Nanjing

This past weekend I took the fast train from Shanghai to Nanjing. The best part is I did so with my old friend David. You may remember him from other appearances in my blog such as here,here,or here. I must admit it took me a couple of hours to shake the dust off of our relationship. Its been more than 2 years since I have seen David, but by the end of the trip we were like peas and carrots again. David is extremely useful to travel with in China since he is near fluent in Mandarin. I even remarked at one point that I would like to shrink him down and put him in my pocket to which he replied I should just learn more Chinese (I maintain shrinking him would be easier). Our first night in town we didn't do much beyond get some street food eats, drink some beer and hang out. We tried to go to a trendy part of town called 1912 but the beers were way over priced, 30kuai (about 5 dollars) for a 350ml Chinese beer. That is a 900% mark up! No thanks. The second day in town was our touring day and we walked everywhere. We went to the Sun Yat Sen memorial where we had our picture taken many times. I know I am handsome, but that was too much. In some parts of China people are still drawn to a foreign face. I don't think Nanjing is one of those places, but at tourist attractions you will find people from those places since they are likely coming from a more remote area. The memorial itself was cool and once you have reached it at the top of the hill there is a nice view of Nanjing. The most surprising thing for me was that on the ceiling of the tomb is a flag of the Kuomintang, otherwise known as the nationalists in China's civil war. After the memorial we went to the Nanjing Massacre Museum. Perhaps it is because we had both read and seen much about it prior, but it did not strike either of us as overly shocking. Of course I don't mean to say that the actions of the Japanese troops aren't shocking, but hearing about many of the atrocities before hand certainly lessened the shock. I also expected a bit more anomisity towards the Japanese, but I didn't find anything that I would have considered out of place or over the top in any of the placards or pictures. At least among the English translations, perhaps in Chinese the nuances are slightly different. It was around the time of going to the museum that David told me a story about his time in Beijing when he was a student. He was attending Beida University and sitting in on a lecture by a fairly liberal minded professor. One day the professor started talking about the Japanese and basically said that the Japanese people who committed atrocities in China were all dead and there was no point in holding it against those who are now living. To which many students stood and yelled at him that he was wrong. I'm sure it was an animated session. Many times when I encounter things like this, the memorial park in Hiroshima for instance, I think much the same thing. In my mind time periods are like different worlds. People had completely different experiences and perspectives and so people of a nation completely renew themselves every 80-100 years. This is also an apt time to point out how stupid it is to hate a nation. My grandfather fought against the axis in WWII. I'm not saying he hated them, but his country did demonize them and ask him to go kill them. His daughter married a German man and his grandson (me) married a Japanese girl. Different times = different worlds. Back on track, after the museum we had time to kill and so we decided to go to the presidential palace. I'm really glad we did. The grounds were beautiful, but the history was rich. The compound had been home to Sun Yat Sen,Chiang Kai-shek, and the leader of the Taiping rebellion Hong Xiuquan who believed he was the brother of Jesus. Long story short, it didn't work out for him. Having hoofed it all over Nanjing we went back for some rest at the hotel before heading out with David's friend for some beer on the Nanjing streets and then late night karaoke with another group. It was very fun. The next morning we headed out early and came back to Shanghai were I got to show David around Shanghai at YuYuan Gardens, the Bund, and to have a drink in the Financial Center tower. Everything went very well until I misjudged how long it would take for him to reach the station and he missed the last train back to Beijing. While this was fortunate for me since I could spend more time with him it meant wasted time for David. In the end everything worked out. I'm looking forward to meeting him again. Perhaps in a different time, a different world.