A Miracle Happened In China Part Two, Nanjing
Nanjing or Nanking is a major city in China today and has been throughout its history. It served as the Capitol for six of the Imperial Chinese Dynasties and as the Capitol of the Republic of China. The Chinese refer to it as the "Old Capital" or the "Ancient Capital." Today it is a modern industrial city of close to eight million people. Along with its industrial base Nanjing is known for its universities. One of them is more than seventeen hundred years old and has colorful history of survival through the Imperial days, Chiang Kai Shek, and now the People’s Republic of China. Nanjing itself has quite a story of survival which I am going to talk more about as we visit the WWII Holocaust Museum. However, as interesting as these histories, museums, and universities, can be they are not the reason we are here in Nanjing. We are here for this city’s position as the provincial capital of Jiangsu Province. Our new granddaughter, Elizabeth Rose lives in an orphanage in the city of Wuxi which is about sixty miles south east of Nanjing. The actual meeting of her and the official Chinese paperwork will all take place here since it is the provincial capital. Later in the week we will take a bus trip to Wuxi and visit the orphanage. While we are in Nanjing, we will also get to meet an internet friend of mine, Deng who is a student here.
We flew Air China, the official Chinese airline out of Beijing to Nanjing. The first thing that struck us and I emphasize those words ‘struck us" before we even got our bags in Nanjing was the smell. This is a difficult smell to describe. The smell is something like rotting fish being soaked in dirty motor oil, then trampled in a barnyard by diseased cattle, and finally choked out of a 1966 International semi tractor truck tailpipe. At first we thought the smell was just in the airport but soon realized it was everywhere. This is a smell that gets into everything and will not let go. There is a suitcase in our garage which we used and it stinks. I am afraid it will forever stink so if you want to stop by and take a whiff you can experience first hand the smell of Nanjing. There were a few rain drops as we walked to the airport transport bus so we thought nothing of the grey colored sky. A few days later we came to realize that grey is the color of this sky all of the time regardless of the weather. A clear day in Nanjing meant you could see a half block away. The drive from the airport revealed a city much newer than Beijing and a city which is also under construction. We passed large heavily polluting factories with new apartment and office buildings being constructed alongside. As we drove into the heart of the city only an occasional old building was to be seen and those stood out like some kind of amusement attraction. I remembered that Nanjing was almost totally destroyed during the second world war. And this was evident.
Our hotel was in the downtown section, or what would be considered the old section of the city. Both our rooms were on the eighteenth floor and had a commanding view of downtown Nanjing, This hostel, The Nanjing Grand, was arranged for us by the adoption agency the kids had been working with. Here we were to meet the other eight families who were also adopting a child through the agency. This is not the type of place we usually stay in or really enjoy staying in. We much prefer the smaller quaint places like the hostel we stayed in Beijing; however, the staff here made our stay very enjoyable.
The next day was our free day in Nanjing before the day we have all been waiting for, Goctha Day when we get our granddaughter. I had been reading about Nanjing ever since we learned we would be coming here and wanted to see the Nanjing Massacre Memorial. This is a memorial built to commemorate the massacre committed by the Japanese Army when they invaded Nanjing during the World war II. I had read a very painful book on this subject by Iris Chang titled, The Rape of Nanking. The author actually committed suicide after completing the book. This may not have been the cheeriest site to choose for our first day in Nanjing but it certainly is the most significant. In short when the Japanese entered Nanjing in December 1937 there was a population of about 600,000 people after six weeks they had reduced the population by one half. The invaders did not simply kill the residents they mutilated, raped, and tortured them first. The memorial is built upon a mass grave site containing the remains of more than ten thousand corpses. I told you it was not really a cheery place.
When you arrive at the memorial, you walk along a series of statues called, The Refugees each depicting a scene of the massacre. Among these figures was a grief-stricken civilian, a delicate looking dying intellectual couple, a pregnant woman, a teenager carrying his dead grandmother on his back, and an orphan crying next to his dead mother. I was struck to see young people standing by these statues having their pictures taken with the atrocities in the background.
Entering the large courtyard you see a huge copper sculpture named The Cry of Lost Souls. Here are crying people carved in relief on two large triangles to signify the wronged, cry, and protests of numerous ghosts. There is a giant cross structure named The Monument with the inscription "1937-12-13 1938-1". This is commemorating the time period of the massacre, six weeks. There is rubble under the cross indicating that this was built over the graves of ten thousand people. The Wall of Calamity is behind the cross and on it is written in twelve languages the words: thirty thousand victims. To the right of the wall is The Bell of Peace which has thirty thousand spelled out in triangular prisms. The square is called Mourner’s Square it is very large paved with gray stones. At the very far end of the square is a set of steps shaped as a ship. Here people from Nanjing assemble each year on December 13 to remember and then take an oath of peace. While walking around the square you could not help but feel the reverence and importance of knowing that something happened here which should never be forgotten.
I wandered into the Memorial Hall thinking it was a small exhibition and was escorted down a stairway where my bag was taken and checked. Next I found myself in front of a plate with a brief history of the massacre. Walking further I was at a scene of the city with a bunker and the sounds of machine gun fire. Standing next to the railing was an old man who appeared to be Japanese since he was not dressed like any of the older Chinese I saw. He was being supported by a middle-aged woman who could have been his daughter. This man was openly crying. You could see the tears rolling down his cheeks. There was no one pressing around him. The crowd all respected his space. I followed him through several other exhibits and his reaction was very severe to everything he saw. He pointed to details and explained each to his companion who was still supporting him. He never stopped crying. The exhibits were captioned in Chinese, English, and Japanese. I lost track of him in the Prologue Hall which was a depiction of the city’s walls collapsing and photos of the Yangtze river with more than ten thousand corpses floating down it. On the walls were the words written in Chinese, English, And Japanese, "Victims Thirty Thousand."
The Memorial Hall turned out to be a huge exhibition museum which I could have spent an entire day exploring. The exhibits were wonderfully done and it was one of the few places where English was written correctly. I could easily write several pages on the memorial hall alone but instead will highlight just a few of the exhibits.
The history was very clear that Chiang Ka Shek fled the city leaving a couple generals and a few troops to defend the city. There were many exhibits which showed the bravery of these troops and their futile attempt of defending the city against the much more powerful and numerous Japanese Army. There was also a very large area devoted to the Westerners who chose to stay in Nanjing and created the Safety Zone. Among these was a Nazi, John Rabe who is credited for saving two hundred thousand citizens. There were pictures of a refugee camp on a campus we would later visit by our hotel. This camp held nine thousand women and children protected by an American Missionary. The lowest portion of the museum was the actual grave where you could still see the exposed bones of the victims buried in a mass grave. Throughout this section of the museum I was with a group of school children who appeared to be eight to ten years of age. These children were most respectful of the exhibits and listened intently as their teacher’s gave their talks. However, their curiosity with David and me really was a distraction to them. We appeared to be the only Westerners in the museum.
We left the museum with only about half of it covered but I felt I saw what I wanted to see and had a sense of the exhibit. We met the girls in the Square who were by a Chinese family who wanted their daughter to have her picture taken with Sammy, forever the rock star. We walked out of the square and into the Peace Park. Here there is a large reflecting pool lined with flowers and trees which were donated and planted by Japanese soldiers. We also passed through an area where people could leave memorials. There were numerous flowers and origami paper objects left by many people. We eventually found the exit and were soon searching for a place to have a late lunch.
My clue for a restaurant was always to look for a place with red lanterns hanging out front. We saw such a place down the way and walked toward it only to discover it was a plumbing store. So much for the red lantern theory. Eventually we did find a restaurant and again this was to be adventure dinning. As we entered the restaurant the front was filled with fish tanks which I supposed we could have selected our lunch from but we were not that adventurous.
The restaurants in Nanjing were very similar to the ones in Beijing except for one thing. They had no English menus. Just in case you are thinking that the waitresses spoke English, think again. Here is where the adventure dining really begins. Thinking quickly as I looked at the all Chinese menu, I took out my Learn Chinese in Fifteen Minutes book. We did not have fifteen minutes for me to learn how to speak Chinese so I turned to the pages on food and called the waitress over. I first pointed at the "NOT TO SPICEY" phrase and made sure she understood what I meant. Next I went down the list of foods with her with me reading in English and her in Chinese. If they had something on the menu we would decide if we wanted it or not. Finally I combined some words and she seemed to understand and shook her head yes and once more I showed her the "not too, spicey" phrase and away she went. We waited for about ten or fifteen tense minutes until the food began to arrive. First out was a plate of deep-fried sweet potatoes or maybe it was pumpkin. Next was a sweet sour dish with rib meat and mystery vegetables, followed by an egg, tomato, and fungi soup which was delicious. All of the food they brought out that night was delicious and none of it was too spicey. This was also the restaurant that Sammy decided to take over the drink ordering chores. He would lead the waitresses to the drink coolers and point out what we wanted to drink. Most of the time the waitresses loved him for doing this; however, at this particular restaurant I think we were keeping them open after the lunch hour and they all wanted to go home. Sammy took over the ordering more out of frustration than cuteness but continued out of cuteness. Adventure dinning did have a few draw backs which we experienced later in our trip but I thoroughly enjoyed it.
We arrived back at the hotel in time to meet up with my internet friend, Deng. When it was certain, we would be coming to Nanjing I took out a My Space page asking to meet people from Nanjing. After sorting out all of the questionable replies from people named Sasha and Kiki I found Deng who is a student in engineering at one of the universities in Nanjing. He was looking for someone to help him with his English and I was looking for someone to help me with China. We e-mailed regularly for many months and planned on this meeting. To our surprise when he arrived he brought this lovely young lady, Chang Chang with him. We chatted in the hotel for a while and Deng showed us the web business he has started selling cosmetics. If anyone is interested, it can be found at: http://www.baimeiwang.com/ . Then we left for a night on the town. Traveling with people who know the city and speak the language has its advantages. First they took us to a central shopping area with a trendy mall area filled with tiny little shops for tiny little people. Rachel had mentioned she wanted to go shopping but I am afraid nothing in these shops would ever fit her. Chang Chang is probably a size triple O and would fit right in any of these shops but for us huge Americans there had to be something else. And that something else was just outside, Walmart. Right here in downtown Nanjing was a Walmart and we had to go in. There were several elevators up to the store and at one landing people were handing out brochures and we took one. Both Deng and Chang Chang started to laugh, turns out the brochures were for a learn to speak English class. Nanjing’s Walmart looked just like any other Walmart I have ever seen except the prices were lower, much lower. And the signs were written in Chinese. We toured the departments and found ourselves in the food area. Here they were giving away samples of the various delicacies available and Chang Chang had me trying things out of every bowl, laughing and not always telling me what it was. Sometimes she would just say it came from the sea. Most of the food tasted spicey with a weird texture. I had David try something which paralyzed his throat, so much for samples at Walmart. When we left Walmart we asked about a restaurant and they took us to a popular eatery with the younger crowd. This was a noodle place where all seven of us ate for less than $13.00 and that included the drinks. What we had were noodles served with parts of various animals, which we are not accustomed to seeing floating in a broth. Along with these noodles and animal parts were a couple plates of steamed dumplings filled with questionable items which at one time were either alive or masquerading as being edible. The beer was good. This was not our best meal. I ate at the table with Deng and Chang Chang and to be polite tried a little of everything. They too laughed at the childish way I used my chop sticks but I was over my feelings of inadequacy and was ready to challenge any of them to a fork contest. We left the restaurant hungry and a little wiser as to what people would actually consume and call good. Our next stop was Confucius Temple.
I was excited to be going to Confucius Temple as a person who had studied religion in college and seminary this was always a treat to visit a place of worship particularly an ancient one. We arrived by cab and as soon as I got out of the cab a beggar came up to me for money. This was not uncommon but this particular beggar was wearing a cap that I had been searching everywhere for. I gladly gave the beggar the coins in my pocket and called over Deng and Chang Chang to point out his cap to them. The cap was the old style blue Mao cap which you saw every male wearing in photos of China in the 50's and 60's. I thought this would be the easiest thing to find but was having a devil of a time finding one. Both our Chinese friends promised to find me the cap and I went on happily in search of the temple. We walked into a large open area without traffic, filled shops and bright lights. Down the main streets were small market stalls and we walked down several of these stopping to shop at a few of them. Bargaining was the rule here and Chang Chang proved to be the supreme bargainer. We stood back and allowed her to do her magic. We were standing at one stall while Chang Chang was bargaining for something when I spotted my cap. I was so excited. After searching all the shops in Beijing and now two days in Nanjing here it was on the table. I ran over and found my size right away. Deng stepped up and asked if that was the hat and I replied it was. Soon both he and Chang Chang were in a hot bargaining session with the shop keeper. I was already wearing the cap and so happy with the find that price was not a real concern. After much hand waving and serious yelling back and forth Deng said to me what sounded like fifty yuan. So I pulled out a fifty. He pushed it away and said slowly, "no fifteen yuan." My cap cost me $2.25. We walked around the shops having a great time shopping and bargaining. Then Deng said we were at the Temple. I thought we would be going in but all it was is an entrance sign and a statue of Confucius. So now I have seen Confucius Temple. What the real attraction here was the array of shops, lights, and food collected in this area next to the river. At some point Deng separated from us and then came back to give Sammy a beautiful jade tiger he had just purchased and then he gave me a very big heavy box which contained a very large and very heavy faux jade horse, what could I say? The horse is shades of orange and green and other colors with other horses next to it and is very big and very heavy. I took the very heavy box with constrained thanks and thought maybe we best go buy a new suitcase to get this thing home. So we stopped at a suitcase stand and Chang Chang bargained for a suitcase for us to carry the horse home in. She did a masterful job of bargaining getting the suitcase for just less than $20.00 which is a nice hard sided affair and is the one sitting in my garage because it stinks. The night ended with happy good byes and promises to get together again later in the week. We returned to the hotel not knowing if any of us would sleep this night since tomorrow was "gotcha day."
Rachel and I were sitting at our campsite at our favorite State Park, Pike Lake, in Wisconsin on a crisp September day, 2005. She was upset and frustrated. Both she and David had been undergoing fertility tests and nothing had turned up as to why they had not gotten pregnant. We talked about children and I remember telling her that what is most important is the child and not where the child comes from. We started to talk about adopting and the process was started. The kids decided to adopt from China for many good sound reasons and they chose an agency with which to work. They understood from the onset that this was a long and arduous process and a very expensive one. Fran and I gave them the money to start with and soon the mountains of paperwork were being sent from Milwaukee to New York and then to China. To help with the funding the kids held yard sales, collected cell phones, and had other fund raisers. There were so many people from across the country who contributed in some fashion to their cause that I could not begin to name or list them all. So many things just went right starting at the beginning with the choice of a good agency which was efficient, supporting, and honest. They chose Homeland out of New York, NY. Now it was all up to this agency to complete this miracle which began almost three years ago. "Gotcha Day" is what they call the day when the parents and child are joined together and this is the day.
There were nine families in our group and with the nine families was an array of grandparents like us and brothers and sisters like Sammy. We were quite the crowd meeting in the downstairs lobby. Needless to say no one was late and all were excited to get on the bus and go. Fran and I were equipped with cameras and a camcorder so we could record every second of this event. I stood in line with the rest of the cam cording grandfathers and fathers recording the every step we took as each of us got on the bus. Fran kept snapping pictures just in case I missed a moment. The bus ride over to the official building was short and soon we arrived at Jiangsu Registration Center for Foreign Related Marriage and Foreign Related Adoption building. This was a very official looking place with a small entry room and a man working at a desk which spanned the length of the room. We were all ushered into this room and the man never looked up. Someone in the crowd asked for those parents whose children were coming from the Chiang Shi orphanage to come over to the far side of the room and then I heard Rachel’s name being called and David said there she is. I turned to see Rachel holding Elizabeth. Other names were being called out and soon bedlam erupted in this room. Babies were crying, mothers and fathers were crying and even this grandfather was crying. There she was my granddaughter in my daughter’s arms and they were both beautiful. I totally forgot about the camcorder so the moment was lost on tape but it is permanently recorded in my mind. David took Elizabeth and she grabbed his beard exploring her new father. He then handed her to Sammy who could not have been prouder to have his new sister in his arms. Sammy gave her a big kiss and said, "Hi cutey." I was next in line and when I got her in my arms I cannot explain the emotions. Here I was in this room of total bedlam and noise holding my granddaughter who was not crying just looking at me and wondering who I was. She did not appear to be afraid or wanting to leave my arms she just cuddled in like this is where I am supposed to be now. I handed her to Fran and she snuggled right down with her grandmother. Elizabeth had a family now.
The man at the long desk steadily kept working throughout this cacophony of noise which only became louder when the care givers from the orphanage were let into the room. Several of these women were hysterical to see their charges leaving and their hysterics raised the hysterics of those children. Fortunately Elizabeth’s care giver was among the sane and when she came over to say good bye was very polite. She held Elizabeth and pointed to Rachel and David and told her in Chinese they were her mother and father. She then gave Elizabeth back to Rachel and Elizabeth went without a fuss. We thanked her and she was off to rein in the other care givers who were displaying such a fuss over the babies. We found a row of official looking chairs by a window and sat down waiting for whatever would come next. The man at the long desk steadily kept working.
The Sammy age siblings all took over the cam cording responsibilities and this added to the entertainment as we were asked to look into various cameras to do certain things for the posterity of those films. At the far end of the desk where the man kept steadily working was a pile containing all of the parent’s passports and adoption papers. New parents from different agencies were arriving and new babies were being united with their new parents for the first time and the noise level was increasing along with the total confusion of the moment. Then a representative from the kid’s agency made an announcement about some form which nobody heard or understood but they did understand that they were to go into the next room for a picture when they were called. The man at the long desk steadily kept working. We sat on our official looking chairs by the windows until the kids were called to have their picture taken with Elizabeth. After the picture was taken, we waited some more until all the other pictures were taken and then official looking documents were passed out giving the parents permission to take the children for a one day trial period to see if they liked their new child. We were then ushered out of the building, the bedlam continued on the street as we waited for the bus to pick us up. When we left the room I looked over and saw that the man at the long desk was still steadily working.
Gotcha Day was over, Elizabeth was now part of our family even if the paper said for only a day, tomorrow the kids would go back and sign the final papers. We returned to the hotel on the bedlam bus and quickly retreated to our rooms and quiet.
The whole process had only taken about three hours and we were ready for lunch. Elizabeth was bundled in her dad’s arms and we walked down the street to the row of restaurants. My granddaughter’s first meal outside the orphanage. We passed by a place with a sign in the window which read "Mexican Food" My first instinct was to run hard and fast. I had been burned in places like this before and like an elephant did not forget. There was that Chinese restaurant in Dauphin, Manitoba we tried back in 1971 and will I ever forget Roy’s Original Italian Pizza in Blythesvile, Arkansas, 1970 ? No. My rule is to eat local food at local restaurants and never mix up cuisines. I was outvoted. Everyone even Elizabeth wanted Mexican food here in Nanjing, China. So we go in and sit down on these terribly soft and low to the floor sofas. The menu was in English. I was expecting Spanish. The combinations were weird. I cannot remember what everyone else ordered but Rachel got a pizza, go figure. I ordered an Australian steak which came as a gooey pepper sauce coating a paper thin slice of gristle. We were the only ones in the place and no one else came in while we were there. After one bite of my food I was actually longing for that bowl of unidentifiable animal parts soup and noodles from the night before. Later in the week the kids went to a German restaurant and I refused to accompany them holding fast to my never mix cuisines rule.
We returned to the hotel and David and I offered to make an emergency run for clothes and smaller diapers for Elizabeth. It seems that the information the orphanage gave the kids was off by several pounds and inches so what Rachel had brought was all too large. Two of the other fathers also had the same problem and wanted to join us in this shopping spree. So three new fathers and a grandpa went to Walmart shopping for their new babies. We had a good time shopping and bought all of the right things so the women only had to return to Walmart the next day. The following day the kids were scheduled to return to the Jiangsu Registration Center for Foreign Related Marriage and Foreign Related Adoption building to finalize the adoption and we had Sammy. I had done some reading about the Confucius Temple and the description in the tourist write ups did not match what we saw so I wanted to go back. We also thought it would be fun to take a boat trip on the Qinhuai River. We returned to the temple which was supposed to be the best preserved temple of its type in China. In the daylight it looked the same as it did at night, only without lights. It is simply a doorway with two tourist shops next to it. I would recommend coming at night to see the temple the lights are pretty. We did take our boat ride which was interesting. The boat driver knew enough English to tell us that the tour guide knew none. So we took this sixty minute guided tour up and down the Qinhuai River. Our tour guide used a microphone and pointed to things which looked really interesting but we did not have a clue what they were. I did take several pictures of her pointing at things which looked interesting and then at the things which looked interesting. We saw a lot of buildings and a lot of people next to those buildings. Where there were open areas by the water people were fishing with very long fishing poles in the murky water. We thoroughly enjoyed the boat trip and came away feeling like we knew nothing more about this river than we knew before we started. Sammy took us up and down several of the narrow shopping streets and he had a good time bargaining for the items he wanted to purchase. One area was quite disturbing and that was the pet market. Here were cats, dogs, birds, rodents, and reptiles all kept in tiny cages on the pavement in the sun. I saw no water or food provided for any of the animals. There was one large bird in a cage so small its feathers were sticking outside the wire. We hustled Sammy past this area but when he returned to school this was one of the things he told his class about. Another thing which was attracting quite a bit of attention in the market this day was my feet. I was wearing sandals with no socks. People were actually stopping dead in their tracks and pointing down at my feet and saying something which I took to be very complimentary, maybe like: "What beautiful toes he has," or "I wish my feet looked that good." Who needs to know Chines to hear a compliment?
Rachel and David had completed the formal paperwork with the Chinese government and Elizabeth was officially their daughter. They still had paperwork to do In Nanjing like getting a passport for their daughter since she was still a citizen of The People’s Republic of China but the hard stuff was over. Today we were going to visit the orphanage where Elizabeth spent her first fifteen months.
I was excited to take this trip which was about 60 miles south east of Nanjing in the city of Wuxi. Sadly, we would get no time to see the city but I would at least get a chance to see the countryside between Nanjing and Wuxi or so I thought. We boarded our chinese-made bus and found it to be similar to the Japan Airlines planes, built for people with smaller frames than David and I. We barely fit into the seats and I had to share with Fran or she might say she had to share with me. The driver had obviously been instructed in very stern no nonsense terms that he was to drive slow and carefully with all of the babies on board. This became the turtle express to Wuxi. Adding to my distress was the realization that I was going to see nothing of the countryside as we crept along. Instead of the pollution getting better as we left the city it actually got worse. There were factories lining both sides of the highway belching out black, green, orange and colors yet identified smoke. Visibility was limited to the drainage ditch on each side of the highway. There was a nicely trimmed hedge down the center of the medium but how long can one stare at a nicely trimmed hedge down the center of the medium? Fran had contorted herself into a head straight back position and had fallen asleep. I was half out of my seat into the aisle and across this aisle was one of the Chinese contact people from the adoption agency. Since she was almost sitting in my lap, I thought it best to spend the trip talking to her. We had a wonderful conversation about China during the trip to Wuxi.
Wuxi is a city of five million people with a history of more than three thousand years. Wuxi is so polluted that the air has particles floating through it. Wuxi is so polluted, and it makes the air in Nanjing smell like a sea shore resort. Wuxi is supposed to be one of the top ten tourist cities in China and is listed as first among "China’s Excellent Tourist Cities" by the national Tourist Administration. Now you know who to get a recommendation from and who not to get one from. The orphanage was located in the downtown section which contained no older buildings and a fair number of factories and office buildings. We passed through the concrete walls to enter a very nicely landscaped courtyard which was the orphanage.
The Wuxi Social Center is actually two centers. One is for infants and the other is for old people so they have you covered going in and going out. We were interested only in the going in part. The grounds were very nice and there was a pretty metal sculpture on the lawn, what there was not were any old people or children. We were met in the administration building and given the picture taking instructions for during the tour. No pictures of the children who are living here now, OK I can live with that. We were also told that this was nap time and the older kids were sleeping so we needed to be quiet. We started the tour through the play areas and I really could not tell the difference between what I was seeing and any day care center here in the U.S. with the exception of no books. We did see one area where the older children were learning to do Chinese characters and draw pictures. Parents of the newly adopted children who were there saw their children’s work. We then were allowed to look into the room where the children were napping. I looked in to see a long narrow room. There were about forty children sleeping on mats with twenty children on each side of the center aisle. We next went to the baby area where Elizabeth lived. Here the care givers came out to see Elizabeth who was the only baby adopted this time. They showed us her crib and we saw many other babies lying in their cribs. A couple of the care givers were crying and it was very clear to us they had given our little girl loving care during her time here. But it was also clear that there were just too many babies and too many kids and not enough people here to adopt them all. We had to leave and someone had to make the move to part. These women had been with Elizabeth since her second day of life and now they would never see her again. What could we say or do in such a short period of time to assure them she was going to be happy and have a good home? I gave each of them a hug and thanked them in the only Chinese I knew, Xie Xie. We were then served a very nice lunch and the final day’s function was the giving of gifts. Each of the parents brought gifts for the orphanage. The first family went up to the orphanage administrator and presented him with a framed picture of president George W. Bush complete with the presidential seal and I though great now they will want all the children back along with the lunch we just ate. What a useful gift for an orphanage the babies will really get a kick out of seeing that hanging on the wall each morning. Fortunately the gifts did improve and the administrator was very pleased with them after getting over his initial shock. Rachel and David had brought a stack of blankets which they and members of their church had made. I was happy that we did not have to give back the lunch or the children.
The ride back to Nanjing was uneventful, cramped and we were all happy to see the happy waves of the hotel doormen as we left the bus. To ease our aching bodies David and I set out to get a Chinese massage. The two of us walked into the Chinese Physical health center and agreed to a full body massage. We were ushered into a small room filled with ten beds sticking out from the wall. After appraising David’s height they pulled one of the beds out from the wall so his feet would overhang the table and not his head. Two technicians walked in and motioned for us to empty our pockets, take off our glasses, and belts, then lie on the table face down. I wear a cross on a chain and when she noticed it was still around my neck motioned sternly for me to take it off. This was a no nonsense place. She dove into my shoulder and immediately started to tell me to relax. Now I have this strange disease which causes cramps in deep down muscles and they do not go away. I have had a cramp in this shoulder for several months and just before we left for china went to a Physical Therapist for some relief. This massage technician knew nothing of my medical history, spoke almost no English but she found that cramp worked on it and was able to give me some relief. And not only that cramp but there is one in my thigh which has been there almost five years and one in my lower calf which is about six years old and she found both of them as well and was able to give relief to them as well. The cramps were still there but I felt much better after the massage and no physical therapist has ever been able to reach any of them even with the help of MRI’s. But here’s the big but, it hurt like hell when she was working on me and I could not believe a little girl could have such strong fingers. I just decided that this was either an ancient medical art or her way of punishing American tourists. Either way I was not going to give her the satisfaction of letting her know how much it hurt while she prodded into my body. Bruised and tortured I walked out of there feeling better than I had for years and determined to come back for another massage.
Several of the families had heard about adventure dining and were curious enough to join us tonight. We chose a restaurant we saw on the bus ride home and was only a few blocks away. It had plenty of pretty lights out front so why not try it? True to the other Nanjing restaurants none of the menu was in English although they did have a few pictures and some of them did not disgust us. Sammy got the drinks for us and David and I went to work on the food. One of the pictures showed a bridge of meat so David ordered it and it turned out to be exactly that a bridge of ribs about twenty inches long and ten inches high. The meat just peeled off of the bone with our chop sticks and melted in our mouths. After we had peeled off all the meat from the top, the waitress took away the bones and returned about ten minutes later with the meat removed, seasoned and deep fried, we were all in glutton heaven. Our waitress this night gave us such good service that I felt I needed to do something for her. After the meal I walked up and handed her a tip, she refused it. I then folded it and stuck it in her apron pocket at which she smiled. Later I found out from my friend Deng that these waitresses make about 2000 Yuan a month ($270) and they do not take tips.
The next day was a scheduled tour to a brocade museum and the old city walls. The brocade museum is a living museum in that it is still making the brocades as they were made seven hundred years ago. This is called Yun (Cloud) brocade and was reserved for the royalty. Giant looms are used which require two people to operate. The top person controls the pattern while the bottom person controls the weave using bamboo pedals much like an organ with their feet. I watched with utter fascination as a young girl operated her bottom portion of the loom. Only two or three inches of brocade can be woven in a day. I was amazed and at her skill and intrigued at how such a young person could be interested in learning such a craft. Later that day we were waiting outside for our bus and I saw this same girl come out the door now dressed in a pair of a tight western jeans and designer jacket. She walked over and climbed aboard the back of a motorcycle held onto her beau and sped off.
We boarded our bus and sped off to the city’s ancient wall. This was built during the Ming Dynasty 600 years ago and is significant due to it being the earliest brick and mortar design ever found. The exact type of mortar is unknown but is believed to be a form of rice paste; whatever it is it has held up for 600 years without needing a tuck pointing job. When we arrived at the wall Sammy and I needed to use the bathroom and here is my Chinese bathroom story. The bathroom was located through the entrance to a Buddhist temple so we had to pay two yuan to pass through the entrance and were given three stalks of incense. Then we walked down several flights of stairs, out a gate and across the city street to the public bathroom. When you got to the bottom of the stairs, the smell from the doorway of the bathroom across the street let you know where it was. That smell only became stronger as you entered the open door. Along one wall was a trough with which you stood against and along the other wall was a trough which stood over depending on your needs at that moment. During the day someone would come into this room and use a hose to spray the waste matter to one end of these troughs where it was collected for a later pick up. There was a sink in which one could wash their hands after using their choice of a trough and of course the exit door which looked very good to me. I knew what the incense was for and wished I had a match to light it. When I emerged from these troughs and started back to the wall a person stopped me for another two yuan and I got another three sticks of incense. So with all my incense I thought it best to tour the temple first.
This is the Jiming Temple which was founded fifteen hundred years ago. The current name derives from an episode during the Chen Dynasty when the emperor was trying to escape the invading Sui soldiers who broke through the adjoining city walls. The emperor gathered up his concubines and hid in the temple’s well. As they were lying in the water, the women’s rouge rinsed off making a red stain, thus the name Jiming Temple. Now you know something about Chinese history almost no other people know. The buildings were very convincingly old but I found out this entire structure was destroyed by fire in 1973 and rebuilt in 1989. There were several people here lighting their incense in a ritualistic fashion and after watching them for a while I still could not figure out the pattern or sequence of turns, stalls, and bends before they finally planted the stick lit incense aside others in a box of sand. I saw a young monk with his head shaved and was just about to remark to him that we shared the same hair cut when I noticed that he had six holes drilled into his scalp in a square pattern. Last I looked I have no holes in my head. I walked back out onto the wall and found Rachel with Elizabeth. There was an older Chinese woman who wanted to hold Elizabeth and Rachel let her. Children are so special in this society and the people make such a fuss over them. The woman just beamed as she bounced Elizabeth in her arms saying something in Chinese. Elizabeth then held her arms out to Rachel to be back in her mom’s arms, I think she knows her family.
Fran and I took off the next morning for a long walk around the hotel area. We discovered the campus of the Nanjing Higher Normal Institute. This is one of the oldest institutes of higher leaning in the world being established in 258 A.D. This is one of the most renown universities in the world and has among its faculty such names as Bertrand Russell, and Pearl Buck. It is also known for being the first co-educational school in China. In 1976 the faculty and students launched what was called the Nanjing 3.29 movement which was responsible for ending the Cultural revolution and restoring educational freedom at this university. My real interest in the campus was its role during the Japanese occupation and the massacre period. There were nine thousand women and children housed here during the six-week period of the holocaust. I stood in the middle of the campus area with the buildings forming a U shape facing the street. The area was about a city block wide and maybe one block deep. I could not imagine 100 people jammed into this square much less nine thousand. Today the campus is alive with many young people and a fair number of foreign students. The buildings appeared old but in very good repair. The grounds were nicely kept and it was an enjoyable place to take a walk.
Rachel loves pandas and the Nanjing zoo had pandas so we loaded into a cab and took off to the zoo. The panda enclosure was not much better than what they had in Beijing. There were still the dirty glass and nothing in the way of a natural environment. What really surprised me were the people throwing marshmallows into the panda. The rest of the zoo was a little more modern than Beijing at least it was more park like. There was a giant blow up bouncing thing for the kids to bounce on and Sammy went in to bounce while David sat on the lawn with Elizabeth and I strolled the grounds. I really was amazed at how many people were at the zoo this being a Friday morning. There was a large grassy area where people were pitching small camping tents and setting out picnics. I wish I could have found out if there was some event later on or if this was just the custom. Quite a few people came up to "practice" English with me and I was nice to those I could understand. I wondered what they would do if I answered them in French or Spanish? Rachel and David wanted to take Elizabeth back to the hotel and we agreed to stay with Sammy plus I wanted to go and see the Yangtze River Bridge.
My map said there was a park at the Yangtze River Bridge so I assumed there would be this large grassy area which overlooked the bridge and river. This is only the most famous bridge in China so why wouldn’t they have a park there? We got a cab and I showed him on my map that we wanted to go to the park by the Yangtze River Bridge. The cab driver then took us through a part of Nanjing we had yet to see. This can best be described as the seedier part of the city and it became even seedier. We had planned on having lunch somewhere around the park so both Fran and I were hoping the area would improve but it did not. Suddenly the cab stopped and the driver motioned we were here. I saw no grass only run down buildings and people to match. I showed him my map again and he motioned forward and then motioned to the door which I took to mean, get out. We did. There was not a speck of green in sight other than in the garbage thrown by the ramshackle building over by the alley. What to do? I asked a lady on a bike, showing her my map and she motioned forward. So two people say forward it must be there. We begin to walk forward. Soon we are on a type of a bridge and below us is an assortment of tar papered houses and lean to shacks. People are everywhere down there doing something and I don’t want to stare. I look forward and see nothing resembling a park only railroads and more tar paper. We trudge on, still no trees or even water but the tar paper has now turned to discarded paper board and bits of tin. The wind has picked up blowing dust into our faces making this trek even more memorable. I ask Fran if she would like to turn back and she thought it would be a good idea. So we walk back to the very same spot the cab left us off. I decide that maybe there is no park but there has to be a bridge out there somewhere and if we can get a cab maybe I can convince the driver to drive us across the bridge and then back to the hotel. After quite sometime a cabdriver eventually wanders into this woeful area and finds himself trying to communicate with me. Here’s what I wanted him to do. Drive slowly over the bridge so I could see the bridge turn around and drive over the bridge again and then drive us back to the hotel. He said no. I eventually realized why he was reluctant to do this. It would cost us too much. A normal cab ride was costing us about 10 yuan or $1.40 but this one was going to cost us about 40 yuan or $5.50. He was worried that this was too much money. I assured him that this would be OK and not to worry I would pay him. So we started out across the bridge. When we got close to the actual bridge and I took out the camera he really got the idea and slowed down to a crawl and actually stopped in the middle of the road for me to take the picture of the towers in front of the bridge.
So why is this bridge so important? It is the first bridge built totally with Chinese engineering without foreign help. The Russians said it could not be done, that they needed to put in a draw bridge but the Chinese said no way they wanted this double decker affair. In addition this was during the beginning of the Sino- Soviet Split and the Chinese built it to show the Russians they could get along just fine without them. To celebrate the opening of the bridge Mao Zedong supposedly swam across the Yangtze River. From the looks of the water he may have been able to walk on it or maybe hop from boat to boat. The traffic on the river looked like a busy highway at rush hour. Our cabby was spectacular he drove at a snail’s pace so I could see everything and each time I glanced back at him he gave me the thumbs up sign. I still did not see a park but I now have learned that to get to it you take an elevator from the south bridge tower down to the park. Maybe next time I’m in Nanjing I’ll do my homework before I do my sight seeing. The cabby took us back over the bridge once again driving very slowly and then back to the hotel. The fare was 40 yuan and I gave him a fifty motioning to him to keep it. He refused and forced the change on me, so I gave him a postcard from Milwaukee and he was thrilled.
Our time in Nanjing has come to an end. We have really come to enjoy this city and our location in the downtown area. We found some really nice restaurants and very nice people. Directly behind the hotel was a market area, which contained stalls of every kind of fresh food you could imagine. We called it the scarey market. One morning Sammy took Fran in there and we took pictures of the people at work. When I asked to take the pictures one woman opened up the gutted fish so we could see the insides, another picked up her snake, and a man lifted the large bread like object off of the skillet all happy to oblige. At one restaurant we had so many wait staff helping us we did not know who to give the postcards to. The manager even walked us out giving us her e-mail address. Then there was the hotel staff. This was a five star hotel but the staff treated us like we were in their home. We never felt like they had to serve us or they were being put out with us, they were just friendly. We also got to meet in person my internet buddy Deng and his beautiful friend Chang Chang. A regret is that we were not able to meet up with them again later in the week. His horse is siting in our living room and I think of them each time I walk by. But the greatest happening in Nanjing was Elizabeth. This is the city in which she was welcomed into our family. During the short time we had her with us here in Nanjing she truly became ours and for this I will always remember Nanjing as a special place.
Nine sets of parents along with their new babies accompanied by the array of grandparents, brothers and sisters met in the lobby of the hotel. They were accompanied by their luggage, newly purchased strollers and baby items needed for the upcoming flight. Soon we would be boarding a bedlam bus and then a bedlam plane to Guangzhou.
