the heat.  After a few more years worth of Chinese history since then, I wanted to go back and try to appreciate Nanjing again.

Naomi and I took a separate train, so while I was waiting for her I took a walk from our hostel to this river by the Confucius temple 夫子庙 where there are boat rides and lots of overpriced touristy food stands. 

Outside Confucius temple.

Instruments within the temple

Our first morning there, we took the Nanjing Subway to pay homage to Kuomingtang leader, Dr. Sun Yat Sen's mausoleum 中山陵.

Subway tokens instead of tickets.

Felt really hopeless looking at all these stairs.

But, we finally did make it!

My friend, Sun Yat Sen.

Entrance to the silk museum.

My brain started to hurt, trying to figure out how this machine works, but it makes beautiful textiles!

Just across the street from the architecturally traditional-looking museum was the sleek and modern Nanjing Massacre Memorial.

Nanjing Massacre Memorial

Poem in a dark, candle-lit room.

Eerie to look at all the candles and think of all the live affected.

Found it a little ironic they were memorialized with Japanese cranes.

Skeletal remains

Outside the memorial.

30000 victims.

Roughly translates to..mankind's catastrophe

The memorial for the Nanjing Massacre was much more sophisticated and modern than those which I saw of the Cambodian genocide in Phnom Penh.  I'm respectful of attempts to memorialize the past so as to remember what mistakes mankind has made and the sufferings they've endured.  Somehow, though, the sheer scale of this memorial gave me a feeling that Chinese still hold a strong sense of, dare I say, resentment within them.  Thinking back to the experience, I'm reminded of a lot of the elderly Chinese generation, my grandparents included, ranting about 日本仔 (Japanese rascals) to me.  The past is difficult to get over, indeed.  Being in China for seven months has only affirmed my hope that it can be a nation which moves forward well.

The next day, Naomi and I had some time left in Nanjing before our train to Suzhou.  We had a lovely morning workout with an hour-long foot paddling session among the lily pads at Xuanwu Lake 玄武湖.

There were many other rustic looking lakes along with waterways and alleys throughout Nanjing which gave it a distinct charm that set it apart from other cities I had traveled to.  At this point in my summer, I remember being exhausted and sleep-deprived but somehow running on the adrenaline of self-lead travel.  It was a real test at times to deal with bad service and other tourists along the journey, but has been a sure-fire way to sharpen my patience, resilience, and a optimism.  Now that I'm adjusting to another stressful semester at Berkeley, I've found that is one of the ways frequent travel has helped me deal well with difficulty.  Definitely developing a new found appreciation for the life skills navigating a foreign country can teach you.  High-speed train onto Suzhou!