I was in Nanjing yesterday but I didn’t manage to do much which resulted in my solemn mood today. I was really anticipating for this trip to come and I even updated my Tripadvisor World Map on Facebook beforehand, a big deal for me. I would love to see the Memorium of the reported 300,000 Nanjing Massacre victims mainly and of course, the City Wall and Yangtze River would be lovely bonuses.
I arrived in Nanjing, where it had the best weather ever! It was perfect at 8 degrees Celsius and you can practically walk out in the street with just a fleece jacket. I travel light this time around and since, nothing is on my shopping list (well, it’s quite common for me), sight-seeing is primarily my agenda.
My first day there was practically orientating myself to the city, which seems less bustling, less polluted but still as crowded as the rest of the Chinese cities. I love the occasional surprises of finding some Japanese-inspired food outlets, Japanese-originated entertainment; the karaoke and electronic gadgets which I think are inevitable in the world today. We already have a very short-term memory, anyway.
My colleagues and I, as usual, would prefer a really good dinner to celebrate such a rare catch to be able to be here, in Nanjing. Our 8-10 course dinner only costs us RMB 40 each and it came with their local beer and wine known as “Daughter’s Red” literally. I took a shot and really loved it! The dinner consisted of Peking Duck, some fatty pork dish, hot-plated beef, local vegetable fried with garlic, celery and steamed salted-egg taufu dish, just to name a few. The highlight was the dumplings which we all finished the 1kg worth of vegetarian dumplings. What we found quite interesting was that, they served dishes first and the rice almost towards the end. Our speculation was that, only the peasants eat mainly rice with dishes and the rich ones, the contrary.
The very-anticipated next day finally came. To my disappointment, it rained since the day begun. Initially I thought that the weather would not deter my plans but it was indeed very cold in Nanjing when it rains. Because of the bleak day, my colleagues and I had to settle with just a visit to the Confucius Temple area instead. The funny thing was, despite being in the area, we couldn’t locate the famous temple, and instead we landed in the building where the once Imperial Examination was held.
We walked everywhere under the rain and our umbrellas proved to be redundant sometimes as the area was quite crowded with people. We just don’t want to risk hitting people with our umbrellas due to our height. At last, we spent the rest of the evening at Haagen-Dazs ice-cream parlour for some hot chocolate and a good chat. Our hot chocolate costs as much as our dinner the night before.
My disappointment in failing to visit the Memorial proved to be a blessing in disguise, trying to comfort myself. I would have gone into depression if I came to visit such a place that was daunted by so many gruesome murders. A colleague asked me, why visit such a place that bears hatred and is practically a graveyard of a mass killing? I couldn’t answer that. Perhaps, deep inside me, I have a sense of curiosity of wanting to know what exactly had happened. Perhaps, most people do. Don’t we all have the motivation to know something that had left a significant mark in human history?
