In and around Nanjing

Wed, August 5

Mike

Slowish start this AM. Breakfast was reasonably bad - except that when we asked if they had any tea, they brought a whole pot for the table. And then, unasked, they brought two fried eggs, which we gobbled down.

This morning's agenda was to go to the top of Zijinshan (Purple Gold Mountain): a 448 km mountain to the east of Nanjing, but right in the city. Since the base is 51 km elevation, think of something twice as tall as, and twice as big around as, Stone Mountain. However, this mountain has no exposed granite; it is forested everywhere. There is a "cable" to the top, reachable by the 20 bus.

We got started before 9 AM. I thought the 20 bus ran by the hotel, but it did not. We took the 68 bus, which has a stop about 1 km from the base of the cable, at which we could transfer to the 20. Everything was fine, until the 68 bus didn't stop at the appointed stop, or the next. By the time it stopped, we had gone close to 1 km past our intended stop. The map showed a shortcut to the 20 bus, so we walked on it. Everything was fine, until we hit a tunnel, and realized that the 20 bus was on the road over the tunnel. By the time we got to our intended stop, we had walked over 2 km. Anyway, by 10:20 the 20 bus came along.

The "cable" does not have not enclosed cable cars, but open two seaters, exposed to the air. Not for the agoraphobic. We bought round trip tickets, and got on. A slow leisurely ride over the woods, maybe 30 minutes to the top.

You get off by taking your feet off the bar, lifting the metal piece in front of you, and jumping out of the way. The top was FOGGY. We walked around a little, and then got on to go down. Halfway down, we got off: yell "xia che" (getting off), lift the bar. and jump off. A longish walk and we were at the observatory (in foggy, polluted Nanjing??). The observatory contained a museum: some ancient Chinese astronomical and navigational tools, a 2000-year-old reproduction of a globe with the Chinese stars on it (the original was destroyed in 1900 when the Europeans sacked Beijing), and a star map with the Chinese constellations. Very interesting. We had been looking for this at the Nanjing Museum the day before, and only later realized that it was here.

Down to the bottom. Slow but serene.

Caught the 20 bus all the way across town to within 3 blocks of the Nanjing Massacre Museum. Two pieces of spicy chicken on the street, and then to the museum.

To understand this museum, you have to understand a little Chinese history. The Qing dynasty was a weak dynasty by the 19th century, finally collapsing in 1911 with the installation of Sun Yatsen as ruler of the country. All through the 19th century, the western powers and Russia and Japan had been eyeing colonizing China. They had been biting off small pieces here and there: Hong Kong, Macao, Shanghai, Qingdao, etc.

Japan had taken a port in 1874, and some more in 1895. At some time it took Korea. When the Europeans were too busy with the First World War, the Japanese really went to work. Sun Yatsen died in 1925, leaving a chaotic country, with the Koumintang in control of parts, and the emerging communists nipping at their heels. In 1931, Japan grabbed NE China, Manchuria. In the summer of 1937, they started attacking Shanghai. From July 1937 to November 1937, they fought around Shanghai, and finally took in early November 1937. They then turned their sights on Nanjing. The people of Nanjing started to flee, but the government obligingly vacated the place, and locked the populace inside the old Ming walls, telling them to "be strong like jade, not weak like tile."

Needless to say, the Chinese troops were inadequate for the job. Nanjing fell to the Japanese on December 12, 1937. The Japanese, who had apparently been rough on those Shanghaiese who remained, really turned on the people of Nanjing with a vengeance. A few foreigners, including a German Nazi named John Rabe, attempted to set up a 4 sq km area (near the site of our hotel) which would be a "Safety Zone." It succeeded only incompletely. Over the next 6 weeks or so, the Japanese raped tens of thousands of women, and killed over 300,000.

However, in addition being a museum of the classic holocaust type, this museum also has an anti-Japanese, pro glory-of-China message. Chairman Hu Jintao wrote in 2004: "This is a good place to carry out patriotic education. We must never forget the partiotic education of the young, and this tragic history must also never be forgotten."

I don't think that you can understand modern Chinese politics without visiting this museum.

Out of the museum at about 4:30 PM. We could not find the 4 bus to go back to the hotel, and so we took a taxi for 2 km or so.

We relaxed at the hotel, then out to the restaurant. By this point in time, my pants and undergarments were soaked from all the day's sweating. Everything chafed badly. I did not have the foresight to change clothes, so things were painful.

Anyway, back to Shiziqiao. This time, to Punjabi Restaurant, which turned out to be an expensive, very good Indian restaurant (total bill 207 Y). Then, an hour and a half on the internet (during which time I again lost a substantial piece of text I was writing). Back to the hotel to watch a little TV, pack, and sleep.

Curtis

Today we went to the Purple Gold Mountain and took the "ropeway" cable car up to the top. It is an open two-seater like the one in Cochin, but the incline is gradual and the path is several kilometers. It takes right at 30 minutes to reach the top.

The mountain is not that high, 448 meters. On the first peak, halfway up the ropeway, is a stop where you can get off to see the observatory museum. Some of the displays are just color blowups of popular Hubble shots of nebulae and such for school kids, but they have several spectacular old astrolabes, quadrants, and armillary spheres of bronze. The big sphere is more than a meter in diameter, and has all the stars linked together in the patterns recognized by Chinese astronomy. With the connecting lines, it is very hard to recognize the well-known western patterns. Fascinating.

Then this afternoon we went to the Nanjing Massacre Memorial. It was a very moving tribute with many photos, records, artifacts and dioramas depicting the tragic rape and slaughter of over 300,000 Chinese civilians by the invading Japanese forces in 1937. Suffice it to say that it is a must see, on the level of the Vietnam Memorial and other holocaust museums.

Mike and I just finished a delicious dinner in the same neighborhood we were in last night off Hunan Rd. When we were looking around yesterday we spotted a sign for a Punjabi restaurant, and looking in the window saw what appeared to be meats and vegetables being fried at the table in the style of some Korean and Japanese restaurants. Puzzling over this, Mike wondered if there was any relation to Indian food, or if this was some kind of very foreign spin, in the way Hot Wok Restaurant spins Chinese food for Indians. So we thought we'd check it out.

It turns out that the sign was for another restaurant one door further down the alley. The food was actually Punjabi, with a few substitutions to make it more suited to Chinese taste. The restaurant actually used Thai rice instead of basmati (because that variety doesn't appeal to Chinese taste) but otherwise the food was, to my great happiness, quite authentic. They made their own panir and nan, and managed to find cow's milk and butter for the nan and masala tea, all made to perfection.

Mike cringed at the prices. A meal for 2 of yellow dal, rice pulao with cumin seed, saag panir, and lamb vindaloo (which was medium hot and totally delicious), butter nan, plus two Tsingtao beers and masala tea brewed in the milk, came to 207 Yuan (a grand total of about $30).

In my mind it was a bargain, especially for the penultimate night in China. Tomorrow we can get cheap Chinese. Our meal for two last night cost less than a Starbucks tall frappuccino and a brownie! --my dessert self-indulgence in the steamy weather.

Speaking of Starbucks: when in China, it is a safe place to go for a clean restroom. The coffees, desserts and the prices are exactly the same as in the US, and you can feel safe about the ice, if ice is something you have a hankering for. Boy howdy do I.
Another little tip about Chinese hotels came our way back in Xi'an. When you take a hotel room in China, you are given a magnetic credit card-like room key (which not only opens the door, but also must be inserted into a slot in order to have lights and AC). When you go out with your key, the lights and all turn off. But when we came back to our room after a walk the second day in Xian, we noticed that the maid who cleaned up the room had left the air running. She did so by inserting a flattened-out toothbrush box (most hotels provide their customers with toothbrushes, along with soap and such).

So, we learned that the lights and AC do not require the magnetic strip, only something to trip the switch. This is very useful information, since turning off the AC in this weather leaves the room very hot, and it takes an hour or longer in some cases for the room to cool back down. Our trick is to turn off all the lights, but leave the AC on at a reasonable temp, so that it doesn't have to work so hard when you get back to the room. This is probably more energy efficient anyway.

We leave tomorrow early to catch another fast train to Shanghai. I am looking forward to leaving China's fire stove oven climate for the much more tolerable summer heat in Hotlanta. Hope to get back into more swimming, too.