Nanjing

The last stop on my official around the country journey is now complete.  I spent two and a half days in Nanjing, one of the ancient capitals of China.

From a general point of view, Nanjing is very similar to Beijing.  There is a mixture of re-built old city architecture and modern business buildings.  The city was much more visited by foreigners than the previous cities that I saw, excepting Xi'an (another ancient capital) and Hong Kong.  People tend to go to Nanjing for the history, which predominantly features Chinese culture, revolutions and wars: both domestic and foreign.  I had a little taste of these three key types of history. 

Before I start with the description, here is the Nanjing Photo Album for those who are interested.

On my first full day in Nanjing, I spent nearly the entire afternoon walking through the city, spending most of my time near the Confucius Temple.  That area, which was almost completely decimated during the Cultural Revolution, has been reconstructed to mimic the historical setting.  Surrounding the temple and nearby garden is an area composed almost completely of shops which have rebuilt "ancient" architectural facades.  Placed on the streets which lie in front of the shops are bronze statues of Confucius and various other Chinese thinkers and historical figures. 

Aside from the statues, this area was very similar to many other Chinese shopping streets that I have visited - full of hole-in-the-wall stores selling tacky souvenirs - so I eventually tired of the area and continued on walking toward the mountains to the northeast.  As it turns out, those mountains were very far away.  I walked for about 1.5 hours along very wide, boring streets that look like they could have been the main roads in a Midwestern American suburb, and after visiting some rather uninteresting Ming Dynasty ruins, arrived at the Zhongshan gate through the city wall (As an aside, Nanjing supposedly has the world's longest city wall, but I read that online, so don't quote me).  At that point in time, I saw the mountains to my left, so I walked in that direction.  Bad decision.  I ran into a gate that was guarded by a man in a military uniform.  I pointed to the mountain behind the gate and asked if I could pass through to go there.  He didn't like that idea, and explained to me that I couldn't get to the mountain using the road that the gate blocked.  Good thing he was there, I guess; if he weren't, I probably would have accidentally trespassed on a Chinese military base.

At this point, the weather had become extremely hot, and I was getting tired and cranky.  Hence, I decided to catch a cab back to the hostel to relax for a while.  I rested, met some nice people in the hostel, played some pool, etc.  Eventually these new friends decided that they wanted to go out and see the Nanjing nightlife (on a Wednesday night).  Needless to say, there aren't any interesting stories to relate:  the bar that we went to was not empty, but nor was it full.  We just had some drinks, met a few of the foreigners who lived in town, and danced a bit before going home.

On the final day, I figured I had better go see some real sights, so I took a bus to Zhongshan, the same mountain that I was trying to walk to the day before.  It's a good thing that I had stopped walking, because the bus stop next to the historical sites was located a good two to four miles beyond the point where I had turned around.  The sights on the mountain were very much worth the 2 RMB (about $0.30) bus ride, but when you include the 80 RMB (about $11.50) entry ticket, I felt like I broke even.  At least I was able to see lots of sites though!

I won't bore you with the details of each of the places, but I went to Dr. Sun Yat-sen's Mausoleum, an open air auditorium, Dr. Sun Yat-sen's Memorial, and the Ling Gu Scenic Area, where I saw some tombs and the Ling Gu Pagoda and Temple.  The one interesting fact that I will relate is that I was surprised by all of the attention that has been devoted to Dr. Sun Yat-sen in these museums.  He was the father of Chinese Democracy (yes, you read that correctly), and he was one of the leaders working to form the Kunmingtang government which was eventually led by Chiang Kai-shek and defeated by Mao Zedong and the Communists.  Perhaps this was unfair of me, but I had just assumed that positive notions regarding previous governments (and democracy in general) had been stamped out during the Cultural Revolution and following certain more recent events.  I guess I was wrong!

That about sums up my experiences in Nanjing.  I spent the remainder of the time between the Zhongshan site seeing and my arrival in Beijing on pure necessities.  However, I am now safe and sound in Beijing staying at my friend Jonny's house (the same Jonny who came to visit me in Chengdu), and I'll be here for the next week!

As a final note, this may be my last China related post.  If there is another one, it will be after I have arrived in France (I'm going there on August 24th to visit Sabine).  Hence,  thanks for reading, and I hope that you have enjoyed it!