Nanjing

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In my zeal to find a creative way to share the really small world story in the surprise! post, I unwittingly made it difficult to discuss Nanjing in a meaningful way. I had written a post about it before, but rather go through a narrative of “what I did in Nanjing”, I think I’ll discuss my thoughts about the city, which were made poignant by being there. These thoughts were a constant companion and made my visit there feel very strange…especially after the stresses of getting from Lugu Hu to Nanjing.

This is about the fourth completely different post I’ve written:

Nanjing is a very difficult city to write about in a meaningful way. There are so many facets to the place, each of which is very powerful and could easily fill the mind, yet which together create a discord in my mind. I will try to unravel what I mean without delving too deeply into the topics I discuss…

Some of the main things that come to mind in thinking about Nanjing (which means “South Capital”, as Beijing means “North Capital”) are:

The Nanjing Massacre

This dark event in history, which took place at the end of 1937, is not widely known about in the United States. The Japanese invaded China, where Nanjing (called “Nanking” at the time) was the capital. The Chinese forces withdrew in advance of the Japanese onslaught, leaving the civilian population to fend for itself. The Japanese then perpetrated one of the greatest war crimes in history, killing hundreds of thousands (the exact number is disputed, but the number is around 300,000) of innocents, raping thousands of women and losing any sense of morality. They did such gruesome things as using living humans for bayonet practice. You can’t really call this an “incident”, as it unfolded over a period of several weeks.

This event has cast a huge shadow over China’s relationship with Japan ever since, because Japan has never even formally acknowledged that it took place. In fact, the Japanese prime ministers have annually rubbed salt into this old wound by visiting a war memorial site that houses many of the war criminals that perpetrated the Nanjing Massacre.

When I was a navigator in the United States Air Force, I was stationed in Japan for a year and nine months (this was in 1989-1991). I visited Hiroshima while I was there and it is amazing how the Japanese portray themselves as innocent victims to United States aggression. What is missing in that portrayal is the complete disregard for any human life (other than Japanese lives) that the country as a whole showed during the 1930s until they were finally stopped by the bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.

The morality involved in these events is overwhelming, simply due to the numbers of people whose lives were horribly affected. The Nanjing Massacre overwhelms the rest of the city’s illustrious history because of this scope and because it happened less than 100 years ago, so that there are a lot of people walking around today that still grieve about their own, personal loss…

Reflecting on an unpleasant past...

Sun Zhongshan (Sun Yat Sen)

The most amazing thing about Sun Zhong Shan is that he is the one individual that is equally admired by the Chinese Communists, the Chinese Kuomintang (the Nationalists, led by Jiang Jieshi (called Chiang Kai-Shek by Westerners) who fled to Taiwan after losing the post World War II civil war in China), and even by United States leaders.

For those of you unfamiliar with this history, Sun was instrumental in overthrowing the Qing Dynasty in 1911 and establishing the Republic of China in 1912. China had been ruled by Emperors (and intermediary lords of several territories before the next dynasty founder united them) for thousands of years, so breaking the chain of dynasties was a major accomplishment and has given Sun a status in China similar to George Washington in the United States as the “father of the country”.

In fact, everyone knows about Mao Zedong’s portrait at the north end of Tiananmen Square, but every Worker’s Day (May 1) and National Day (October 1), Sun’s portrait is also proudly displayed in Tiananmen Square.

Because he established the capital in Nanjing, Sun wanted to be buried there. When he died in 1925, plans began for a Mausoleum befitting his importance to the Chinese people. The mausoleum was constructed from 1926-1929. It has become a standard place for leaders from all over the world to visit when they journey to China.

The steps get steeper close to the top...

Historical Capital

Nanjing, like several other cities in China, has been a capital of China (or of an interim state between Chinese dynasties) several times over its history. In addition to serving as the capital during the Republic of China years before Mao reestablished Beijing as the capital, the first emperor of the Ming dynasty made Nanjing the capital of China in 1368.

An illustrious past...

Modern city

In addition to the history of the city, Nanjing is a very modern city in many aspects. I detected a lot of Western influences in the city, from supermarkets to shopping districts, Nanjing is squarely looking toward the future.

The last 150 years of history, which has been very difficult for China, has caused many Chinese to look toward the West for inspiration.

As a sentimentalist, I hope that the young generation will understand the richness of Chinese culture and won’t embrace the Western ways too deeply. It won’t be too long (from a historical perspective, in any case) before China reasserts its role as one of the world’s leading nations. People in the United States don’t have much of an understanding of the world before the US was a world power. For most of the last few thousand years; however, China has been one of the great civilizations, and its history has been continuous. It is as if Egypt, Greece or Rome continued to this day as a civilization in the West.

I hope more people develop an understanding of how truly wonderous it is to have this ancient culture still living in the 21st century and not let petty political differences stand in the way of appreciating this amazing civilization.

...and a promising future...

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As you can see, Nanjing brings a lot of feelings out in me that are often in conflict with each other (for instance: Republic of China establishment versus historical Dynastic Capital  or Nanjing Massacre Site versus dynamic, thriving, modern city). One thing it definitely did, though, was to make me think…

The Dao is often only seen after it has been taken...