Tuesday 15 November 2016

Suzhou (2) The Humble Administrator's Garden and Other Gems: South East China Part 4

One of China's Great Gardens, an Ancient Temple and More

Perfect.
I love complicated
You come me you'd alway
(Legend seen on a coat, Suzhou Museum)

Seen leaving Suzhou museum

The Humble Administrator's Garden

China

In the morning B turned up with the same driver in the same car; he had spotted my glasses on the back seat and kept them safe. I was relieved to have them back.

We set off across town to the Humble Administrator's Garden, one of the finest in the garden city of Suzhou, indeed one of the finest in China.

Suzhou and Jiangsu Province

I was predisposed to dislike the 'humble administrator' (though not necessarily his garden) because anyone who calls themselves 'humble', like Uriah Heap or Emperor Tu Duc of Vietnam (we met him in Hue) almost certainly is not. But the Chinese word translated as ‘humble’ also suggests a level of, at best, semi-competence. Ming official Wang Xianchang was unhappy in his job and was passed over for promotion so in 1510 he threw in his post, bought a cheap patch of land outside the city and planted a market garden - a humble enough occupation.

Humble Administrator's Garden, Suzhou

The story might be believable except for the history of the land. In the 9th century the plot had been the garden of Tang Dynasty poet Lu Guimeng. After a fallow period it became a garden again in the 12th century while during the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368) it was the Dahong Temple garden. If the administrator was humble, the plot was not.

Humble Administrator's Garden, Suzhou

And then there was the involvement of Wang’s friend the eminent poet and artist Wen Zhengming. As a garden designer he was not a man to settle for a couple of rows of beans.

Humble Administrator's Garden, Suzhou

The garden was perfected, Wang Xianchang died and bequeathed the garden to his son who lost it in a game of cards. The story then becomes complicated and for a century or two the three parts, the Eastern, Western and Central Gardens were under different ownership. They were brought back together under state ownership in 1949, restored and opened to the public in 1952 and became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1997.

Bonzai trees, Humble Administrator's Garden, Suzhou

The 5 hectares of garden are a maze of walkways, punctuated by decorative rocks and pavilions, surrounding pools thick with lotus. Trees and flowers sometimes seem an afterthought in such a garden though the lotus would have been spectacular earlier in the year and the sweet smell of osmanthus would have wafted across the garden only a month ago.

Better when the lotus was in bloom, Humble Administrator's Garden, Suzhou

Even in November it was worth seeing, a thought that had also occurred to several thousand Chinese tourists, some in small groups, many following a leader with a flag. In summer the garden must be seriously crowded – a state at odds with the original concept.

A Chinese tour party, all in identical caps, file past the pond
Humble Administrator's Garden, Suzhou

In several places artificial 'mountains' have been raised, the largest a couple of metres high. We paused on one where an arbour was inscribed with a short poem by (I think) Wen Zhengming

Among Mountains, Flowers and Wild Birds
The cicada's churring makes the forest quieter
The singing of birds makes the hills more tranquil.

The same cannot be said for the chatter of Chinese tourists.

When westerners were a novelty it was common for people to sidle up and shyly ask to be photographed with such an exotic curiosity. It still happens in remote regions, but among the more cosmopolitan and sophisticated denizens of Suzhou an excuse is required. Here the photograph was for granny who lived deep in the countryside and had never seen a foreigner. Of course we cooperated, but retaliated by having our own photo of us with them!

Humble Administrator's Garden, Suzhou

Suzhou Musuem

From the garden we took a short walk to the Suzhou museum.

A short walk to Suzhou Museum

I M Pei

B (like the museum’s website) seemed more excited by the museum building than by its contents. It is the work of I M Pei, the Chinese-American architect responsible, among other things, for the 1993 glass pyramid outside the Louvre. His family came from Suzhou, but he was born in Guangzhou in 1917 (he will be 100 on the 26th of April 2017 update: I M Pei died on the 16th of May 2019 aged 102) and spent his childhood in Hong Kong and Shanghai before choosing to study architecture in the USA and eventually becoming a major international architect influenced by Le Corbusier and Frank Lloyd Wright. Apparently incapable of retiring, he was pleased to be asked to design a new museum for his parents’ home town in 2005.

I really cannot like his earlier Brutalist works. Unlike them, the museum is based on old-style Chinese houses but it is so geometrical it looks, to me anyway, like a kit building.

I M Pei's Suzhou Museum

The installation in the atrium is intended to suggest a traditional landscape painting, but at first glance I though it was a scene of industrial dereliction. I doubt that either I M Pei or the Suzhou city fathers will lose much sleep over my disapproval (yes, I am as humble as an administrator).

Traditional landscape or industrial dereliction? Suzhou Museum

Suzhou Museum Star Exhibits

Among the routine display of old coins, porcelain and all the other things you might expect there are two star exhibits, both found in collapsed pagodas in the days when they were allowed to decay as symbols of the feudal past.

The thousand year old Pearl Pillar of the Buddhist Shrine was rediscovered in 1978 in the Ruiguang Pagoda (see next post). The main body is made of nanmu wood with decorations of crystal, agate, amber, pearl and sandalwood, with carved jade and woven golden and silver thread.

Pearl Pillar of the Buddhist Shrine, Suzhou Museum

The 10th century Olive Green Lotus-Shaped Bowl found in 1957 in the Yunyansi Pagoda is a remarkable example of ‘Five Dynasty’ period (907-960AD) ceramics.

Olive Green Lotus-Shaped Bowl, Suzhou Museum

The older (1960s) section of the museum is in the former residence of the self-styled Zhong Prince of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom (1850-64) and contains his throne room. I wrote about the Taiping Rebellion here).

Throne room of the Zhong Prince, Taiping Rebellion, Suzhou Museum

Canalside Suzhou

Near the museum is another canal side area like the 7-mile Shantang. B was greeted by a European man she obviously knew. He was a Finn who ran a restaurant and was celebrating eighteen years in China. I asked him if he had expected to be here so long when he arrived. He said he had been sent by Nokia for two years but had not wanted to come and tried to argue them down to one year but once he arrived he realised he never wanted to leave and in the end left Nokia rather than China.

He said his restaurant was No 1 on Trip Advisor and pressed a flyer into my hand. I don't know why he mentioned he had been born in Iran, but as we shared that oddity we seemed to bond and I said we might well return for lunch.

Canalside area near Suzhou Museum

We had a late coffee in one of the new breed of Chinese coffee shops. There were no other westerners around so we inevitably had the place to ourselves. We looked at the Finn's flyer and discovered he was selling meatballs and mashed potato to the Chinese along with other Scandinavian favourites and the odd pizza. Perhaps a visit would not be such a good idea after all.

A Short Trip on a Canal


Boat ride on the canal, Suzhou

We took a short boat trip along the canal. It was a pleasant way to view our interesting surroundings, and very relaxing, though not perhaps for the chap doing the rowing.

Canal bridge, Suzhou

Canalside Lunch

Afterwards B was keen to choose a restaurant for our lunch, but we decided to assert our independence and find a restaurant ourselves. There was plenty of choice and we picked one, sat down and ordered a couple of small, cheap pork dishes that we hoped would make a light lunch. They did, though neither was particularly inspiring and the dishes were too similar - at least they were not meatballs and mashed potato.

Easy enough to find a restaurant along here

After lunch we returned to the hotel. As we had a late start tomorrow B suggested a nearby temple/garden we could visit in the morning and left us with the instruction to 'rest this afternoon.'

Hanshan Si (Cold Mountain Temple)

We may be getting older, but we are not so old we need to lie down all afternoon after a morning's sightseeing, nor are we so helpless we cannot find our own places to visit. Hanshan Si, Cold Mountain Temple, was according to the map, a mile or so down a dead straight road west from our hotel.

Canal alongside Feng Qiao Road, Suzhou

It was indeed a simple walk beside a canal along Feng Qiao Road to the district of the same name. I commented on the flatness of the walk and how it was a relief after all the steps in Nanjing. We found Cold Mountain Temple devoid of cowboys, of any sexual orientation, and mountains - and cold, though it was cool. There was, though, an excellent bell.

Bell, Hanshan Si, Suzhou

The temple had been here since 500AD and is well known in China and Japan because of a few lines by the Tang dynasty (618 -755) poet Zhang Ji

Moonset; through the freezing air the caw of a crow;
By Feng Qiao, breaking my rest, the fishing lamps glow;
To me, as I lie in my boat, the dark hour brings
The plangent repeated sound as the temple bell rings
At Hanshan beyond Suzhou.

It is a remarkable evocation of a scene in so few words. Reading it I find myself pulling my cloak closer around me and shifting uncomfortably on the hard planks of my boat. And it is not only me, at New Year Hanshan is crowded with Japanese visitors who come to hear the midnight bell. The temple has grown rich on their donations.

Hanshan Si, Suzhou

Continuing through the temple, Puming Ta is an eleventh century seven storey pagoda. Apologizing for my earlier comment about steps, we set off up it, but the stairs above the first floor were roped off. We did not miss the climb, but were sorry we were deprived of our view of the Grand Canal. Started in the early 7th century the canal runs for 2000km connecting the rice bowl of the southern Yangtze with the heavily populated but less fertile lands of the north. It enabled China's early economic growth and although built to benefit the north, the south also benefited, and to such an extent that both Nanjing and Hangzhou became the national capital at various times.

Puming Ta, Hanshan Si, Suzhou

I liked the view of the temple roofs, though, even if it was not the grand canal.

Roofs, Hanshan Si, Suzhou

Outside the main Buddha hall was an incense burner bedecked with red ribbons. It can be difficult to tell Buddhist from Taoist temples but usually red denotes Taoism and yellow Buddhism. This, though, was a Buddhist Temple. People were attempting to flip coins through the holes at the top or land them on the upper surfaces. Success would doubtless indicate forthcoming good fortune.

Ribbon bedecked incense burner and flippers of coins, Hanshan Si, Suzhou

Inside the main Buddha hall the Buddha himself...

Main Buddha Statue, Hanshan Si, Suzhou

....was supported by what looked like a jury of arhats (and more of them tomorrow).

A jury of Arhats, Hanshan Si, Suzhou

Dinner in Suzhou

Later we visited another small restaurant in the same row as yesterday. I left my glasses in the hotel so Lynne looked at the pictures and picked a chicken dish and some cauliflower. The chicken looked spectacular when it arrived in a wok placed over a heater, the sides lined with what I would have called puri had we been in India. The chicken came with potatoes, onion, garlic and peppers in a rich gravy while the cauliflower was accompanied by star anise, onion, peppers, ginger, soy sauce, chilli and a lot of oil. Washed down with a couple of bottle of Tsingtao, one of China's least worst beers, it made an excellent evening.

Dinner in Suzhou

Monday 14 November 2016

Suzhou (1), The Seven-Mile Shantang and a Mandarin Fish Cut in the Shape of a Squirrel: South East China Part 3

A Modern Train, an Old City, Even Older Canals and a Local Speciality

People's Republic of China

Nanjing to Suzhou by High-Speed Train

After a leisurely start to the morning we were driven the short distance to Nanjing station. Bright and modern, more like an airport than a railway station, we waited at the gate for our train to be called. There are, however various things that are taboo at a Chinese station.

It never crossed my mind, Nanjing Railway Station
Lynne can be seen sitting with our cases below the 'no'.

The high speed train took 90 minutes to cover the 220 kilometres to Suzhou though with four intermediate stops it rarely reached its maximum speed. We were met by a driver and a new guide, B, and driven to our hotel; a vast improvement on the scruffy, unloved premises in Nanjing.

South East China

Lunch in Suzhou

B advised us that there was a good noodle shop just round the corner and suggested that after lunch we might like to visit the 7-mile Shantang which was a simple fifteen minute walk away.

A Small Problem

'Phone me if you have any problems,' she said as she left. We never expected to make a call, but twenty minutes later I realised I had a problem; I had left my glasses in the car. We phoned her, in fact we phoned her several times over the next few hours, not from our aged mobile which resolutely refuses to function in China but from the hotel reception. There was no reply. [‘I’m sorry, I did not recognize the hotel's number and thought they were nuisance calls,’ she said the next day. We get so many nuisance calls at home we readily accepted her apology]. I use my glasses only for reading, and anything else happening close to me, so I can function without them - for a while - and had to hope we would have the same car and driver tomorrow. [We did and he had my glasses, I doubt we would have accepted the apology so easily if there had been a problem].

The recommended noodle shop was clean and cheap, the brief menu written vertically on wooden fillets hung on pegs on the wall. Distant and relatively large they were easy for me to see, but as they were written in Chinese this helped little. Lynne deployed her vast knowledge of Mandarin, 'niu rou chow mien' (beef noodles) and I added 'liang ping pijiu' (two bottles of beer). A smiling and obliging waitress paused while she deciphered our accents and idiosyncratic use of tones and then motioned us to a seat. The food arrived quickly and was just what we wanted.

Suzhou, The Old and the Ancient

Wedged between the huge city of Nanjing (pop 9m) and the megacity of Shanghai (24m), tiny Suzhou, with only 4 million inhabitants is just a big village.

Old streets, Suzhou

Old Nanjing was comprehensively destroyed by the Japanese in 1937, but most of the damage to China's old cities has been done by the Chinese themselves in the name of progress. Having only been brushed by the Taiping Rebellion and the Japanese invasion, the garden city of Suzhou with its intricate network of canals, dismantled its ancient walls and, when the boom times came, was well placed to become yet another Han city of high-rise apartments and flyovers. Fortunately it did not quite happen that way. A Suzhou of tower blocks and industrial zones does exist, it forms an outer ring while inside it the 4km square of old central Suzhou remains strictly low rise. A third Suzhou, a city of ancient streets and canals (preserved rather than rebuilt as is so often the Chinese way) co-exists within the old. Lying a metre or two lower than central Suzhou, it is accessed by steps from many of the canal bridges. The central area, old and ancient, has the relaxed, uncluttered feel of a city on a human scale.

The 7-mile Shantang, Suzhou

Later we walked down to the 7-mile Shantang and from the bridge carrying the old street over the canal we gazed down on an older China.

The 7-mile Shantang, Suzhou

The Imperial Mile and the Chinese Li

The ‘7-mile Shantang’ is not all it claims to be. The name is a partial translation of ‘7-li Shantang’. Older dictionaries defined ‘li’ (a very handy word in scrabble) as a ‘Chinese mile’, though ‘mile’ is misleading. More modern dictionaries agree that it is much shorter though the Oxford and Chambers dictionaries differ on its precise length. The ‘li’, like the ‘jin’ (the Chinese pound) are still used, but have been redefined for the metric age. A ‘li’ is now 500m, so the 7-li Shantang is only 3.5km (2.2 miles), though the sign on the bridge clearly said, in English, that we were descending to the ‘7-mile Shantang’.

The Shantang canal was built in 825 CE on the orders of Bai Juyi, a Tang Dynasty governor of Suzhou. The buildings alongside are old (though not that old) but the uses they are put to are new. We stopped at a coffee shop, a new idea in China where very few people drink coffee (and, according to one source, half of those who do don’t like it, but want to appear modern). We sat at a table beside the canal and drank a ludicrously overpriced Americano, but after three coffee free days it seemed a good idea.

We strolled beside the water, peering down the side canals….

Side canal off the 7-mile Shantang, Suzhou

…until we reached a temple in memory of Bai Juyi. I am always a little sceptical of statues of people who died so long ago nobody has the least idea what they looked like, but no doubt he was inclined to stroke his beard – as wise men have always done.

Bai Juyi outside his temple by the 7-mile Shantang, Suzhou

Behind the temple is a stumpy but ornate pagoda.

Pagoda behind the Bai Juyi temple, 7-mile Shantang, Suzhou

Beyond the temple the Shantang canal enters a larger canal which passes under a splendid old bridge. It was time to turn back.

Canal bridge, Suzhou

A Mandarin Fish Cut like a Squirrel

That evening we went out in search of a mandarin fish cut like a squirrel. According to legend the dish was first prepared 1,400 years ago for an emperor of the Sui dynasty who was travelling through his kingdom and wished to taste the best each region had to offer, and somebody thought of this. No longer the food of emperors it is available to every Wong, Dick or David with a little spare cash. Our search was short; a few doors down we found a tiny four table restaurant with a picture of the very fish on the door. We did not know then that we would see the likeness all over Suzhou.

The mandarin fish is a member of the perch family abundant in eastern China's rivers. It is cut into the squirrel shape, very lightly battered and fried before being covered in a variation on sweet and sour sauce.

Mandarin Fish Cut in the Shape of a Squirrel
Menu seen outside a different Suzhou restaurant

The response when a couple of foreigners turned up in an unexpected place often used to be fear, horror or bemusement. Now it is usually one of welcome. We ordered our fish and a vegetable dish by pointing at the picture menu and when we asked for beer the owner popped into the restaurant next-door to source a couple of bottles of Tsingtao. We were grateful, Tsingtao may not be a great beer, but it is far better than the local Snow Beer which is wet, weak and watery. Perhaps he felt he could not offer that to honoured guests - and perhaps it occurred to him he could charge more for Tsingtao.

Mandarin fish cut in the Shape of a Squirrel
The reality

Our fish was magnificent, though the similarity to a squirrel was mostly in the eye of the beholder – I suppose it vaguely resembled a hedgehog. We thoroughly enjoyed our meal which seemed to please the owner, and a group of old men at the table behind who made an effort to speak to us as they left. It was kind of them, even if language difficulties made our communication symbolic rather than actual.

Sunday 13 November 2016

Nanjing (2), The Presidential Palace and the Massacre Museum: South East China Part 2

A Not Entirely Convincing Omni-Palace, the 'Rape of Nanjing' and Duck's Blood Soup

We are stone
high five

(Slogan seen on a tee-shirt, Presidential Palace, Nanjing)

The Presidential Palace?

China

After a better night’s sleep but an identical poor breakfast, we set off with S and Mr D for the presidential palace in central Nanjing. Originally a Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) palace, we were told, it had also been used by the Qing Dynasty (1644-1912), the leaders of the Taiping rebellion, Dr Sun Yat-sen and Chiang Kai-shek. During some of that time Nanjing (lit Southern Capital) had been the capital of China, but when the communists finally won in the civil war in 1951 Mao chose to move the capital permanently to Beijing (Northern Capital).

Tourists milled around multitudinously, but apart from us all were Chinese; westerners, it appears, rarely visit Nanjing. For 20 years after the civil war, the government had no interest in Chinese history and Mao actively encouraged the destruction of ancient monuments. In today’s China, regional governments over-reacting to their earlier vandalism are assiduously restoring, rebuilding and sometimes even faking the past. This may explain why, despite the palace’s size and pulling power, it rated only one line in my twelve year old Rough Guide. I look forward to a more balanced approach.

Lynne outside the Presidential Palace, Nanjing

The Ming Garden and the Stone Boat

At the western end is the Ming garden. A traditional Chinese garden has four elements, stones, water, buildings and finally, almost as an afterthought, plants.

Ming Garden, Presidential Palace, Nanjing

This garden certainly qualifies, it even has a stone boat to rival the marble boat of Beijing's Summer Palace, though the crowds meant we did not see it in the quiet seclusion envisaged by the designers.

Stone boat, Ming Garden, Presidential Palace, Nanjing

The Offices of Dr Sun Yat-Sen and of Chiang Kai-shek

Beyond the garden are Dr Sun Yat-sen’s offices and outside is a statue of the great man himself.

Dr Sun Yat-sen, First president of the Chinese Republic

Inside we saw various rooms including his modest private office...

Sun Yat-sen's office, Presidential Palace, Nanjing
The sign on the desk has his name as Sun Zhong Shan, the modern pinyin version, but he has gone down in history under his Wade-Giles transliteration so I am sticking to Sun Yat-sen

...and the meeting room.

Sun Yat-sen's meeting room, Presidential Palace, Nanjing

We moved on to Chiang Kai-shek's offices...

Chiang Kai-shek's Offices, Presidential Palace, Nanjing

...where I had to wrestle with the crowd (the Chinese sense of personal space is not the same as ours, but when in Nanjing….) to get a photo of the inside of CKS’s office. It is not a great picture, but I worked for it, so here it is.

Chiang Kai-sheks' personal office, Presidential Palace, Nanjing

After Mao won the civil war, CKS retreated to the island of Taiwan. Here he set up a rival Republic of China glaring at Mao's People's Republic of China across the Taiwan straits, each faction claiming the territory of the other. With American support CKS's Republic of China held China's UN seat and position as a permanent member of the Security Council until 1971. The authoritarian CKS died in 1975 since when Taiwan has progressed to multi-party democracy and prosperity. It still claims to be the 'real' Republic of China but has agreed the '3 noes' policy with the mainland, ' no unification, no independence and no use of force'.

Round the next part of the garden is the Taiping area. The way the historical sections are adjacent but not overlapping confirmed my suspicion that this is more a carefully constructed museum than a real palace.

More of the Ming garden on the way to the Taiping throne room
Presidential Palace, Nanjing

The Taiping 'Heavenly Kingdom'

In the 17th century the Ming dynasty ran out of steam and was replaced by the Qing dynasty in Beijing in 1644, extending their rule to Nanjing in 1683. Peaking in power in the late 18th century, the Qing rulers encountered difficulties in the 19th and faced several uprisings. The largest was the Taiping rebellion of 1850 when a group of farmers and land owners seized control over a great swathe of southern China and set up the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom under Hong Xiuquan, the younger brother of Jesus Christ (or so he claimed). They chose Nanjing as their capital and the throne room of Hong Xiuquan has been lovingly restored - or recreated.

Throne room of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom

The current official line approves of the Taiping Movement describing it as nationalist/proto-communist. Their kingdom, though, was 'heavenly' in name only, the 14 year rebellion and civil war were marked by great brutality. With estimates of the dead ranging from 20 to 70 million it was the bloodiest civil war and largest conflict of the 19th century. The Qing forces were ineffectual until in-fighting weakened the Heavenly Kingdom and in 1864 the Emperor eventually regained control with the assistance of the French and British including the ‘Ever Victorious Army’ led by General Charles 'Chinese' Gordon (later better known as Gordon of Khartoum).

The Qing Empire petered out in 1912 and Dr Sun Yat-sen briefly became president of a new republic.

We left the presidential palace via more gardens and the stables.

Stables, Presidential Palace, Nanjing

The 1937 Japanese Invasion and the Nanjing Massacre

Americans date the Second World War from 1941 when they were attacked by the Japanese; the Chinese date it from the Japanese invasion of 1937. Shanghai fell in August 1937 and the invaders moved on towards Nanjing, Chiang Kai-shek’s capital. CKS did not want to make a stand here and retreated 1,400km up the Yangtze to Chongqing which would become the war time capital. Mao and CKS paused their civil war to fight the Japanese (resuming it in 1945).

Shanghai, Nanjing and Chongqing
In pinyin transliteration 'q' is pronounced 'ch'. The older Wade-Giles system referred to Nanking and Chungking

The Japanese reached Nanjing in December 1937. The massive medieval walls provided little protection from a modern army and on the 13th of December, after several days of air raids, they breached the walls and took the city. There followed six weeks of destruction, looting, mass murder and gang rape, an event known as the Nanjing Massacre.

The Massacre Museum and Memorial

The Massacre Museum and memorial to the victims is near the presidential palace, behind a massive if not entirely successful sculpture of a mother holding a dead child.

Memorial outside the Massacre Museum, Nanjing

The pebbles represent the multitude of the dead, and in the subterranean museum the story is told in stygian gloom to a soundtrack of bombing and shooting. The figure 300,000, the number of the dead, is repeated everywhere as the story is told through pictures, artefacts, the testimony of survivors and, occasionally, even of the perpetrators. Like the killing field in Phnom Penh or the War Remnants Museum in Ho Chi Minh City, it is a place to shake your faith in humanity.

The pebbles as numerous as the dead, Memorial to the Nanjing Massacre

The Nanjing Massacre created an unlikely hero. Most of the international community left Nanjing before the Japanese arrived, but some stayed including several American missionaries and Siemens' representative in China, John Rabe, who was German and a Nazi party member. Under Rabe’s leadership they negotiated with the Japanese to set up the International Protection Zone where they safely sheltered some 200,000 non-military personnel.

Rabe returned to Germany in 1938 and continued to press the Chinese case until he was arrested by the Gestapo. He was released by the influence of Siemens for whom he worked for the rest of the war. Post-war he was denounced as a Nazi, lost his job and was put on a 'denazification programme'. He died in poverty in 1950.

John Rabe (picture nicked from Wikipedia)
Humanitarian and Nazi - an epitaph he shares with Oskar Schindler (and nobody else)

We finally emerged into the sunlight beside the footprints of some of the survivors. There are just over one hundred officially recognized survivors left, one less than yesterday, so S told us. The death of a survivor makes the news in Nanjing.

The footprints of the survivors

For the sake of balance I should add that the official Chinese figure of 300,000 dead is disputed. Some Japanese nationalists deny there was any massacre, and there has never been an official apology, which rankles with the Chinese in general and Nanjingers in particular. Independent estimates put the figure anywhere between 40,000 and 250,000. The true number is unknown and unknowable, but even 40,000 is a lot of innocent people. Suffice it to say it was one of the worst atrocities carried out by a regular army in modern times and there were those who could, and should, have stopped it. War crimes trials were held later but most senior officers escaped prosecution.

Finally we passed through two cavernous halls where the remains of several thousand victims have been found. Partially excavated, their bleached bones look reproachfully up at the world. I am not sure that it is how I would have treated the dead, but everybody filed through in solemn and respectful silence.

I felt emotionally battered but also a little troubled. In The Railway Man, Eric Lomax told of his mistreatment by the Japanese on the Burma Railway. He wrote 'we must never forget, but we must now forgive.' It is not up to me to offer forgiveness on behalf of British PoWs, still less the people of Nanjing, but I would have liked to see the memorial take at least a token step in that direction. Of course the Japanese could help by owning up and apologising.

Exiting the Massacre Memorial, Nanjing

Duck Blood Soup

In the world outside the birds were singing and the sun was just warm enough to tempt me to remove my pullover. 'What would you like for lunch?' S asked, completing the strange change of gear. After yesterday’s salt water duck it was time for Nanjing’s other specialty, what guide books call duck blood soup and S called duck’s bloody noodles.

S suggested a noodle shop near the Yuejiang Tower, so afterwards we could climb the tower see the view of the Yangtze Bridge we could not find yesterday and then walk home.

The noodle shop was in a sparsely attended shopping mall. Next-door was the Cheese Pub, its outside tables and chairs unoccupied. I have no idea what they sold, but I doubt it was cheese.

Noodle shop, Nanjing

S ordered for us and insisted we also have a steamer of pork dumplings, because that is what you eat with the soup. Then she left us to enjoy.

S queues to order our noodles while Lynne hangs around

The noodles were covered with a broth in which floated some tofu, diamond shaped pieces of scarlet jelly, presumably the duck blood, and various other parts of the fowl - liver, gizzard, finely chopped intestines etc. I should like to report that it was unexpectedly delicious or as disgusting as it sounds. In fact it was neither. It was pleasant enough, but hardly memorable - a good way of using up trifles that would otherwise go to waste.

Duck blood soup and a steamer of dumplings
The red splodges in my bowl are chilli sauce from the pot on the table, not blood

Yuejiang Tower and the Yangtze River

From the restaurant we could see Yuejiang Tower on the top of its hill. From this side the steps up to the ticket office were obvious, and there were plenty more steps afterwards.

Yuejiang Tower, Nanjing

The tower typifies the current Chinese attitude to antiquities. Standing inside a corner of the city wall which here does a northward bulge, it was designed in the 14th century along with the wall, but the emperor ran out of money and it was never built. When the city authorities started rebuilding parts of the wall destroyed by the Japanese they decided to build the tower as well. It was opened to the public in 2001.

S had warned us that our path would bring us to the tower at second floor level and that we had to go down some steps to enter. These narrow steps were hidden by foliage but indicated by a sign, the English version of which read 'Therewith to the Floor.' We may not have interpreted that without S’s warning.

Inside the Yuejiang Tower

What S did not tell us was that the lift would be out of order. Yuejiang mean ‘enjoy the river’ so we slogged up all seven storeys to the viewing platform to be rewarded with a misty view of the Yangtze, the world's longest double decker road/rail bridge and the port of Nanjing - sizeable container ships have no difficulty making it this far up-river.

The Yangtze, the bridge and shipping, Nanjing

And on the other side we could look over the haze (or pollution) shrouded city.

Nanjing shrouded in mist

We could see where we went wrong yesterday and the route home. Although the sign posting was not always helpful we found our way without mishap.

S talking us into dumplings as well as noodles meant we did not want to eat in the evening, so instead we walked up to the local Carrefour to see what a French supermarket chain was making of the Chinese market. They sold all the things you might expect including a range of French wines at high but not unreasonable prices and there was a big promotion on olive oil - well, the British have taken to it, so why not the Chinese?