Looking Back at Nanking

The Voyage to Nanjing

The idea for a trip to Nanjing came in the middle of the week when a fellow student on our program on our program was dying to go to Nanjing, and coincidentally there was a graduate program open house that same weekend. So, my decision was set, a full two days before the trip. So going into the trip, we had no plans other than to visit the graduate school program. On the train, we took out our Lonely Planet book and figured out what exactly we wanted to see. The train ride was a pretty interesting experience given that we were the only foreigners on the train (that we could see). We met a doctor from Hubei Province and a few other Nanjing natives. Most of the time on the sleeper train was spent talking with them in Chinese about random things and they gave us some advice on what to see in Nanjing. Although we all didn’t get much sleep, we had lots of energy getting off the train and were all excited to see Nanjing, a city we wound not get to see on the end of the year trek around China. First we grabbed McDonald’s, even though it was 10:30am and really expensive, because we were all dying of hunger and couldn’t spot any places to eat in the area. After this we went straight to the Graduate Program at Nanjing University (collaborating with Johns Hopkins University) to check out the open house and since a few of the kids were staying in their housing at the program it made sense for this stop. We got a short tour of the facilities there, which were beautiful, and had a chance to ask some questions about the program. I discovered that all of the classes were taught in Chinese and the program was split 50/50 between Chinese and foreign students. The Graduate Program was for an MA in International Studies, so naturally all of the students had to write their own thesis in Chinese. It all sounded a little too advanced for my current level of Chinese, but it was definitely something I will consider in the future. That afternoon, I went with the rest of the kids in the program to find a hostel, which turned out to be an easy find since we had done a bit of homework before the trip (35 kuai/night close to the University…not a bad deal at all, and it even had clean showers! Amazing!). After the housing situation was straightened out, a few kids in the program and I were off to the Museum of the Nanking Massacre, which was the famous slaughter and rape of Chinese citizens in Nanjing when the Japanese attacked in the 1940s. It turned out that the museum was under renovation so we couldn’t get in but we did have a chance to walk through the construction. Past the giant cranes ripping apart houses next to the museum to presumably make more room for additions, we happened upon a bunch of people selling things on the street inside the construction site. Among the sellers with their blankets and merchandise sprawled out upon blankets, were a few men getting a haircut. This was quite the scene. Upon a massive construction site with rubble and leveled houses everywhere, spotting two older men sitting in high chairs, having their haircut, just going about their business, enjoying the pleasant fall weather. Later that afternoon we made our way over to the Nanjing Museum, one of the best ancient art museums in China. On the previous Wednesday in my Chinese Arts and Culture class, my professor used a lot of examples of pieces from the Museum in his lesson so it was neat to see the same pieces in person. I was especially interested in the porcelain pieces because we had just recently discussed the symbolism of images on Chinese porcelain pieces as well as the difficulty in creating the finest porcelain. The next day in the morning some of our friends were taking a test for the Graduate Program so we went to see the Taiping Rebellion Museum. The rebellion is one of the more bizarre religious uprisings I have heard. The leader of the Taipings thought that he was a reborn form of Jesus Christ and thought that he should be the leader of China. Inevitably the rebellion was quelled and the emperor continued to rule, but learning about the history of the rebellion and seeing some of the artifacts left over from the event was interesting. Outside of the museum were some of emperor’s gardens, which were well kept. That night we all went out for dinner with a friend’s teacher of one of the kids with us. He brought us to a pedestrian food street, where we tried out all the regional specialties of the region. We tried duck neck and lots of other strange snacks and then had dinner together. The next day we all went to see Dr. Sun Yatsen’s Mausoleum, which was one of the highlights of the trip for me. The area that the Mausoleum covered was incredible. First we entered a gate with prominent Nationalist symbols, since Sun Yatsen was the leader of the Nationalists, but also considered the founder of the People’s Republic of China as we know it today even though the communists would eventually prevail in the Civil War. Walking down a long walkway boarded by pine trees, we came to a small structure that had part of the Nationalist national anthem written in stone and then preceded to walk up hundreds of stairs to his resting place. At the top of the endless stairs, I could see all of Nanjing and the landscape around the city. Walking into the first chamber, I saw a huge stone Sun Yat-sen sitting a chair comfortable in a similar way to the Lincoln Memorial. Through this room was the actual Mausoleum itself. Inside the center of a circular room was Sun Yat-sen buried deep underneath a stone replica of Sun Yat-sen lying inside his coffin. I was totally blown away by the massive scale of it all. After seeing the entire mausoleum, I understood how revered the man is by all of China. That night we had to grab the night train since all of the other trains were sold out. It also turned out we couldn't get a sleeper so we had a hard seat for the whole ride. I don’t think people understand what it is like to not have a sleeper on an overnight train although most of the train is either hard seats or standing room only. I couldn’t sleep at all but I still made it back to Beijing on Sunday and felt back at home again.
The instant I made it back to my room I got a call from my assistant at the school I teach. She wanted to take my out hiking for the day with her family, so I couldn’t refuse although I was dead tired. She said they were waiting in their car at the middle school so I rushed over on my bike to the school and we all went to Bai Wang Shan, on the outskirts of Beijing. It was a beautiful, sunny day in the fall and the leaves finally were turning red. We walked around together and my assistant’s daughter gave my a few leaves that she found in the park. After this, they took me out for dinner at a restaurant in the area. The day was incredible and I felt like I was a part of a Chinese family for a day.