Kevin (a Chinese graduate student who was part of our Nanjing classroom) arrived promptly at my hotel in Nanjing at 10 am. We then proceeded to track down our bus, step aboard, and make our way to one of the most famous natural landmarks of the city.

Purple Mountain was given its name because of its majesty. Once a mountain that held the emperor’s quarters, it now serves as the home for the Zijinshan Astronomical Observatory. It also serves to house twisting trails and steep rock formations that beg to be climbed.

Our bus ride to this outside corner of Nanjing began with a baby both urinating and pooping on the seat next to me. Not to be deterred, I simply took a few steps back and kept my head facing forward as I watched the bus narrowly miss destroying a few civilians and run numerous cars off the road. I mean, I’ve seen SEPTA run over a few bicyclists, but I’m fairly confident our driver, if placed in Philadelphia, would have had a higher tally than all of SEPTA combined. And that’s the thing with driving in China, you simply can’t directly compare it with driving in the states. Every native Chinese I’ve spoken to has consistently said that the Chinese are proud of their driving skills and while they may scare some foreigners, they rarely get into accidents and are always in control of their vehicles. Alright back to the story of the mountain…

Once we got off at our stop, Kevin took us on a 20-30 minute walk to the base of the mountain. At that point I still had no idea what I was getting myself into. We picked up a few bottles of chilled Tang (remember that orange drink that reached its peak popularity in the states sometime in the mid 90’s?) and began the first leg of the hike. This consisted of traveling across an endless wooden walkway for God knows how long. The bamboo trees that towered on both sides of the path left landmarks hidden and countless wooden planks indistiguishable from the next. We did eventually reach a tower of stairs which led us to the chair lift that would have taken us directly up to the top of the mount effortlessly if I hadn’t been so terrified of heights.

Now dodging the chair lift meant starting the upward climb consisting of shattered stone steps, dirt paths, twisted wood littered about, and snapped trees all at such an obtuse angle upward that taking a break meant clinging to a trunk, ringing out your t-shirt drenched in 90+ degree sweat, sighing a deep sigh and taking a few breaths before pushing on. It was merciless, and lasted somewhere between an hour and a half to two hours.

At the end of the last dirt trail we were greeted by a much appreciated rest stop where we could restock on some much needed Tang (believe me folks, it was the best stuff they had), and sit down before embarking on the final leg which would lead us to the summit/observatory.

When I looked up at the cliff we now how to climb I honestly didn’t think it would be that bad. Kevin was supportive of this idea and reassured me that I’d be fine. After about 50 ft up the stone I realized it might be a little tougher than I imagined. Every time I turned around I was greeted by the full scenic view including well over a one thousand foot drop… it was gorgeous, but it was terrifying.

The city of Nanjing was grazed by a thick cloud of smog with waves of trees rushing up off it toward the rocks behind me. The sky above was blue, a sight rarely seen in areas around the cities. I saw wild birds swimming it as the sun glared on me and my cold slipping hands that eventually forced me to retake my ledge and regain my focus. It took about another half an hour to climb to the top of the stone face.

Here the mountain was covered in thick vegetation with sharp rocks darting out obscurely. Unfortunately when I climbed out to the very tip of one of these boulders to attempt a picture of this magnificent place I froze out of sheer fear and exhaustion. Consequently here are pictures from slightly safer viewpoints that still capture at least the partial beauty of this absolutely stunning place.

p.s. we took a taxi down. Kevin was holding out on us.

Because of my jet lag and Ann’s migraine, we stayed back at the hotel when everyone else went to see the terra-cotta warriors, but we were able to take our own tour several days later and take in some of the other archeological ‘treasures’ of Xi’an.  Xi’an’s attraction for tourists is its status as China’s first capital, dating back to the Qin dynasty, a dynasty which, lasting from 220 to 206 B.C. is officially shorter than the syndicated run of the soap opera of the same name. Unfortunately, this means that the city specializes in tourist sites rather than tourist sights, for most of its treasures are located 1) underground, 2) in books, or 3) only as a series of ditches and small indentations in the ground. The terra-cotta warriors, well outside the city limits, are, of course, a notable exception. However, it seems to be virtually impossible to book a tour to the terra-cotta warriors without also seeing all the other sites (not sights) along the way.

Our tour itself started with the Big Wild Goose Pagoda, not far from the hotel. Eight stories tall, the Pagoda houses the first Buddhist texts brought to China, over 1300 texts which were transcribed from Sanskrit to Chinese.  Unfortunately, the tower, already leaning akin to its sister-tower in Pisa has been rendered unsafe due to the last earthquake, and we were no longer able to make our way within. This did not distress us however; the day was hot and we had a long way to go to get to the terra-cotta warriors so we were happy with what we could see.  And Ann and I discovered the day before when touring the Forest of Stone Tablets Museum, looking at stone tablets and books in Chinese is well summed up by our National Geographic travel guide: “Fascinating to students of classical Chinese, but may prove inaccessible to most foreign visitors”. The Pagoda does come with an interesting legend.  Apparently there used to be two branches of Buddhism, one was vegetarian the other of which ate meat. During a time of starvation, a local monk from the meat-eating faction saw a flock of wild geese flying overhead.  He prayed to Bodhisattva to get some, and the leading goose fell from the sky, its wings broken.  The monks were startled and, being the contemplative sort, wondered if perhaps praying for a goose wasn’t the most pious or worldly of prayers.  So they atoned by building a temple on the site, The Wild Goose Pagoda, and turning the order vegetarian. As for myself, I can’t help but wonder if message might have been something more along the lines of “look you’re hungry, goose is good with a little rice wine and oranges”.  But history of course has chosen its own reading, and eating goose will now and always be sacrilege for Buddhists.  Tasty, tasty sacrilege.

After our tour around the Wild Goose Pagoda, we went to the Bampo museum we showed us that even books we can’t see is more to see than what’s left of the matriarchal Bampo civilization.  The museum is a large concrete structure built over the remains of a village dating back to approximately 3,000 BC.  All the wood, fiber, and other materials except a few human bones seems to have disappeared all together; so all that the museum really houses are some circular outlines of a fire pit, and an occasional outline of small post holes where there once may have been a wall. To again quote the National Geographic Guide: “Viewing the ancient remains is a rather dry experience, although current renovations aim to inject more attraction for the average traveler”. Those renovations are now in place, and do help considerably.  Next to the site, there is now a television set which shows you diagrams of what the 2 inch wide posts might have looked like that once filled those 2 inch wide post holes. I left with a feeling of respect that we might be able to see anything, and infer anything, about a culture so old, and at the same time, unnerved that what was left could have been undone by an overzealous golfer replacing his divots.

As Ann and I made our way to the Terra-cotta warriors it became clear that the Bampo museum served an important purpose for tourists:  it was a stark contrast to the 8,000 meticulously preserved soldiers that emperor Qinshi Huangdi left to guard his burial site.  Qinshi, of the aforementioned “Qin” dynasty seemed to accomplish a lot during his remarkably short reign. The Emperor Qinshi unified the warring areas that were thereafter to be joined together as China.  As in any country, however, we should probably be suspicious of the term “unification,” since in this case it seems to have meant killing most of the population, and enslaving the rest into building the Great Wall in order to protect what was left, as well as a cultural “unification” which came from burning books and leaving most of the country’s pre-history in carbon.  After such achievements, what’s an Emperor to accomplish?  Why, preparing for the afterlife of course, building an underground necropolis larger than the great pyramids, and populate it with terra-cotta soldiers for protection along with anything else that he wanted to preserve for his life in the underworld.  It gives one pause to think that the site is already referred to as the eighth wonder of the world, has been declared the most important archeological site of the 20th century, and yet much of it has still to be unearthed, including anything that the emperor may have wanted to spend his afterlife with other than clay soldiers.  As Ann politely asked our tour guide, “Aren’t there any terra-cotta concubines?”   Chances are there is more to be uncovered in the tomb itself, but chances seem equally good that what other treasures may have lain there were long-since stolen.  Many of the terra-cotta warriors themselves were destroyed by the peasant uprising and the armies that came through soon after Qinshi’s untimely death.  I can’t help been wondered that as the necropolis was sacked, they simply took everything with them that was small enough or valuable enough to carry.  As our tour group made it back to the bus in the blinding sun, merchants tried to sell us whole boxes of stone or bronze soldiers for as little as 10 Yuan.  It seemed like a remarkable deal, but if we couldn’t bring ourselves to buy a box of six-inch size replicas because of the space they’d take up in our luggage, what must of the pillagers have thought of the real thing when they had to go home by horseback or on foot?  “Hi Honey!  I’m Home!  And guess what I brought you from my travels?”

If there is an afterlife for Qinshi, it must be bitter irony to see what has become of the Wall that would be extended for so many years, and his terra-cotta army.  Designed to keep outsiders at bay, they are now the two largest draws of tourism in the country, and certainly among the largest draws in the world.  So now all kind of cretin wanders into town and gawks at his tomb before going out to buy Kentucky Fried Chicken.  Couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy.

–Ted

Nanking Massacre Museum

We went to the Nanking Massacre Museum after a stop on Thursday at the John Rabe House, also known as the Peace museum, right next to the Nanjing University campus. The photo, above, shows us with our Chinese friends who came to the museum with us to help us with any Chinese translations. Rabe, also referred to as “the good man of Nanking” and “a living Buddha” by the survivors of the massacre that he helped save, was also a member of the Nazi party. During the height of the Nanking invasion by the Japanese in 1937, Rabe sheltered 600 people in his yard, rushing outside when Japanese soldiers tried to climb over the wall to rape women and defending Chinese people by threatening the Japanese soldiers with a swastika and claiming an alliance with Japan. The irony is astounding, and there was, even at his tiny house, a sense of great sadness.

(A sculpture outside of the massacre museum created from photographs of people fleeing Japanese soldiers.  The series of sculptures sits in flowing water outside of the museum.)

The Nanking Massacre museum itself is new. After reading Irish Chang’s controversial book, The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II and watching the recent documentary Nanking, both of which I recommend, I thought that there was little in the museum that would surprise me. However, it’s one of the best-done, most moving, and most terrifying museums I’ve ever seen.
According to the museum, 300,000 Chinese died in the invasion. Numbers are, of course, controversial, because many people were slaughtered and placed in mass graves, but the magnitude of the events is overwhelming. In Chang’s book, she makes the point that Germany paid restitution for its crimes during WWII, but Japan did not, and till this day, some people in Japan do not acknowledge that any war crimes took place in Nanking. After seeing the museum, it’s incredible to me that anyone could deny what occurred.
Many people might compare the Massacre museum to the Holocaust Museum in D.C. Since I haven’t visited the Holocaust Museum, I can’t make that comparison.
But the problem that both museums face is once that I frequently explore in the classes I teach. How do you convey the magnitude of a tragedy this large? What do you do when language fails? In a graduate course I teach called “Writing the Unspeakable,” we explore how people write about what is “beyond words.” In the

Nanking Museum, we directly encountered a tragedy that is beyond words and beyond comprehension. How do you account for 300,000 dead? Or even 30,000? How do you account for the viciousness of soldiers who raped old women and young girls? Who killed civilians by burning, beheading, torturing, and drowning them? Who killed women while they were nursing babies?

The Museum addresses this by telling a story about the massacre that runs fairly chronologically. Upon entering the museum you descend a staircase in almost total darkness to a recovered bomb shelter. Black and white film of the initial Japanese bombing of Nanjing plays, and sounds of dropping bombs echo around you in the dark. The next large room is almost completely dark, and in raised letters (all in Chinese) the names of the victims are inscribed on the walls of the museum in dark gray stone. Even though I can’t read the names (my Chinese vocabulary is growing but is still less than ten words), there was something about touching the names of the dead that struck me. In fact, I literally went to the walls and traced the names, touching them with my fingers. In the center of the room, a name and a photo flash every few seconds displaying another image of someone who died.
There are dozens of artifacts and videos displayed in the next part of the museum and a depiction of what the land looked like after the bombing, but what got me was the next room where twelve skeletons of those who died during the attacks lie partly unearthed. It seems to be a Chinese practice to build museums on the sites of archeological discoveries (we saw a Han dynasty excavation/museum on the way into Xi’an, and the Terra Cotta Warriors are of course in the spot where they were found). At the time, I didn’t know this, however, and seeing the twelve skeletons where they had been buried in a mass grave, still unidentified, was devastating.
The entire museum is dark, partly underground, and like walking with ghosts. I didn’t take too much in after the first twelve person mass grave. The European and American missionaries who helped save people in Nanking were all recognized, among them John Rabe, the good Nazi, and Minnie Vartrin, the farm-girl from Illinois who ran Nanling Women’s University and saved 10,000 women from rape, but who later returned to the states and committed suicide. Iris Change was memorialized as well (in 1994 after writing The Rape of Nanking she also committed suicide).
The museum is huge, and after a trek through the memorial garden, there were at least two more large partly excavated mass graves: one with two hundred and fifty skeletons in it. In contrast with the graves, the gift shops were typically Chinese aggressive, and my Western face brought out the Iris Chang book (in English) along with the usual array of Mao paraphernalia (which I generally really like, but not in this context).
Another display that really struck me was a depiction of photos of the 300,000. Every twelve seconds, a sound like water dripping echoed through the chamber, and another picture of one of the victims lit up. If you stood for a minute you saw five victim’s photos. It takes six weeks to get through all of the victims of the massacre with a new image every twelve seconds.
While the museum was painful and overwhelming, I would really like to go back some day and go through the whole thing more slowly. I’d like to hear translations of more of the surviving victim’s stories, and I would like to talk with more Chinese people about their family’s memories of Nanking and what havoc the Japanese invasion caused.
While meeting with Chinese college students at a local university in Xi’an this week, one of them asked why so many people hated the Jews. While the student’s question surprised me, it was wonderful to hear someone who spoke with such candor about race/ethnicity.  I rarely get such direct comments from students in the U.S.  After talking for a while, I understood that she had read The Merchant of Venice in her English class, and she didn’t really understand the other characters’ hatred of Shylock (although she loved Portia). The easiest cultural key I had to explain the irrational concept of hate/genocide was the Holocaust, which these students seemed mostly unfamiliar with—until I compared the Holocaust to the Rape of Nanking. Then we has a moment of cultural understanding where we all recognized the cost of hating one another based on race, religion, or ethnicity. And I knew why it was so important for us to come to China.

It appears that I’ve located the most wretched hive of scum and villainy in Xi’an, and it’s a place you’d least expect.

Starbucks.

These past two nights I’ve gone to the downtown Starbucks near the Drum Tower section of Xi’an. It’s been a great place for free wireless internet, coffee, cheesecake, and studying/conversation. Each time has been an experience.

The first time I went in a group of six. At one point the waitress came up to us and said to watch our bags closely because two thieves were just in the coffee shop. This was around dinnertime.

Last night I closed out the Starbucks. Peter (one of the guys on the trip) and I went to Starbucks to chat & do some work. I got one of those café vanillas, or vanilla cafes (I’m such a poor Starbucks-orderer, I really think the Barista community hates me) and a piece of green tea cheesecake. I can testify that the Chinese will make a green tea anything. If it’s edible and can have a green tea taste, it exists in China.

I got a big piece of green that looked like it had grass on the top. I half-considered dumping some MiracleGro on top to see if there would be any reaction.

The night got off to a curious start when we were sexually solicited first by a man, and then by a scantily clad woman, both of whom made suggestive poses outside of the glass doors (our table faced the doorway). Shortly later I was showing Peter pictures of my little sisters and a Chinese guy came up and was looking over my shoulder and pointing at pictures. Within minutes Starbucks employees chased him off, and warned us that he’s a thief who comes in and tries to steal from westerners.

Half of me was ready to split the coffee shop. The other half was fixated with an image of Starbucks employees going old Chinese-style kung fu on some bandits. How awesome would it be to see your barista jump kick a low life from behind the counter? I felt well-protected.

A couple times during our conversation I’d notice out of the corner of my eye a young Chinese woman, easily our age, come up to the glass doorway and try to get our attention. She was dressed like the “girls in the window” that we had seen in the non-tourist districts of Shanghai. The sad thing is that she probably pulls that act all the time, and it must work, otherwise she wouldn’t continue to do it.

Towards the end of the night, as the Starbucks employees were cleaning up and washing the windows, a boy stumbled in who was wearing dirty clothing and had a head of messy black hair. He plopped himself down on a maroon cushion that set next to her table, and his eyes scanned our possessions. He lingered around Peter for a while until a Starbucks employee gave him aggressive looks, and he scurried off into the night. As he left I wondered who was waiting for him outside, hoping he’d come back with some money or maybe a bag or piece of electronics to pawn.

The use of children by beggars and con artists in China is another blog entirely, one that deserves its own space & reflections.

Peter & I finally left the Starbucks at around 11:30pm. We walked out onto the busy street around the Drum Tower section of Xi’an, and were greeted by the smells of some food vendors and the beeping of taxi cabs, pulling on and off the righthand lane where they awaited late night fares.

What I’ve experienced in two nights at that Xi’an Starbucks has been unique. I’ve never experienced anything comparable in a Starbucks anywhere in the United States or Canada. Our Xi’an Starbucks is in a major tourist district, right down the street from a Louis Vuitton. It’s no wonder that a place like Starbucks, a symbol of western affluence and leisure, with its high prices and scenic interiors, would be a prime target for beggers, prostitutes, and thieves. I feel awful for the staff, who surely don’t get paid any extra to defend their customers. But they do so anyway, because they respect their workplace. The staff’s generosity is a refreshing comfort, a ‘shot of espresso’ to wake me up from an otherwise depressing and alarming experience, and keep me coming back for more coffee.

- Anthony

P.S. A quick update: I wrote this blog a couple nights ago but didn’t post it right away. Some of us have become friends with one of the staff members, a barista whose English name is Loretta. She’s a very sweet girl in her twenties who graduated from a local Xi’an university with an English degree. She actually hung out with a bunch of us today for a good two hours in the Muslim quarters. I’d just like to deeply express how wonderful the staff at the Xi’an Starbucks is. They’re an absolutely exceptional group of people, and it’s been my pleasure to see them every day that we’ve been in Xi’an.

I’ll be there tomorrow, and I’ll get some pictures of Loretta to put on the blog.

In the spirit of an upcoming presidential election, I have the perfect idea for our new president. This will strengthen international relations, and build the relationships with foreign countries essential to renewing the U.S.’s position as a competent and trailblazing ally for generations to come.

Here’s what the new president can do: build an electric fence around the United States and don’t let anyone out. Protect the world against American tourists. It’s the right thing to do.

I’m kidding. I think…

Yesterday we learned that the terra cotta warriors now get more tourists per year than the Great Wall, which means that Xi’an wins the prize for tourist capital (surely a double-edged sword). And it has been. I’ve seen more westerners in one day in Xi’an than I saw in Nanjing or Shanghai. When some of us went to a downtown Starbucks to get free wireless internet and do some work, the crowd over about three hours was almost entirely westerners. And the staff spoke better English than almost any Chinese people we’ve met thus far.

To be fair, I haven’t seen the stereotype American tourist yet. I won’t spew all the negative adjectives associated with this ‘culture shock’ of a person, because I think we all have a general idea. If you don’t, spend a weekend in Vegas.

We all have “oh shit, I’m an American” moments. It’s impossible not to. We hail from a country with the world’s highest GDP. We come from a place of advanced capitalism, of dominant educational, financial, technological, and corporate institutions. Our homeland’s foreign relations have a history of being aggressive and masculine. Some might even say that we exercise a postmodern cultural imperialism, without contempt for the erosion of native cultures or the burdens of language accommodations in the places where we trade. I’ll stay neutral on that last one.

I’ve had some “oh shit, I’m an American” moments. Last week in Nanjing I was walking down the street in a bright red-orange t-shirt from American Apparel (fantastic clothing store known for its vibrant colors) and carrying a KFC bag. I looked like a traffic cone with legs. And the Colonel? I don’t even eat KFC in the United States!

Another moment happened in the Nanjing Zoo. The Nanjing Zoo is beautiful, and is built on a mountainous area (lots of uphill walking), spaced out enough to give you a work out. Apparently management wants you to really get the most out of your zoo experience, because they expect you to excrete the same way the animals do. The bathroom stalls had no toilet paper, and were literally a little porcelain in-laid tub which you’d hover over and do your business. And hopefully none of your stall predecessors had bad aim, because the word “flush” didn’t seem to exist in the zoo bathrooms.

I’ve sucked it up for the most part in China. I’ve adapted to Chinese bathrooms pretty well, but nothing prepared me for the Nanjing Zoo’s bathrooms. Not to mention that there was no lock on the door, and while I was in one of the stalls a Chinese man walked in on me!

The all-encompassing moral point of this tear jerker is: it’s easy to gain a negative perspective of a country from our “oh shit, I’m an American” moments, and that’s wrong. Being American can be empowering as a tourist. Depending on where you are, your currency rocks, English translations are a daily source of humor, and things like Nanjing Zoo bathrooms seem to be a fresh reminder of the things we take for granted. It’s easy under these circumstances to steadily accumulate those terrible adjectives, some of which I wouldn’t say earlier. We become obnoxious, condescending, whiny, rude, self-righteous, etc.

True story: in Shanghai we were in a restaurant district marketed towards foreigners. On the outside wall of a restaurant were pictures of famous buildings/structures, and underneath their location. The Big Ben was brightly lit above London. The Eifel Tower majestically sat above Paris. And the Statue of Liberty seemed to have floated down the Atlantic because it was listed above Miami.

That sort of thing is funny! It’s funny when we see menus that say things like “Tomato Sand” when really it’s strawberry sherbet. It was funny last night in Xi’an when we saw a water show (think the fancy one at MGM in Disney World with boats, fireworks, etc.), and one of our group members asked when the announcer was going to stop speaking Chinese, only to realize that the announcer had been speaking English.

But, let’s keep some things in mind. In the United States we don’t translate anything for anyone. If you don’t speak English and you go out to eat at any restaurant in Philadelphia, chances are that unless you’re at Le Bec Fin your menu is going to rely on your ability to speak English. The United States doesn’t like to accommodate. We expect people to know our language, our ways, our do’s and don’ts. We have no patience. And when we transport that to other countries we’re bringing nothing short of self-inflicting cultural terrorism, sabotaging our international relationships with the global community. Especially in places like China, where citizens can’t obtain visas to travel internationally as easy as we can. What kind of impression are we giving these people?

I have no doubt that I’ll have more “oh shit, I’m an American” moments while on this trip. I’ll probably write about them. I’m sure I’ll laugh at myself.

I had an interesting conversation at 3:00am in the morning at the McDonald’s the night all of us went to Castle Bar. A few of us were talking about Chinese people, and how accommodating they are. One of the Americans on our trip said, “you know, when I get back to the U.S., this trip has really taught me how to treat people, how to treat foreigners.” Another person echoed their agreement, that people in the U.S. never seem to treat foreigners with the congeniality and friendliness that Chinese people seem to do.

I’m glad that we’re learning these priceless life lessons. Especially when it’s so easy to be “that American.”

- Anthony

Disclaimer: This is Ted, Ann’s husband, posting under her account, so it should be noted from the start that anything said is my own personal opinion and not representative of the network and its sponsors. Nor, since I have only just arrived in China, should the trials and tribulations that I describe be seen as anyway indicative of the management of the trip or any one else’s. It is suggestive only of my own general lack of common sense while traveling, and perhaps, something of the ailing state of our nations airlines. Of course, the airline industry has suffered greatly for the last decade, but I can’t help but feel at some level, that this suffering is greatly deserved.

Murphy’s law:  If something can go wrong it will.  O’toole:  Murphy was an optimist.

First off, I knew it was a bad idea to try and travel to China only a day after I finished administering finals to my English classes at Drexel. Already fatigued from three days of conferencing with students and a last ditch effort to clean up the house, I made an early morning trip to the airport with little in my carry on bag than 88 final exams and airline necessities. After long-time friend and limo driver Jason Mezey dropped me at the airport, I soon discovered that the flight for the first leg of the journey to Chicago had been cancelled because there was no crew. After playing ticket pachinko with the electronic kiosk, I was able to reschedule for a flight two hours later—but the printer jammed and sent me to another machine. After I logged in to that machine, however, it said I wouldn’t have a flight until the following day. Fortunately I checked with a real person behind the counter and discovered that I did indeed have a ticket for a delayed flight that would be leaving the airport, but had a good chance of missing my connecting flight to Beijing.

I didn’t think this would be a bad idea. I’ve been put up in hotels before, and usually the airline accommodations are good, sometimes I can even talk my way into getting a better ticket the following day. At the very least, I would have completed one leg of the journey and wouldn’t have to start over again from scratch. (I was pretty certain, too that long-time friend and limo driver would be neither if I asked him to pick me up again at six o’clock the following day). But apparently my past experiences with overnight lay-overs were not fully representative of all the evils that can plague one at the cheaper, seedier, less reputable hotels in the Chicago areas. After a three hour wait in line, I was directed to the “Days Inn Addison” roughly twenty minutes from the airport, and this is where my troubles began. 1) The hotel I was given a voucher too didn’t really have an official van, so it took more than two hours in the rain before I and my fellow voucher-holders were picked up in an unmarked van at the airport. 2) Upon arriving, the hotel accepted all our vouchers but pointed out that it had no restaurant so the meal vouchers were pretty much a lost cause. 3) Four hours after check in, we were called along with all other United customers back to the front desk, 18 of us in all; they had declined our vouchers because United claimed to have never given them out in the first place, suggesting that they were probably forgeries. 3) In spite of the fact that we seemed to be a rather large and sundry mix of con-artists, the hotel clerk seemed surprisingly kind to us so long as we were willing to fork over cash or credit card numbers, but if we wanted to return to the airport, they were sure to tell us that since our vouchers were rejected we would have to pay non-customer rates for the trip. 3) Since it was already the cheapest, seediest hotel I had stayed in, and since a tornado had just hit southern Chicago and was working in our direction, I figured I might as well just pay for the night and figure out the bill issues later. After finally giving up and going to bed, I was woken up at 11:30 by a Korean man who tried to deliver me a pizza. I finally convinced him that I had ordered no pizza, but by the time he left I thought back with regret—perhaps he would have accepted food vouchers? 4) Early in the morning the fire alarm started blaring; we were all evacuated from the hotel and watched in dismay from the street as smoke poured out of the breakfast area in what shall henceforth always be referred to as “toaster-gate”. Turned out that one of the customers tried to make toast in the microwave, and accidentally sent the timer for 30 minutes rather than 30 seconds. Fortunately, this problem was small enough that it could be handled by the two fire trucks and ambulance that arrived shortly thereafter. While written off as an accident, I secretly suspect that it was one of the customers subtle commentary on quality of service and accommodations. Better to burn the hotel to the ground and start over than try and refurbish or repair the dwindling status of the Days Inn hotel.

The one perk I had from United in having to wait twenty-four hours for the next flight was that they reassigned my seat to an economy plus seat in the emergency exit aisle. Unfortunately, when I checked back in to the airport the following day they reassigned my seating to a new one, shoe-horned into an aisle with a family of children that had also been grounded for the night. They were well mannered enough, though everyone of them also came down with air sickness over the course of the flight. The flight was otherwise uneventful, though of course every movie seemed to star queen latifah or matthew McConaughey. The flight arrived in Beijing two hours late, though. This meant that I missed the connected flight to Xi’an and ended up having to pay cash for the last flight of the evening. After the mystery hotel and toaster-gate experience, however, this seemed like only a small hiccup in the final journey. I was happy to turn over my paper Maos if it meant not having to spend another night in a strange city, wondering if Ann and the class were still going to be in Xi’an by the time I arrived. Sure enough, I made it just under the wire and Ann was able to pick me up at the airport with a kindly driver. I had never been more relieved. Now, here I am at last, at the palatial Garden hotel with its fountains and peacocks, and hall these nasty memories are already starting to disappear like mist. Perhaps this is just the Ambien kicking in, but whatever the reason for the memory loss, I say good bye, and good riddance.

It’s time to get this adventure off on the right foot. I look forward to meeting the rest of the group tomorrow.

Three words inside the Nanjing Massacre Museum echoed what has been the modern global response to the uncomfortable topic of genocide: “Forgivable, but unforgettable.”  This comment was made by a German named John Rabe, who saved citizens of Nanjing during the infamous Japanese massacre (Rabe is considered to be the ‘Schindler of the East’).  The reason I bring up this quote is because its implications are deeper than simply the remembrance, forgiveness, and prevention of genocide and human evil.  Genocide, even when forgiven, can deeply affect cultures and race consciousness, causing divisions that can affect socioeconomic relationships (i.e. geographic settlement, political interaction, trade, etc.).

The idea for this blog was conceived after two complementary experiences.

In the first, I was leaving the Nanjing Massacre Museum and in the middle of a conversation with one of our Chinese classmates.  I asked our classmate how his generation’s relationship with the Japanese differs from that of his parents’ generation.  He told me that it is much better, and even voiced the quote that I mentioned at the beginning of this blog.  However, he told me that there are numerous people of his generation who still will not buy certain Japanese products.

The second incident happened during one of our many bus rides.  As I watched cars pass alongside us, I began to take notice of brands.  I began thinking about the auto market back in the United States, and the nationalism that has affected the American car market in creating deterrents to the success of Japanese automakers.

My obvious question then became: have national anti-sentiments for Japanese affected the auto market in China?

The idea sparked me as highly probable.  A great deal of time has passed since the Nanjing massacre, however that wasn’t an isolated incident of Japanese imperialism and aggression against the Chinese.  Chinese defense against Japanese imperialism can be traced back to the 19th century Qing Dynasty.

And, the Chinese wouldn’t be alone as national participants in an economic embargo, rooted in an unforgettable tragedy that has destroyed families and shaken the makeup of generations.  There are still Jewish people who will not buy a Mercedes or an IBM because of the involvement these two companies (subsidiaries included) had in the Holocaust (and the absence of reparations made by the companies).

A blog doesn’t present the ideal landscape for the extensive empirical research that would be required to answer such a question.  However, I was able to get my hands on “some” facts that should slightly elucidate the modern relationship between Chinese people and Japanese automakers.

Japanese automakers are doing well.  Not necessarily in the past, but as of very recently, they are.

In 2005, Japanese automakers had a 15% share of the Chinese auto market.  By 2006, that number had jumped to 25.7%.  European automakers, who formerly dominated the auto market with a market share at above 50% around 2002-2003 ended 2006 with a 24.4% market share.

Japanese market share in the U.S. auto industry was around 30% in 2005, and has improved since then (although I don’t have the most recent figures).  With the Chinese auto market growing substantially each year, it’s likely that Japanese market share will continue to increase.

Japanese automakers are gaining ground in China the same way they’ve been doing so in the United States: product reliability and energy efficiency.  Everyone wants to get a return on their investment, and if Japanese automakers appear to be the best source of a return on the hefty purchase price of an automobile, it’s not surprising that they’ll dominate the auto market.  Even if it’s in the home of its former wartime enemies: the United States and China.

P.S.  By the way, a quick lesson in Econ 101.  Many people, from your mailman to your favorite presidential candidate will talk about how we need to bring back manufacturing jobs to the United States.  The auto market is often mentioned, and we’re told how many jobs are being lost because of the continually increasing sales of Japanese automakers.

This is completely fallacious.

There are three sectors of any economy: agriculture, manufacturing, and services.  Services encompasses anything from the guy at McDonald’s who asks if you want fries with that, to your highest-priced Philly attorney.  The wealthiest countries sustain themselves on services-based economies.  Manufacturing actually represents a nominal percentage of sector of advanced capitalist countries like the United States, England, Japan, etc.

This is how it’s supposed to be.  Theoretical capitalism should imply the relative smallness (or near absence—e.g. Dubai, Singapore) of a manufacturing sector.  Manufacturing jobs are not as sustainable and are more frictional.  Technological change can wipe out entire manufacturing industries.  We’re far from creating robots to represent us in the courtroom and to perform heart surgeries, but we’ve been using robots to replace manufacturing jobs for many years now.

Also, empirical research has proven that the declining market share of United States automakers hasn’t put a dent in our GDP.  Other factors are at hand for our recent economic woes, not Japanese automakers.

So, now you have some ammo for the next guy who tells you that the United States is in recession because those Japanese are outselling American automakers.

- Anthony

Friday was a special day for our group.  We had decided to re-throw Bryan a 21st birthday party (his was in early May) in China.  We chose our last full night in Nanjing for the celebrations.

Most of the American group (both Dr. Green’s class and Dr. Carpenter’s class) elected to go out, and even some of our Chinese classmates joined us.  We chose a place called Castle Bar that was about a 15-minute walk from our hotel.  It was perfectly situated next to a 24/7 McDonald’s… a dangerous combination.

Expat bars are a funny thing: you don’t realize how many foreigners there are in a city like Nanjing until you go to one.  The bar was filled with people of all ages, many of whom were clearly westerners.  We had found a mixing pot of colors and races in a one-floor club with a dance floor, lounge, pool area, and bar.

‘Here come the Americans’

Our group was large, maybe even a little intimidating.  As soon as we got onto the dance floor we covered at least one-third of it.  Older Chinese men swarmed around the girls, and one even patted my curly hair and asked me if it was real.  Four girls of about our age and of western descent soon joined the party and acted as a distraction for any of the creepy old men who seemed to be bothering our group.

After our group was exhausted from dancing (most of the music was American), we took over a corner of the bar close to the pool table.  We met people from England, Spain, Sweden, Africa, and even our homeland.  Drinks were cheap, which was a refreshing change from Philadelphia club prices.  We danced at the bar, watched pool, and intermingled with the other bar-goers.  One of us even had a little dance off with a native Chinese guy.

After 1:30 our group slowly began to retire back to the hotel.  I waited around to get in on a pool tournament, but the much older crowd running the table kept screwing me out of my turn.  And so after we’d had enough to drink and were finished dancing, networking, and watching pool, we said goodbye to Castle Bar and walked next door to McDonald’s.

McDonald’s isn’t healthy, but it’s undisputably appealing at 3:00am when you’ve you been drinking and dancing all night.  I got chicken nuggets, fries, and an ice cream, and told myself that I would be fasting all day Saturday (didn’t happen).  We wolfed down our food and hopped a taxi back to the hotel.

Taxis are less scary at night when there are no cars, bicycles, people, or other things on the road that can be crashed into.  The taxi ride seemed to be long & complicated.  The driver would randomly stop and point out the window.  About 98% of the time I had no idea what he was pointing at.  I know we’d been drinking, but I’m pretty positive we got into a taxi and not a tour bus.  “Pretty” sure…

We all got home safely after our night of fun in Nanjing.  It was the first real opportunity we’d had to go clubbing in Nanjing, and our group had an amazing time.  The abundance of westerners was sort of comforting, especially since I’ve seen so few westerners in Nanjing.  It was nice to hear people speaking English, and to spend our night in a very diverse and international crowd.

I’ll leave you with a funny story: On Friday evening, after we left the Nanjing Massacre Museum, I left with Bryan and Daneen to return to our hotel.  The rest of the group was going to the Confucius Temple, where we had visited the day before.  So we finally found a green taxi with a driver who was willing to transport some Americans.

There was the usual rollercoaster-like cab ride, including moments of cursing, shrieks, and me commenting “wait, I think he’s driving in the wrong lane.”  But the best part happened on the way to the hotel when the driver randomly stopped alongside a street vendor, and without a word got out of the car to go and buy food.  Dumbfounded, we sat in the taxi, staring at each other and at the driver, who was exchanging money for some food.  Within a couple minutes he returned to the taxi with a bag of food, and without a word he started the car and resumed course.

Could you imagine that happening in Philly?

- Anthony DiFiore

Let me start off by commenting that Chairman Mao is everywhere!  I started this blog with the intention of writing about Chinese money–which I’ll get to–but aside from his face being on every paper currency bill, we had another odd Mao encounter today.  I’m sure that someone will write about this later, because it deserves its own blog, but today our group visited the Nanjing Massacre Museum.  This was one of the most powerful and touching places I’ve ever been to in my entire life.

At the end of a brilliantly-constructed museum that I think everyone should see at some point in their lifetime, there’s a little gift shop with all sorts of Mao memorabilia.  The Nanjing Massacre Museum focuses on the tragic events surrounding the Japanese invasion of Nanking (modern Nanjing) in 1937, and the deaths of over 300,000 people over the following six weeks.  The Museum also offers a historical account of various Japanese invasions of China between the mid-19th century and 1945 (end of World War II).

… so why was Mao in a gift shop for events that he had absolutely nothing to do with??  It would be like putting little statues of Ronald Reagan in a Civil War museum.  Odd…

So yesterday was a shopping day.  I like to shop.  There’s something invigorating about going shopping, and making a day out of it.  Especially when it’s in a city, and you can walk around various neighborhoods and admire architecture and city life in-between entering boutiques.  A small group of us along with our Chinese classmate Ricky and his sister (her name is pronounced Meow Meow, like a cat) went to a few major shopping districts in Nanjing.  Daneen and I were the troopers… we lasted from 1pm to 10pm.  Pfft, that’s nothin’.

It’s amazing what you can find in China, and how frugal the currency difference can make you!  I would often catch myself being disgusted by a price tag on a pair of jeans that read about 140 yuan, before realizing that I get to divide by 7 to equal $20 American dollars.  And still, even with that math in mind, I’ve still been increasingly frugal in my spending.  I guess that’s a good thing, since all these bills with Mao on them can tend to feel like Monopoly money, especially with the exchange rate.

In Nanjing you can find all the bigs brands, the knock-offs, the European clothing you’ve never heard of and the foreign high-end boutiques that you see in magazines but never in real life.  We found a 6-story mall that looks like the area of King of Prussia mall where Tiffany & Co. is located.  There was a Korean brand called G-Star Raw and some brand called Odbo that I’ve never heard of, both with some amazing clothing (www.g-star.com; & www.odbo.com says “coming soon”).

By the way, I learned quickly that in that mall you don’t divide by 7.  You take an American price and you multiply by 7.  Some of the numbers will make your head spin.  A couple of us went into Versace just to see if all the numbers would fit on a price tag.  They did.

Elsewhere in Nanjing we found a place called Hunan Road that looked like a Chinese Las Vegas.  The streets were lined with clothing stores that I’ve never heard of.  By the way, Chinese sizes are a little intimidating.  I’m a small in America and a large over here.

We found authentic Diesel jeans, cool sweaters with Chinese characters on them, and I even had a crazy experience in a clearance/wholesale boutique where the clerk tore apart the store to try and sell me Gucci sneakers.  When we couldn’t find my size, she tried to act out the concept of me ordering the sneakers and them being shipped from Italy.  This charades act was complete with airplane noises, typing clicks, and other strange & fascinating sounds.

In one Chinese boutique store that sold t-shirts and jeans, the three female employees kept pulling on Daneen’s hair to see if it was real.  I guess these three girls had never seen someone of African descent before!

We finished our shopping day in a DVD store, where I picked up five foreign films and a DVD carrying case for a total of about 65 yuan (close to $10).  I parted with a lot of Mao’s yesterday.  There’s nothing quite like shopping in China.

(Us and a Buddhist Monk in Tiantai–loosely translated as Sky Mountain Altar)

A friend who visited China last year told me that what she loved about China were the people–their willingness to communicate with you across the language barrier, their openness and friendliness, their hard-work. This, too, is what I have loved so far about China. We’ve had an exceptional opportunity to learn from Chinese students about their country while we’re speaking English with them, but we’ve also had an exceptional opportunity to connect with different Chinese people as we’ve traveled from Nanjing to Tiantai and Nimbo and around Shanghai.

On June 1st, Children’s Day in China, we hiked around two Chinese natural scenic areas in Tiantai. For most of the weekend, we were the only Western faces we saw, and this, occasionally, literally stopped traffic. When we fed coy in a pond in a scenic area, Maura told us that people were walking by saying, “Who are these people?” and getting “Oh, they’re the Americans” from various people passing us along the path. Sometimes children are afraid to speak with us because we look so different; sometimes they call out a loud “hello” and when we respond with Ni Hao, they are surprised. Mary Ann goes up to them and asks them how old they are in English. Sometimes the children can answer, and sometimes the only words they appear to know are “Hello” and “How are you?” although English is taught in every school from kindergarten on. The photo above is of a grandmother and grandchild. Weiping and I spoke with the grandparents who were bringing the grandchild to the scenic area for Children’s day, and I asked if I could take their picture. The little four year old girl was quite animated when she saw her picture on my camera, but otherwise was as somber as the photo.

Chinese mother and daughter.

The great thing about this past weekend was we had several translators–Popo, Weiping, Ling Ling, and Maura all helped us bridge the language barrier. When Maura asked this mom if I could take her picture, she said sure, no problem, and then spent the next ten minutes trying to get her son in the picture (he had other plans) and trying to get her daughter to smile. It was great to be a Chinese natural areas and see Chinese people taking advantage of their own scenic wonders as a family. I finally got this photo of the little girl in her yellow sweater, and her mother said it looked “very natural.”

Because we were outside of the city for the first time, we also got to see some rural people at work. Since I grew up on a farm, I was fascinated by how the Chinese grow crops. Every bit of usable land is used, and the Inner Mongolian restaurant we went to in Tiantai had the best bok choy I’ve ever tasted because it was picked that day from their own garden. On Sunday morning, got up early and watched this farmer plow his rice patty with what I think is a water buffalo. It was amazing to watch. He was barefoot, and road on top of the plow, like he was surfing, until he came to the end of the row when he lifted the plow up and dumped the weeds, etc. on the ground. This particular field was immediately outside of our hotel parking lot, and you can see the walls separating the hotel from the field in the background. His friend came along and began sowing the rice. What struck me about this was that the rice sower put on long rubber boots. In the miles of ground we covered over the weekend, I saw one very small tractor, and the rest of the work was done by hand with simple tools. Even though the farm I grew up on was very small by American standards, we had at least 3 tractors of different sizes at any given time.

Plowing the field.

Clearing the plow. (I believe the plow was wooden.)

To get the pictures of the plowing in action, I climbed down from the pagoda where I was writing, and walked along the edge of the rice patty field on a raised wall that keeps the water in. While I meandered around the edge, I was really aware that if I fell into the well-fertilized rice paddy, no one was going to want to sit next to me on the bus ride back to Nanjing. Miraculously, I didn’t fall in. On the way back to the hotel, I ran across this older woman praying at an altar in the woods. She waved at me (at first I thought she was telling me to go away, but then she answered my “Ni Hao” and went to praying). She kowtowed at an altar within a few feet of the rice patties. This picture, for me, conveys part of the beauty and wonder of the Chinese people. Tomorrow I will try and write more about the exceptional Chinese students we have grown to know over our past few weeks in China, and our special visit to Kevin’s house to meet his family.