missing Sun Yat-Sen, the Flowers of War and final update

---

This will likely be my last blog from China/Nanjing -- although I might sneak another one in once I get home if you are lucky should I miss something. Anyway this was to be my penultimate day in Nanjing so I thought I had better try and cross off a a few things that I had been too slack to get around to doing. I was all intent on making first off the Nanjing Memorial Hall to what the Japanese did in 1937. I checked with the hotel as to what was the best metro stop to go to (it is always annoying when such things are only 75 m off the Lonely Planet map) and headed off to the nearest metro stop which happens to be on the same crosstown E-W line (the other runs broadly N-S). I just missed one train and sat down to check final details in the Lonely Planet and realised that it was only open from Tuesday-Sunday (today being Monday) so that put a great hole in my plans. I decided therefore I should go and look at the southern section of the old city walls just S of the Sanshanjie metro stop. I could then walk south to the wall, after checking the screening time later of the new Zhang Yiomou/Christian Bale about the Rape of Nanjing by the Japanese. I had found a cinema in the area the other night where it was on and it seemed highly appropriate that I actually see it in Nanjing (it opened China wide on 16 December). I walked to the cinema and with no real English spoken at all managed to get a dial indication on my watch that the likely time was 6 PM (more on that later). Then walked back to the main road more or less and headed south. Found some sort of canal but certainly no city wall.

Then decided that the most economic use of my time was to jump in a taxi, which I would likely need to get there anyway, to get to the Sun Yat-Sen Mausoleum which is out in the Zijin Mountain woody hills area on the eastern side of Nanjing. The meter drop here is 9 RMB ($1.50) for the first 3 km and then 1 RMB for whatever distance after that. They also seem to add a general charge of an extra 2 RMB for whatever. In Sydney I hate getting cabs and watching the dollars rollaway. It is somewhat different in China because when the meter runs up to 25 RMB it will only cost you four dollars or so! The road there goes through relatively scarcely treed areas but otherwise with little else around (do you feel a problem coming later?). Anyway the Lonely Planet indicated that the entry to the mausoleum up its 392 steps was 80 RMB which is a pretty hefty $13 or so, although it said it also included a free shuttle to the Linggu Temple area. When I got there and asked where I should buy tickets I was told that it was free. This was an unexpected bonus I thought -- until I walked up the avenue to the gateway to the steps to the mausoleum to find said gates firmly closed. Well I suppose that was a saving of sorts, but I did not get to picture the mausoleum other than through the wrought iron gates. I have no idea why this was -- I thought that perhaps the Chinese government had decided to make it free as a national service! (but I guess they can hardly charge for something you cannot actually get in to inspect). Sun Yat-Sen is revered by both the Communists and the Nationalists as some sort of father of the nation.

There was what appeared to be the shuttle to the other Temple area but when I enquired about tickets for those that I was told roundly in Chinese that I should go somewhere else to get those. At this point I decided to abandon the whole exercise and headed off to find a taxi back to the hotel. And this is where it got interesting. Headed off along this empty road with spare larch type trees on either side and no vehicles. I honestly could not remember from what direction I had arrived in so then went back the other way. Finally arriving at the junction where the taxi had dropped me on arrival the only taxis which arrived there had been pre-booked. Some Chinese wanted to have their picture taken with me as a national curiosity -- it must have been the Harrison Ford hat! (which I put on one of them for the photograph). Decided that no random taxis were going to turn up there so decided to walk in the hopeful direction of the main road. I was half beginning to wonder whether I was going to be stuck out there without transport as it was about 4:30 PM by this time. Another couple walking in front of me were able to snag a taxi returning, and I got the next one. Back to the hotel and put some warmer clothes on then headed back on the metro to Sanshanjie - I have now seen all the stalls and shops between there and the cinema area six times.

Despite earlier advice that the movie was at 6 PM when I asked her to write the time down she wrote the number 7. When I bought the ticket (40RMB - about $5.50) the time was actually 7:20 PM. So I decided to go back to the same restaurant I had eaten the previous night as at least I knew they had an English menu. They almost welcomed me like an old friend (I could count on one hand the number of Europeans I have seen in Nanjing, only really a couple). I had earlier had a quick rice bowl type meal for lunch at one of those Chinese chain type places where at least they have a picture of the bowl and the price (10RMB in that case), which is more important than a total menu description. Anyway this time I had pork and chilli - once again, almost wolfed all those green "capsicum" pieces which were likely mostly chilli but were not as fierce as those bombers in Suzhou. As I was sitting near the door I had seen the woman next door selling tourist type stones and so on, but also these wind up tops with flashing lights which I found kind of cute. As a bizarre memento of the occasion I thought I would ask her how much they were. She said 80 RMB which I thought ridiculous, offered 25 and I ended up buying it for 35 which is $5.50 or so. A suitable tacky sort of souvenir of the place.

As for the movie The Flowers of War. It got off to a somewhat bizarre technical start with the house lights on and the opening of the voice over on the soundtrack being heard but no pictures. This happened a couple of times but after about 10 minutes it finally started properly. Despite the signs up the front saying no smoking a number of people were of course smoking in the cinema. At the spare area in front of the seats there were a couple of motor scooters parked and one brought in before the movie started. People spit on the floor, the usual sort of thing (they did that in India at a movie I went to as well). The movie is long (2 hours 20 minutes) but certainly does not seem that long as time went quite quickly. I found Christian Bale with his original whiskers at the beginning of the movie somewhat annoying (he shaves them off halfway through) and I would not necessarily say that it was an acting tour de force or anything. Although the movie is well made by a master craftsman I cannot say that I found the story incredibly involving or focused. In that regard I would likely agree with the review in the China Daily whose headline was "A bit too bright for its own good". It was suggested that Christian Bale had been cast to attempt to snag an Oscar as best foreign film. No way is it deserving of that in my view. I gather it has not exactly had an overwhleming reception in China.

So a bit of a final wrap on China. Although in most of the hotels I've stayed (less so at the Eastern Pearl in Nanjing) there has been sufficient English spoken by at least some staff to get by. However the cinema proved that this was generally completely not the case elsewhere. You are definitely better off in Japan than China in that regard, as there they are really embarrassed if they cannot speak perfect English. I should have brushed up a bit more on simple words other than hello, goodbye and thank you. However I did not get stared at that much, although I soon realised that my hat made me stand out alone. I only really saw today a Chinese guy with a Western cowboy style hat - and at the movie there was a likely "auteur" type with a pork pie hat on. They just don't wear hats, other than beanies in this weather It was generally easy to get around on the various metro systems which are needed to get the vast population around. So I was relatively able to "settle in" to some sort of China groove and it was not as difficult as I had been telling myself since 1998 when I was here for the first time. So with my severely rationed travel time China might get another slot sometime.

---

Photos

street sausages
more fresh air smallgoods

some kind of street candy
I think....(or saveloys!)

Flowers of War
poster at the cinema

Scorpion liquor @ Sun Yat-Sen pk
no doubt has a bite

Sun Yat Sen mausoleum
from rather a distance

taking a snap
@ Sun Yat-Sen pk

a lonely road
@ Sun Yat-Sen pk

my top seller
pun intended

Comments

[Huddo]

Lonely walk's, and films.
Hi Mike, The movie place sounded "unique", jest park your scooter at the front. Your walk on that lonely road? Great there is safety over there for the fearless Harrison Ford! love that hat. Snaps of "Scorpion Liquor" he he, and those street sausages, a real insight of the place. Love Huddo and girls.