Nanjing

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  Nanjing, Jiangsu, China
Saturday, August 30, 2008

After suffering the slings and arrows of the Chinese train system once, I was not looking forward to the even longer ride from Xian to Nanjing. Thankfully riding in a sleeper cabin was to be a much more pleasant journey. We befriended a rambunctious little boy we named Dylan whose hair was buzzed save a small dollop that hung over his forehead. He made sure we had a comfortable ride by offering us food, drink, and even once retrieving Adam's sandals out from under the bed. Like most of the Chinese people I've met, Dylan was amicable and willing to help in any way possible.

We also talked for quite some time with a Chinese businessman who meticulously laid out the Chinese train system for us with a computer program he found on the internet. His Lenovo laptop (Chinese IBM) was equipped with an internet-anywhere card. He certainly was very well off, but at significant personal cost. He works as a construction contractor in Xi'an, but his entire family lives in a different city about 22 hours away by train. Every week he commutes back and forth - 44 hours of travel to see his family for one day before returning to work. He could fly, he said, but wants to save all his money for his son to study in America. However he does not mention that, since 9/11, the chance of his son getting an American visa is lottery-odds low. Considering my dad flies every week to Raleigh and back, our bunkmate's story especially interested me. As usual, whenever Adam spoke Chinese, curious heads turned and eavesdropped in fascination. The novelty of attention has yet to wear off.

After some 20 hours, we finally arrived in Nanjing. Dropping off our belongings at our hostel, we decided to first visit the Rape of Nanjing memorial museum. When the invading Japanese army conquered the city, they systematically murdered 300,000 innocent civilians and unarmed soldiers. To this day, the Chinese protest in front of the Japanese embassy to demand an apology and compensation. You can even occasionally read full-page advertisements in the New York Times that demand the Japanese make amends for their crimes against the Chinese people. The Chinese government, usually reticent to allow public demonstrations, quietly encourages such public outcries to distract its citizens from more proximate (and important?) issues. In any case, the Rape of Nanjing remains an incredibly powerful and emotional subject today.

The museum's layout, sober ambience, and quiet, shuffling crowds reminded me of the Holocaust museum in D.C. I was surprised to find the best and most comprehensive English signs I've encountered in China. I cynically reason that the government hopes to use the museum as an anti-Japanese propaganda bullhorn and therefore paid special attention to grammar and spelling for once. Putting the cynicism aside, the museum was very moving. Even by the atrocious standards of World War Two, the Rape of Nanjing truly stains mankind's already troubled record.

I want to tell you about two exhibits of the museum. One section of the museum is dedicated to the Westerners who sought to protect the Chinese by creating an international safe-zone. I'm proud to say a priest from Pittsburgh acted as one of their leaders. But tucked away in a corner, I noticed a Nazi swastika flag darkening the room, as they are wont to do. What crime did they commit this time, I wondered. I read the accompanying sign three times before bewilderment gave way to comprehension. Five years before the Final Solution murdered millions, the Nazis saved countless Chinese lives from the marauding Japanese. History is odd.

The entire museum, as far as we could tell, relied on the facts and shied away from blatant exaggeration or propaganda. That is, except for the final epilogue sign. Reading like a 7th grade essay, it concluded that the Rape of Nanjing proved three things. First, the importance of socialism with Chinese characteristics (read capitalism with Communist party control). Second, strong states will always prey on weak states. And therefore third, China must become a strong state. To my eyes, the passage read as a slightly veiled message: China seeks to challenge the hegemony of the United States with its own economic and political system, or else, they might fall victim to another Rape of Nanjing. Perhaps the government intended to refer to a metaphorical rape, as in perhaps American economic dominance or, Mao forbid, substantive political and economic reform of Beijing. Regardless, I did not appreciate the insinuation.

The next morning we visited the main attraction of Nanjing, Sun Yat Sen's memorial. The Chinese venerate Sun Yat Sen as a national hero who deposed the obsolete Qing dynasty and established the modern Chinese state. Anyone interested should watch the Last Emperor, the true story of how the Emperor Pu Yi fell from the seat of heaven to become a political prisoner and eventually die a citizen gardener. However, the Chinese forget to remember Sun Yat Sen's chosen successor, Chiang Kai Sheik, was the autocratic ruler of China who nearly squashed the nascent Communist movement. After years of civil war, Mao effectively crushed Sun Yat Sen's vision of China when Chiang Kai Sheik's camp fled the mainland to establish Taiwan.

Nonetheless, Sun Yat Sen's mausoleum is an incredibly popular Chinese tourist site. Nestled in the mountains far above the city, one has to climb hundreds of stairs to reach the tomb. The entrance of the shrine resembles the Lincoln memorial. A stone Sun Yat Sen sits regally in a chair surrounded by inscriptions of his famous writings. In a second room, marble enshrines his body under a cupola roof. While standing in silence, I watch an older woman make the final ascent. Whispering a prayer under her breath, she kowtows before the tomb and looks upward. I follow her gaze and see the Taiwanese flag depicted in polished tile - a conspicuous symptom of Communist China's selective memory.

After the memorial, we visited several remnants of the Ming dynasty that lay scattered around the area. Larger-than-life statues of lions, camels, elephants and other animals guarded the path to our final destination: the tomb of the first Ming Emperor. After one hour of hiking and the purchase of an unheard of 70 RMB (10 dollar) ticket, construction barriers foiled our plans. No one cared to tell us the tomb was under reconstruction. With another shortcoming of the Chinese tourist industry under our belts, we left for the train station. In three hours, we would arrive in Shanghai.

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