Vignettes of the World
Despite having done some research, I made some critical mistakes on this trip. Although I did learn that the museums of China (all over the nation) close on Mondays, I did not know that it includes the Dr. Sun Yatsen Mausoleum. Furthermore, the staff told …
There were two reasons why I visited Zhan Yuan (Zhan Garden). First and foremost, it was only in Zhan Yuan that one could find an exhibition devoted exclusively to the history of Taiping Rebellion in China. Secondly, Zhan Yuan itself is a site of significance. …
Having learned that the museums of Nanjing are closed on Mondays, I was determined to visit the Memorial Hall of the Victims in Nanjing Massacre by Japanese Invaders in Jiangdongmen on Sunday, my second-last full day in Nanjing. For it was one of the main reasons why I visited Nanjing in the first place.
At 7:30 I was up and by 8:30 I was in line at the museum. There was a long queue. Some prepared flowers to present to the victims at the memorial. In contrast with other tourist areas, the crowd was very quiet at the Memorial Hall, and solemnity was apparent. Perhaps the people there, most of whom likely to be Chinese tourists from other provinces, felt a need to prepare our emotions for what the museum was about to show. I took deep breaths as the line proceeded smoothly into the museum.
There were some expectations. I wanted to see exhibits that were educational, fair and communicative.
By 8:45 I was inside the museum.
Entering the museum, I met the living spirits of Nanjing. The first recognition went to the survivors of the Nanjing atrocities. Book-like titles displayed their names, lining up individually across a vast wall. Then came the portraits of those who survived and lived to old age. The message was clear: we celebrate the survivors.
The narrative then proceeded to the historical. Informative exhibits introduced the visitors to the beginning of Japan’s invasion of Nanjing. Displays showed the routes that the Japanese Imperial Army took to take down Nanjing, leading up to the Fall of Nanjing on December 13, 1937. These displays were very powerful emotionally. At the eve of the invasion, Nanjing stood helpless as a prey.
A memorial plaque displaying the names of the fallen martyrs of Nanjing reminded visitors of the enormous human costs of war. By then, the visitors knew that displays of heartbreaking atrocities would follow. The witnesses’ powerful testaments showed that survival was really a matter of chance in face of senseless killings. Hatred, racist ideology, the desire for revenge and sadistic pleasure motivated these atrocities.
As the narrative proceeded, and having seen graphic pictures of murders, mass executions, vandalism, arson, robbery and rape, I came to one question.
Was there hope?
Then came a very good section on the angels that guarded Nanjing throughout the Japanese occupation. Testimonies of the foreigners and foreign missionaries that maintained the Safety Zone and the refugee camps showed their commitment to human dignity. Their solidarity with the Chinese people and amongst themselves served as the only source of hope for the refugees.
To name a few, there were Minnie Vautrin, John Magee, George Fitch, Lewis Smythe, Robert Wilson, Clifford Trimmer, E. Sperling, John Rabe, and many others. Some were pastors, some were missionaries, some were teachers, some led the Red Cross, and many were heads of the China divisions of large foreign enterprises. By drawing on their own connections in China and abroad, these foreigners were able to save lives. More importantly, they preserved the truth of the atrocities by their own witness accounts and daring attempts to document the atrocities on film. The systematic documentation of the atrocities could have cost them their own lives.
If there was just a slimmer of hope in Nanjing at the time, these foreigners were the ones that kept the light from extinguishing.
Finally, I encourage visitors to see the pit of the ten thousand corpses. Mass graves were discovered in the Jiangdongmen area of Nanjing during the 1980s. This discovery resulted in Jiangdongmen being chosen as the site of this Memorial Hall.
Simplified Chinese, English and Japanese captions were available on every exhibit. I thought the museum has well-exceeded my expectation. The spirit of truth, justice, survival, solidarity and dialogue came through. Overall, I did not feel the dogged, argumentative patriotism that so commonly feature in China’s diplomatic discourse, perhaps with the exception of the concluding remarks.
Three hours later, I stepped out of the darkness in the museum into the bright, hot day outside. I said to myself, “the sun will always shine in Nanjing.”
When travelling solo, I am always aware of the ebb and flow of my mood. There is a kind of rhythm, a leap of the heart at the excitement of observing unfamiliar scenes and appreciating similarities at the same time. Unforeseen circumstances, be it bad …
The afternoon was bright and it was becoming very hot. I headed to the southwestern part of the city looking for food. The plan was to visit the Memorial Hall of the Victims in Nanjing Massacre by Japanese Invaders in Jiangdongmen after lunch. I was …
I booked this trip to Nanjing in April 2019 for a brief three-and-a-half days, originally hoping to relax. If not for this blog, I would not have pushed myself over the limit on this trip. I walked so much that my feet swelled. On my last day, I almost could not fit in my runners.
But that is another story.
In Day 2, I woke by 7am and was ready to go. I planned to see the Rooster Crow Temple (Jiming Si), the Ming Dynasty City Wall of Nanjing (Ming Cheng Qiang), and the Xuanwu Lake (Xuanwuhu) in the morning. The afternoon would be either the Sun Yatsen Mausoleum or the Memorial Hall of the Victims in Nanjing Massacre by Japanese Invaders in Jiangdongmen.
If readers are looking for tips on Nanjing, I think the above-mentioned sites are must-see. That was why I tried to pack all that into the first two days.
The Rooster Crow Temple prides in its long history as one of the first temples in Nanjing. As early as the first year of the Yongkang Reign during the Western Jin Dynasty (300AD), the temple has served as a site of Buddha worship. During the Southern Dynasty, the first Emperor Liangwu Di of the Liang period built the Tongtai Temple in this site. As such, the Rooster Crow Temple’s predecessor was the first of the 480 Temples in the Southern Dynasty. Himself dedicated to the study of Buddhism here as a monk, Liangwu Di declared the decree of vegetarianism for Buddhist monks in 511AD. That would be the beginning of the vegetarian diet in Chinese Buddhism.
The first Emperor of the Ming Dynasty (Ming Tai Zu, whose name is Zhu Yuanzhang) rebuilt the temple compound here in 1387. He named this temple Rooster Crow Temple (Jiming Si). It means that at the Rooster’s Crow, people rise to practice swordsmanship. The Ming Emperor certainly appreciated the virtue of discipline and diligence.
Today, the Rooster Crow Temple is both a place of Buddha worship and a monastery.
As early as I was at the temple at 8:30, there was already quite a crowd in the temple compound. By the time I left the Xuanwu Lake, the whole area became extremely crowded.
At the end of the tour route at the temple, one will enter the famous Ming Dynasty City Wall (Ming Cheng Qiang). Because the Taiping Gate was closed for renovation when I visited, the walk on the City Wall was rather short. It might have been less than half a kilometer.
Perhaps what sets the Ming Dynasty City Wall apart from the other defensive walls of China was the existence of bricks with embossed wordings. The wordings denote the identity of the kilns. In early Ming Dynasty when the Emperor built the wall, he demanded bricks from the kilns all over the country. If a shipment was defective, the brick maker would have one chance to make good. If the second shipment was also defective, it was an offense punishable by death.
Along the city wall there was a display of ancient materiel, mostly of the Ming and Qing Dynasties. It was truly an open-space museum.
Looking on, the Xuanwu Lake lies ahead within walking distance. From the high vantage point of the City Wall, one could take a panoramic view of the Lake.
Exiting the City Wall, I walked over to two of the five Isles on the lake, called Huan (Ring) Isle and the Ying (Cherry Blossom) Isle. The springtime cherry blossom welcomed the visitors in a very festive atmosphere. The vast body of surrounding water soothed my mind. Just a short walk around the carefully landscaped gardens provides respite within Nanjing’s developed urban-scape.
The Xuanwu Lake served a few purposes for the ancient dynasties that named Nanjing as the capital. It was once the site of naval training during the Six Dynasties period. The ancients fully appreciated its beauty and it was also a recreational facility for the royalties during the Six Dynasties. The location of the lake being at the northern side of Nanjing also made it perfect as a natural barrier against invasion, as it was considered a moat surrounding the city wall. Finally, it was also the source of fresh water supply for the capital during the Ming Dynasty, as the existence of ancient water gates attest.
I savored the views of the natural lake in awe, at the same time taking in the lessons of history that I learned along the way.
It was only in the Xuanwuhu Tunnel that I noticed flashlights about once every ten seconds or so. I asked the driver what those were. “Those are cameras. They capture the cars that pass by, thereby tracing the movement and direction of every car in …
By Ha Jin It was an emotional experience reading this book. Told from the perspective of Anling, a foreman at Jinling Women’s College in Nanjing, the narrative pries open one of the most painful chapters in modern Chinese history—the Rape of Nanking. The story begins …
In the mall at Abu Dhabi, I saw a lady completely covered in black, from head to toe. She was very tall. Her towering figure allowed no exposure of her features except for her height. That was the most conservative expression of Islam that I observed on this trip. The irony was that this lady was walking in the most extensive and westernized mall in Abu Dhabi; its scale and luxury easily surpassed any mall in the West.
It is a common observation that the UAE is the most open of Islamic nations. In Dubai and Abu Dhabi, I felt no pressure in “behaving more reservedly.” The atmosphere changed rather notably when I was in Jordan. Surely, the women of Dubai wore their headscarves, but more women did so in Jordan, its cultural vibe stiffer than Dubai’s.
When a traveler had done no research on the destination, she must rely on the tour guides’ rendition of the history and culture of the sites. The rest was then a matter of observation by the traveler. Needless to say, I was curious about the status of women in Islamic nations. In Jordan, I felt compelled to put on a headscarf myself. Yet I wondered, did women here smoke? Did they wear makeup? Did they wear perfume? The answer was yes, I have seen all of the above in the UAE and Jordan.
I then wondered if it was fair to say that the real difference between “Islamic” and “Western” women really only lied in the façade of the headscarf alone.
The people of Dubai seemed not to have been concerned, or rather that they were actually quite proud, of the fact that in maintaining an appearance of western lifestyle they have well surpassed the West. And this pride was expressed in its malls, innovative architecture and city-building.
The wonderful Museum of Dubai showed me the development of this city from pearl harvesting to oil trade. Both water and oil were the living streams that gave rise to the boom of the city from its arid beginning in the desert. In this type of climate and geological inheritance, what was constantly at work was the human effort to change, morph and conquer nature. While faith has every expression in its people’s daily lives, the collective will expressed in the city-scape remained that of the common human desire to innovate for a better life—and the pride to show for it.
“I have never seen a place with such little soul.” This was a comment of a friend who visited Dubai last year. It was a provocative statement. When I heard it, I took a step back and probed my memory of Dubai. Was it a …