Fast Trains, Slow Trains

Most people in China travel between cities by train.  Flying is possible, but too expensive for most.  Also, though China is roughly the same land area as the U.S. it only has about 1/10th the number of airports.  So planes may not go where you want to go.  There are lots of new roads and new cars, but with them come terrible traffic jams.  When you add it up, trains are most often the best way to get from here to there.

Two weeks ago, we took the fast train for our trip to Nanjing.  The Shanghai - Nanjing High Speed rail service has been in operation for a little over a year now.  It passes through Suzhou, stopping at the old train station downtown as well as at the brand new railway station in the Suzhou Industrial Park.  We've taken it before to Shanghai....a 23 minute ride that otherwise would take two hours by car (with traffic).  The trip to Nanjing took about 1 1/2 hours.  I suspect it would be at least 3 hours by car.

The fast train is like taking a plane....but the ride is more comfortable, quiet, and smooth.  Until a few months ago, they ran the fast trains up to a top speed of 350 km/hr.  They've slowed the speeds down since an accident earlier this summer.  But they're still running at near 300 km/hr, or nearly 190 miles/ hour.  Also, in stark contrast to air travel, it requires no time to check in and the security check takes 30 seconds.  You can show up at the station 5 minutes before your departure time and still make your train, without ever needing to remove your shoes or belt.

The cost for a one-way ticket to Nanjing was about $16.  Though this is reasonable in a U.S. frame of reference, it is still out of the price range for blue collar working folks.  Consequently, they still run the slow trains, where you can buy a hard seat ticket for the 4 hour ride for about $5.

 Last week, we took a trip to the city of Xi'an by slow train.  In truth, it was an Express Train...which can hit top speeds close to 100 miles/hour.  The truly slow trains run only about 60 miles/hour.  (There are all flavors of trains on the rails in China.)  The express trains are meant to cover long distances, like the 800 miles from Suzhou to Xi'an, with relatively few stops.  We left at 7pm on Friday evening and arrived at 8am the next morning.  There were 28 of us - Aussies and Brits and Germans and Finns and Yanks - on a trip organized by the Expat Association of Suzhou.

If the fast train is like an airplane, then the slow train is like......well, it's like a train.  It's like the trains you see in the black-and-white movies from the 30s and 40s...or like the trains you see in the Westerns (but with carpet and without pot bellied stoves).   I've taken Amtrak before, and hesitate to say that it is similar.  The Chinese train was a much smoother ride and there was no clickety-clack of the rails.  They Chinese rails are bolted to concrete cross-ties and not spiked to wooden ones.  Also, these rails are used mainly for passenger service and not heavy freight. 

We bought a ticket for a soft sleeper.  This ticket entitles you to one bunk with a mattress, a quilt, and a pillow.  There are four bunks to the cabin.   Soft sleeper is the premium ticket at a cost of $75 for the trip.  ($3 less if you buy the upper bunk.)  Budget travellers have other options for lower cost...they can buy a hard sleeper (6 to a cabin), or a soft seat or a hard seat. 

If your travelling alone, then your ticket for a soft sleeper also buys you the opportunity to share a cabin with three total strangers.  It's like the lottery to see who will show up for the other berths.  Earlier in the summer, two colleagues (males) booked an overnight sleeper trip to Beijing.  We joked with them in the days before the trip about who they would get for bunk mates.  Maybe a couple of migrant workers that hadn't had a chance to shower for two months.  Or maybe a chain-smoking pair of old men.  The heavens smiled upon them.  They cabin mates turned out to be two Polish female 21 year-old college students.

If you really want to travel cheaply, then you can buy a standing ticket.  I've been told these are common during the Chinese New Year Holiday, when tradition obligates everyone to return home to visit with family.   During this period, there are more people than seats.  Imagine if everyone in the United States went to the train station at the same time.  That is what happens in the week before Lunar New Year.  People will suffer any hardship to get home.  You hear stories about people standing, packed in like sardines, for 24 hours or longer.   

There were people on our train that were standing for the whole 13 hour trip.  The door between their part of the train and our part of the train was locked.  But we could see them through the glass, crammed into the aisle ways.  Compared to their journey, ours was luxurious.  The mattress was hard and room was cramped and the toilettes were a bit dicey.  But all things considered, it was a pretty posh trip to travel in soft sleeper.  It's a good way to get around in China.

The Melbourne Cup

 The first Tuesday in November is always a holiday in Australia.  It's the day the horses run for the Melbourne Cup.  Twenty-four horses run for two miles.  It's a short  three and a half minute run over the grass of Flemington Racecourse in Melbourne.  It pays about $1 million per minute for the winner.

It's a big day for the race horses and an even bigger day for the clothes horses. Both women and men go crazy with fashion.  Crazy over-the-top fashion.  Outlandish headgear is required for women.  Remember the earlier post about the "fascinators"?   Well the fascinators are out in full force on Melbourne Cup day.  Flamboyant hats too.  And every conceivable style of man's suit and woman's dress.  It's a mixture of royal wedding and Halloween costume party.

Australians (and New Zealanders) across the world celebrate the Melbourne cup just as if they were at home.  Suzhou has a fair number of Australian and New Zealand expats, so there had to be a party somewhere.  Several of them got together and organized a charity event around the race at the local Renaissance Hotel.  (Not surprising - the manager there is from down under.)  Tuesday, November 1 was race day. 

 Post time for the race was shortly after Noon, Suzhou time.  The admission ticket got you hors d'oeuvres,  champagne, and lunch buffet. Sweepstakes tickets were sold to insure that everyone had some type of financial interest in the race itself.  Raffle tickets were sold for door prizes.  At the end of the day, they raised a nice chunk of change for the local orphanage. 

Hopefully the photos give you a taste of the high fashion on display for race day

In parting, here's some statistics for you.  The country of Australia has a population of just under 23 million people living in an area of roughly 3,000,000 square miles.  The municipal of Shanghai has a population just over 23 million people living in an area of 2400 square miles, more or less.

Nanjing's Fuzimiao Confucian Temple

 There are quite a few temples around, Buddhist, Confucian, and Taoist.  We've posted previously on the Buddhist Temple in Suzhou.  While in Nanjing we got a chance to visit the Confucian temple, called Fuzimiao.  The photo above shows the statue of Confucius that greets you in the temple's courtyard.  On the building behind is draped a banner which says "Solemnly Celebrate the 2562th Anniversary of Confucius' Birth".  We're not sure whether 2562 is an auspicious number or whether every year is a solemn celebration.

 The temple complex dates way back, first built on this location 1000 years or so ago.  I'm sure the current buildings are much more recent than that.  But there is a sense of history there.

 Surrounding the main shrine (above) are scenes of Confucian life, carved from jade and colorful stone (below).  The detail is impressive and the faces are amazingly realistic.

 As with the Buddhist temples, there were many red prayer ribbons left as offerings on the trees and altars at Fuzimiao.  As the photo below shows, they've even added red bows to the temple dogs as decoration.

 The highlight of the temple visit was a performance of traditional music.  We've heard traditional music before, but this was the first time we'd seen a performance that included bells.  The photo below shows you the rack of temple bells that were used.  It required three people to play them - two standing behind to strike the small bells with hammers, and one standing in front to strike the bass bells with a large pole.

 The Fuzimiao temple is surrounded by a pedestrian shopping area.  You can get a rickshaw ride there, if you want.  Though, as the photo below shows, not too many people seemed to want a rickshaw ride on the day we visited.

The Tomb of Dr. Sun Yat-Sen

Through China's history there has been a concept called the "Mandate of Heaven".  The Mandate of Heaven is what the emperors have claimed gives them legitimacy to rule.  It's similar to Europe's Divine Right of Kings, except it has a "performance clause".  The emperor is entitled to rule as long as he considers the welfare of his subjects, is fair, and is just.  In this case, heaven will bless the kingdom with prosperity and stability.  If the emperor is wicked or incompetent then the heavens will respond with famines, plagues, and natural disasters.  In that case, the people are welcome to terminate the contract, overthrow the ruler, and install a new one.

This has happened many times in China's history.  For example, our friend from the previous post, the first Ming Emperor HongWu, claimed the throne by overthrowing the underperforming emperor of the Yuan Dynasty.  The Chinese have not historically been hung up with royal bloodlines.  HongWu started life as a peasant.  The peoeple were seemingly happy to have him take over the operation....like stockholders after a bad CEO is ousted in a hostile board meeting.

Throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries, the Chinese empire was in decline under the Qing Dynasty.  There were natural disasters and plagues, but the worst thing was the gradual subjugation and colonization of China by Western powers.  France, Germany, England, Japan, and the U.S. were all carving up the land and making off with the treasure.  The heavens were not smiling upon the empire.

 Sun Yat-Sen was a farmer's son from the Southeast of China who became a doctor and later organized the revolution which toppled the Qing Emperor on October 10, 2011.  In earlier times he might have founded his own Dynasty.  Instead, he helped constitute the Republic Of China and became it's first president.  If all stories had a storybook ending, then things would have ended happily there.  But in the real world there were a lot of folks jockeying for power - both internal warlords and foreign powers.  Sun Yat-sen left the presidency and died in 1925.

They built him a grand mausoleum up on Nanjing's Purple Mountain.  The tomb is not far from the Ming Tombs.  Whomever design the new mausoleum borrowed heavily from the imperial tombs.  I guess the thought was that, emperor or not, Sun Yat-sen had founded a new dynasty and deserved a resting place commensurate with that achievement.

The tomb rises up the side of Purple mountain with long walkways and multiple flights of stairs.  One of the sign said 364 steps from bottom to top.  The first photo shows the 364 steps looking up.  The one just above shows them looking down.  The view is nice from both locations.

The People's Republic of China drove the government of the Republic of China from the mainland to Taiwan in 1949.   Though there is still disagreement between the two, both governments honor Dr. Sun Yat-sen as one of their own.  In their eyes, he founded modern China.  He took the Mandate of Heaven from the emperors and gave it to the people.

The mausoleum is at the top.  A lot of people come to honor the doctor, as you can see from the photos.  Near the mausoleum there is a shop selling flowers for people to place on the tomb.  (The second photo shows the flower stall, complete with an sign in English that says "Sun Yat-sen's Mausoleum Flower-Presenting Service".)  The doctor's statue sits in the center of the mausoleum, and his remains rest just below the statue.

This year, October 10, was the 100th anniversary of the overthrow of the Qing empire (if you are on the mainland) and of the formation of the Republic of China (if you are in Taiwan).  The anniversary date fell during the Golden Week national holiday.  We're told that, during that week, you could not see the stairs as they were so covered with people.

One last story.  On the day we visited, Theresa's knees were feeling a little sore.  So we asked the tourist desk if there was a way to get to the top by a back maintenance roadway or something.  Nope, the stairs were the only way up.  We didn't really believe that, but took the stairs to the top anyway.  On the way down we passed the guy shown in the photo above lugging a load of bricks to the top.  So evidently, the stairs really are the only way to get there.

The Ming Tombs of Nanjing

Did you hear about the Ming Vase that walked into a bar?  He got smashed !

 If you asked 100 people off the street in any U.S. city to give you the name of a Chinese Dynasty, I would bet that 75 of them would say "Ming" and the other 25 wouldn't be able to give an answer.  That's not meant to be condescending.  Ming was the only one I could name prior to a few months ago.  The Ming Dynasty is seen as a high point of Chinese art and culture and power.  And the Ming Vase shows up in countless jokes and occasional stories of hidden treasures.

 The fellow that started the Ming Dynasty - the first emperor - was a bit of a rags-to-riches story himself.  He was born a peasant, then became a beggar, and then a monk.  Then he got mixed up in a rebellion and discovered his true calling.  He rose through the ranks, became the rebel leader, overthrew the existing dynasty, drove the Mongols back to the North, and unified the country again.  He took the name "Hongwu" and made Nanjing his capitol.

 Hongwu is buried up on ZinJin Shan, or Purple Mountain, on the Northwest side of Nanjing.  It's in a lovely setting - built into the side of the tree-covered hill.  You don't really see the tomb - Hongwu is buried under a big mound of tree-covered dirt.  That mound is located behind that big building you see in the top photo - the Soul Tower. The burial complex covers several acres and sports historic ruins and reconstructions.  The hillside is criss-crossed with trails leading to scenic spots and places of Ming legend.

 Higher up the hillside is Purple Lake, shown above.  Below is a photo the "Spirit Way"....which is the walking path that leads up to the tomb area.

Old Hongwu was the only Ming Emperor to be buried at Nanjing.  His successor was challenged and eventually usurped by the third Ming Emperor, named Yongle.  He moved the capitol from Nanjing to Beijing, where it stayed through the glory years of the Ming Dynasty.   

The Tears of Nanjing

 A colleague (and friend) lost his grandmother early in the summer.  She was 94 years old.  At one point, I suggested to my friend that his grandmother had seen a lot of changes over the course of her 94 years.  He told me a few stories.

She was born in 1917 in a small town a few miles away from Nanjing.  Her family was prosperous and in her teenage years she was matched with the eldest son of the most prosperous family in town.  They married and moved into his family's compound.  Her husband, my friend's grandfather, was a well-educated man who managed the many business interests of the family.  They lived in the largest house in town.  They lived well and had children, to whom they expected to pass on the family fortunes.

 When she was 20 years old, the Japanese invaded Southeastern China.  Japan had carved off Manchuria, Taiwan, and other distant territories years before she was born.  But this was an invasion of the heartland.  When Shanghai was captured in 1937, it was obvious that the Japanese goal was to take the capitol of Nanjing and force the surrender of the entire country.

Her husband decided that there was danger in being so close to Nanjing and the battle that was obviously coming.  So they packed what possessions they could and fled to the West of China.  They would come back when the war was over.

 In 1939 they came back to their village.  At that time, any rational person would have agreed that the war was over.  The Republic of China still existed, but there was little hope that it could ever drive the Japanese from their new possessions.  And there was no hope that anyone else would come to help China.  This was long before December, 1941.  Japan had no more enemies.

 When they returned to their home village, they found that their family house had been commandeered as a military headquarters.  So they moved in with other family members and started to rebuild their lives under the new government of the occupation.  Though these were difficult times and they had lost nearly everything, they still considered themselves lucky.  They were alive.

 The city of Nanjing fell to the Japanese on December 13, 1937.  The Nanjing massacres started on that day and continued for another 6 weeks.

 The Memorial to the Victims is located on the Southeast side of Nanjing.  On the day we visited it was drizzling rain, which made all the statues look like they were crying.  

 All wars are horrible, but the memorial tells a story of exceptional horrors.  Men rounded up and machined gunned by the thousands.  Contests between sword-carrying soldiers to see who could behead the most people and the fastest.  Nails driven into the skulls of people. 

 The memorial is divided into several sections.  The first is a museum which chronicles the history of before, during, and after the fall of Nanjing.  There are photos.  There are stories from people who survived.  The details make you wince.

The second section is the mass gravesite and an excavation of a burial pit.  You see the bones of people jumbled together, positioned the same as when they were tossed into the pit some 70 years ago.  Some skeletons are numbered to point out the saddest examples of the beheaded and the nailed and the mutilated and the young and the old.  It's like you are in the jury and being shown the gruesome photos of the bodies in a murder trial.  And I suppose that is the intent.  It is meant to shock....to say "let no one deny that this really happened".

The last section is a set monuments to honor the dead and to hope for atonement and peace.  This last section is nice.

 The memorial covers several acres.  Statues and other works of art are placed on the pathways between the buildings and in the courtyards near the entrance.

 There are only two photos for which I want to give a little more explanation.  One is a photo of the colorful paper cranes.  (count four photos up from this paragraph).  There is an entire wall covered with these cranes, which I believe are made and sent by children in Japan.  The other is the photo below, which shows the binders that document the victims.  In this hall they are still soliciting people to identify relatives or friends that disappeared at the time of the massacres.  If researchers verify that a new victim is identified, then they will add the name to the "wall of names" just outside the mass burial place.



The Walls of Nanjing

 Over the years, the Chinese have developed a reputation for building walls.  But until our visit, I was not aware that Nanjing boasts one of the most impressive city walls in the world.  The wall as it stands today was built in the fourteenth century by the first emperors of the Ming dynasty.  Shortly after establishing Nanjing as their national capitol, the Ming began to expand and enlarge the old city wall.  When they were finished, the walls of Nanjing measured 22 miles around - the longest city wall in the world (if you can trust the Nanjing tourism bureau).  

 Over the years, parts of the wall have come down.  Some parts were destroyed for urban expansion.  Some parts were destroyed when the city was besieged and captured during the Second World War.  But more than half of the original 22 miles is still standing.  As you can see in the first two photos, the wall stands about 50 feet tall.  The photo below is taken at the top, where the wall is about 30 feet wide.

 The city of Nanjing had 13 city gates.  The largest and most famous of them still remains.  It is called Zhong Hua Men.  (Men, if you remember, is the Chinese word for gate or doorway.)  Today it is a tourist spot for visitors from inside and outside of China.  To enter at Zhong Hua Men, you had to pass through 4 doors and cross three enclosed courtyards.  This design was to insure that any army which penetrated the first door would be trapped and destroyed in the enclosures.  The photo below shows the enclosures and the full length of Zhong Hua Men.

At the first doorway, the outer wall was beefed up to form a castle.  The wall at this point is 100 feet thick (I'm estimating)  and has arched chambers built into it to house troops and supplies and implements of destruction.  Back in the day, there would have been a wooden gatehouse rising another two or three stories above all that. 

The wall and it's gates are constructed of stone and bricks.  The bricks were produced in locations across all of China, at the command of the emperor.  As an early form of quality assurance, each of the bricks was required to be inscribed with name of the maker and other key information.  It brick crumbled, then the maker was punished harshly.  It appears that this proved to be pretty effective motivation for the brick makers.  You can still see the inscriptions on the bricks in the wall, as shown below.

 On either side of the gatehouse was a long ramp for horses or oxen to carry supplies to the top.  Today these ramps are decorated with lacquered statues of Ming warriors.  The photo below shows one of these ramps.

 The final photo requires a little bit of legend as part of the explanation.   The original name of this gate was Ju Bao Men, or the Gate of Gathered Treasure.   The legend says that, in the beginning, every attempt to build the wall at this spot ended in failure.  The foundations would sink under the weight of stone and the walls would collapse.  Finally, the Ming emperor came to the site to inspect and was greeted by the king of the frogs.  The frog king complained that the wall and the city residents were causing great suffering for his kingdom and irritating him to no end.  So the Ming emperor wend to the city market, bought every frog, and set it free. Then he buried a pot of treasure under the foundations as an offering to the frog king. 

One of the storage chambers at the top of the gate has been decorated as a shrine to the frog king.  The walls are decorated with posters telling the story also a number of carved jade frogs to which people leave offerings of small coins.  The photo shows a representation of the pot of buried treasure.  On the base, surrounding the pot, are little frog statues.