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Published: August 19th 2011
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Yep that's right - I'm going back in time to discuss my experiences in "South Capital."
When I visited Nanjing about three weeks ago it was hot and humid. Luckily the city is not too crowded. Large trees provide shade to the friendly people, and there are many canals running parallel to the not-so-busy streets.
Nanjing used to be the capital of China, and it has witnessed many important events in Chinese history. The medieval city walls are still standing. It was great to see a lively evening dance club for the elderly (ubiquitous in the People's Republic) right next to the 700-year-old brick structure.
Another must-see in Nanjing is the city's museum. It is free and air conditioned, and contains loads of old artifacts, including a famous Jade Suit worn by a dead king more than 2,000 years ago. He erroneously believed it would preserve his corpse. I remember seeing pictures of it in a book I read as a young child. Very nice to see the real thing (and for free).
The hotel where I stayed in across the street from a city park built on the old residence of Zheng He. For those of
you who don't know, Zheng He was a Muslim eunuch sea captain who led massive Chinese fleets to Indonesia, India, Persia, Arabia, and down the coast of Africa what is now Kenya. He even captured the belligerent king of Sri Lanka and took him back to personally apologize to the Chinese Emperor.
The most impressive thing I saw was the Nanjing Massacre Memorial. Here is an account of my visit:
We left the comfortable subway for the intense humid heat of the Nanjing summer. Across a busy street was a large statue of a starving woman holding a dead infant.
Two young boys waded into a shallow pool behind the statue and gleefully began splashing each other. A middle-aged security guard approached them and sternly reprimanded them. It was the first time Ihad seen a Chinese adult scold a stranger’s child (and indeed, probably the eighth time I had a seen a child reprimanded at all in the Middle Country).
Smaller statues of weeping women and emaciated men lined the path to the entrance of the Nanjing Big Massacre Memorial. Some had simple poems.
My dear wife
Where are you now?
The devils beat and
raped you.
The architecture of the Memorial itself is grey with sharp edges. Just beyond the entrance large letters announced “300,000 victims” in Chinese, English, Japanese, Russian, Greek, and five other European languages. I internally condemned the cultural bias.
The Memorial was scheduled to close in half an hour, so the visitors were rushed through. At one point my companion tried to take a picture but a security guard stopped her and said “Don’t take pictures here little girl, you don’t have time!”
The exhibits were dark, literally and metaphorically, and accompanied by excellent English translations (especially when one considers that the site is free). It was pointed out that Japanese soldiers systematically raped women “regardless of age or occupation”.
Most of the photos of the atrocities and victims were taken by the Japanese themselves. One particularly grisly display showed a competition to see who could behead the most captured Chinese soldiers.
Then visitors walked past a pile of bones, and then were educated about the general history of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggressors. Japanese soldiers were shown triumphantly entering cities in China, including Jiujiang. They beamed into the cameras like the proud
teenagers they were.
Soon China (with the help of the USSR and the United States) won the war against Japan. No mention of atomic bombs.
At the end of the memorial, there was a call to challenge the historical distortions by “some Japanese who want to glorify their wartime activities”. Iwas impressed. No calls for bloody revenge. Imagine if the Japanese had killed millions of Americans on our mainland. The last photograph is of Wen Jiabao shaking hands with the Japanese Prime Minister in 1992, and the last caption mentions current Sino-Japanese cooperation.
The rushed visitors then walked past another, larger pit of human bones found on site. Next was a quiet “Meditation Hall”. Behind the Meditation Hall, incense is conveniently sold for those who want to offer a small sacrifice to the memories of the victims.
Just when Ithought it was over, they walked through a statue park, past another body pit (“Maintain Solemn Silence”) and out into a park area with Soviet-esque statue of a woman holding a baby and releasing a dove and a pool.
Some people threw coins in the pool. One man spit in it. Near the exit forty-one doves
paced restlessly in a small glass pen.
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Laura L Harding
non-member comment
Travels
So glad that you continue to write!