Nanjing: Purple Mountain

Our first and only full day at Nanjing saw us starting out at Purple Mountain (紫金山). With Nanjing as one of the historic capitals of China, serving at times under the Ming Dynasty and under the Republic, Purple Mountain is located towards the east of the old city (as determined by city walls), and houses the mausoleums of the early Ming emperors as well as that of Sun Yat-sen.

Well, we saw both. Nanjing's public light rail system is not as developed as more major Chinese cities, though a second line is being built and more are under planning, so we took a taxi to the base of the mountain, seeing that we had no idea how to work the buses, less read the bus stop signs.

From the taxi, we walked out to the entrance gate to the mausoleum of the first Ming emperor. The entrance fee was ¥70 CNY, less 20% with student discount if you read the signs. I read the signs but my friends didn't. Going to the mausoleum was a bit of a walk, though the crisp air, albeit quite cold during the late fall/early winter, presented a change from Hong Kong, and the escape to nature presented an escape from the city.

The first Ming Emperor's tomb was large and complex. Noticeable to me is the fact that the walls were painted pink rather than the traditional red. After seeing the Forbidden City in Beijing, along with plenty of other classic Chinese architecture, the complex seemed more large than interesting.

After walking halfway through the park, we approached the Sun Yat-sen Mausoleum. Apparently, this is one of the few places in Mainland China where you can still see the Kuomintang symbol (white sun on blue background) so prominently displayed. I had my picture taken by the vendors. They used their digital point-and-shoots rather than the big single-lens reflex cameras that I expected.

Sun Yat-sen is something of a hero here, which is understandable if you know his role in the establishment of modern China. I've been to no fewer that four memorials dedicated to him in four different cities. The first was the Sun Yat-sen Museum here in Hong Kong that Black Castle Tours took us to the weekend between the first and second weeks of instruction here. It was his Hong Kong residence turned into a museum of his comprehensive history and the founding of the Republic of China. The second was the Sun Yat-sen Memorial in Taipei, which was a big gray building with an orange roof that paled in impressiveness in comparison with the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial also in Taipei. The third was of the same name in Guangzhou. It had a large courtyard in front and a statue in his likeness, but we decided not to go inside because of the cost.

This fourth one that I went to in Nanjing was both a museum and a mausoleum. While it was not impressive like the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial in Taipei was by sheer size, it was impressive in the sheer walk it took to get there. I walked at a decent pace for a good ten minutes to get through the first gate, at which point there were stairs going all the way up. Though it was a long walk up, the views from the top were impressive.

Behind the memorial to Sun Yat-sen was his coffin place into the ground with a circular viewing area around it. It's like Napoleon's tomb in Paris, except much less grand, white, and surrounded by one level of viewing instead of two.

Continuing on in the day, we headed off to the Gate of China (中华门/中華門), which was just that--a gate. It was well restored though and decked out with Ming-Dynasty flags and porcelain Ming Dynasty guards. It formed part of the old city wall of Nanjing, of which much remains.

Along the way I introduced my friends to the sugarcoated seedy red fruits that I do not know the name of. They were being sold by street vendors at the intersection one of the major universities in Nanjing. It was so good to them that they wanted more on the way back. But when we got there, we saw the guy we first bought them from running away across the street. Then we could see why. The police came and take the other street vendor's goods away from her, throwing them into the back of the truck. There was no force used and no charges pressed, just quick and clean action.

No we still wanted the fruit candy things, so we crossed the street and found the guy who had gone and hid. He went into an alley and was sticking his head out looking for the police. We waited for him to come back out with his food to sell, and we pounced on the opportunity to buy some. Apparently he was frightened, but it all turned out okay with everybody getting what they wanted.

Next was Confucius temple (夫子庙/夫子廟), which I directed us to more for the neighborhood then the actual temple, which we didn’t end up going into. In this neighborhood was most noticeably a large shopping area full of hagglers and cotton candy (which my friends insisted calling candy floss, which I imagined was sugary dental floss that dissolved in your mouth).

The area was also notable for being the regional location for the civil servant examinations back in the day. Nanjing (南京) is capital of Jiangsu (江苏/江蘇) province, which includes the notable city of Suzhou (苏州/蘇州), which I visited two years ago. Not far away is Hangzhou (杭州), another literati gathering point famous for its scenery, which I visited on the same trip in 2007. This examination center was where these gentlemen would have received their qualifications after a long examination and subsequently been inducted into the bureaucracy.

This particular Confucius Temple was not particularly well known though. Since there was an entrance fee, a statue of Confucius in the entry court was obscured by a tasteful barrier so that you can’t see inside without paying.

To end the day, and the bulk of the trip, we had dinner at Papa Johns (来到棒!约翰), which like Pizza Hut, is a lot fancier in China (and apparently much of the rest of the world) than in the United States, where it’s just pizza delivery and take-out.