Vignettes of the World
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 …
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 looking for Liji Restaurant, which serves Islamic cuisine.
Then I got lost. For an hour or so, I went back and forth on a large cross section, trying to find my way to the small residential neighborhood in which the famous restaurant has established its presence. When I finally found it, I thought to myself, the food had better worth the effort.
At the restaurant, it was going to be another hour of wait because there was a huge queue for the food. Eventually, I did have the lunch that I wanted, and I thought that the food was well-worth the effort. I will talk about this restaurant in the Nanjing food entry.
A trip to Nanjing would not complete if one has not seen the Memorial Hall. I cannot emphasize this point more. It is a testament to a very important and painful part of Nanjing’s history.
It was about 2:30pm when I finished lunch. Immediately I headed off to the Memorial Hall. To my disappointment, the queue there was so long that it would take a three-hour wait before being admitted. That meant that I would have to rush through the exhibits before the Memorial Hall closed for the day. I took no time to make a decision, I must shuffle my itinerary, and come back another day.
The next intended site to visit was the Mochou Lake. I would never have enough of in-city natural wonders, so seeing two lakes in the same day served me well. Moreover, the Mochou Lake comes with a legend of its own. Its Chinese name “mochou” means “not to be sad.” There are stories behind the naming of the lake.
To my great disappointment, the Mochou Lake also closed for renovation. Perhaps I should just head back to the hotel to rest for the day, I thought. But I told myself to move on, because 1. I might only visit Nanjing once; 2. There is blogging to do.
Despite the unexpected disappointments, I gathered a very good sense of Nanjing as a city. By the time I found my way between multiple sites in Jianye District, the southwestern part of the city, I had full confidence that I could navigate all around the city on buses and the subway.
So I forged ahead to the Presidential Palace.
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 …
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 at the eve of Nanjing’s fall in 1937. At Jinling Women’s College, Anling assisted American missionary Minnie Vautrin in the preparations for a refugee camp. At the time, they meant to give shelter to about seven thousand women and children. By the time the puppet government was established in Nanjing, Jinling Women’s College housed ten thousand homeless women and children.
In heartbreaking lucidity, the book details the atrocities committed against the countless innocent victims during the Japanese occupation of Nanjing. The chanced survival, the brutalities of war crimes, the sense of helplessness and hopelessness being in the thrusts of history, the dilemmas and difficult choices made under duress—all elicited complicated emotions. The descriptions of violence against women are as graphic as tolerable under civilized discourse. At times I was tempted to put down the book, being sickened to the heart.
Although the book is a work of fiction, the author Ha Jin, a recipient of the National Book Award, has based his writing on a vast amount of historical sources. Chief amongst these primary sources were the correspondences and diaries of Minnie Vautrin and John Rabe. Along with the foreigner members of the Safety Zone Committee and the Red Cross, they were critical figures in protecting the Chinese people during the Japanese occupation of Nanjing.
Perhaps what kept me reading was the admirable courage of the foreigners and missionaries who served as protectors of the people. Despite their lifelong devotion to Christianity, the missionaries had their doubts about God. They questioned God’s justice as they witnessed senseless, heinous brutalities. Yet they showed their faith to be the source of spiritual renewal. Together they stood firmly against senseless killings and tortures. They risked their own lives in documenting the war atrocities that they witnessed for months after the fall of Nanjing.
When I visited the Memorial Hall of the Victims in Nanjing Massacre by Japanese Invaders in Nanjing, the exhibits on the foreigners in Nanjing running the Safety Zone Committee touched me the most. This book stands as a living tribute to the personal sacrifices that these foreigners have made for China and all humanity.
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 …
“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 …
It came time to say goodbye finally. The tour group boarded the plane to fly back to Dubai. Yang, a fellow tour member, invited me to her home in Abu Dhabi. We arrived late night after an hour and a half of driving from Dubai. Her house was enormous. She had three daughters and the daughters’ room itself was larger than an average flat in Hong Kong.
Abu Dhabi is the capital city of the UAE. Being Chinese, we drew comparisons with the Chinese cities. Abu Dhabi is like Beijing, which is the political center of the country. Dubai is more like Shanghai, which is more commercially-oriented. The rivalry between these cities are similar as well.
The next day, we went to the Palace Hotel. As a six-star hotel, it stood lavishly with glistening gold under the sun. We sat down at the café and sipped coffee sprinkled with real gold flakes. That would be the most luxurious coffee I have ever had in my life. A group of black women sang a chorus outside the hotel. They looked like an American sorority to me.
The skyline of Abu Dhabi, like that of Dubai, stood proudly as architectural innovations. The most outstanding building was the Great Mosque of Seikh Zayed. It is the heart of religious worship within the UAE. It was really too bad that I went on a Friday and did not get to visit the Great Mosque because it was closed to tourists during the prayer day.
The afternoon was a markedly different experience from a view of the Great Mosque. We headed to the Ferrari Theme Park for the fastest roller coaster in the world. At 220 km/h, this ride was so thrilling that I was too overwhelmed to even scream before it all ended within two minutes. I then realized that perhaps I was a bit too old for this type of excitement.
At the evening we had a great dinner together at the mall. The mall at the Ferrari Theme Park easily emulates any significant mall in the United States. Stores like Victoria’s Secret and Starbucks stood proudly as the testament to UAE’s effort to welcome western and local consumers alike.
It was perhaps the competitive spirit of the Middle Easterners that drove what looked to me a contradiction, the way that western culture was rejected and yet embraced at the same time. The mall was so glamorous I thought it was grander than the Bloomingdale’s in Los Angeles.
Perhaps photographs would better convey the Dead Sea and its wonders. The tour finally made it out of Israel (there were some glitches at the border), and arrived at the Dead Sea’s Jordanian shore. Some of the tour members changed into swimsuits and bathed on …