Nanjing Memorial Museum, Take 2

*Warning: This blog has some descriptions of violent acts of war, including rape. Reader Discretion is advised.

I'm still sick as a dog. I was hoping to sleep in (my blackout curtains were working, there was no construction,) but the strange man from the scooter store texted me "Good Morning! :)" at 8 am. He then adds on that he is a decorator from up north who sometimes comes down for work and that he would love to get me dinner sometime. There is a part of me that is so lonely I think I might take him up on it, but a bigger part of me that has gets the heebie jeebies from this guy.

I then get a text from Josie saying we are going to Nanjing in an hour. So I quickly take a shower, make some eggs that are somehow both runny and burnt and run out to her car.

When Josie drives me, she always keeps a bunch of stuff in her passengers seat so I sit in the back by myself. I bring my Nintendo Switch for the car ride and play video games the whole ride up. It reminds me of being a little kid on a forced family road trip, with my dad constantly telling me to put my games down and look out my window. The only difference is Josie doesn't try to talk to me at all, she just listens to sad Chinese ballads and takes phone calls.

We go to the visa department, but Josie forgot to bring copies of my passport and my college diploma even though I already gave them to her and we have the originals. I ask Josie if we can stop at a copy store, but she says she doesn't have the things we need for that either (I have no idea what this means.) Josie asks if there is anything I would like to do in Nanjing while we are there and I mention I wanted to see the Nanjing memorial. Josie face drops. She says, "Okay but I am scared."

Josie starts driving again. She's not a great driver, so I start to get a little carsick and have to put away my switch. I also start to get very hungry. To dull my physical discomfort, I look out my window (dad would be so proud.) It's pretty boring. There are a lot of dull colored tall buildings. The sky is grey. There are some topiary spread around the town, mostly of animals (ducks, squirrels, deer, etc) but nothing that impressive. You are gonna have to do better than that to win me over, Nanjing.

When we get to the memorial, Josie tells me to hope out of the car and tells me she will text me on WeChat. She then messages go on without me. I guess she is too scared, so I walk in.

The poem I misquoted earlier

As well as the giant statue of the mother holding her son, more horrific statues line the entrance to the museum, all done by (I assume) Wu Weissman (I think I forgot his name now, its right in the other post). There is a young boy carrying his dead grandmother, a man with no legs continuing to crawl forward, a priest stopping to close a young woman's eyes, and a baby crying on top of a pile of corpses. Each of these statues is accompanied with a traumatizing line form a poem or from a survivors testimony. Most of it is about escaping these devils. I haven't even entered the building and I am starting to feel strong emotions bubble up.

A man continues to carry his dead wife as he flees

There is a giant wall that says 300,000 victims in many different languages all over it. 300,000, Jesus Christ. I know it's probably not right to compare, but the holocaust had 6 million. So the holocaust was like 20 of these stacked on top of each other, and this is some of the most horrifying shit I have ever seen. Jesus Christ man, this is gonna be a tough one.

The first room of the museum is very dimly lit and filled with photos of those who had survived. I guess its partially so they don't just immediately through the really heavy stuff at you, but there is definitely a different weight in this room. The air feels heavier than it did outside.

The second room has some pins and war memorabilia as well as a wall explaining some of the history of the Japanese attacks on China and Nanjing. The official date of the fall of Nanjing is December 13th, 1937. That means, just 54 years after this horrible tragedy, I was born. That's maybe narcissistic of me, but it's hard to ignore a historical date when it's your birthday.

The next wall had an info graphic that showed the resources of Japan versus China. Even though china had about 20 times as many people, Japan had five times as much steel, four times as much airplanes, and twice as many guns. I don't remember all the specifics, but they had more guns, more bullets, and more money.

They then had a giant re-creation of a bombed zone. To be honest, this seemed a little expensive and tacky to me, but I went with it. They also had stuff found in the rubble (lockets, notes, etc.) and Japanese propaganda posters from the time.

Okay. here comes the heavy stuff. After the city feel, the Japanese soldiers began to walk through the streets, executing the men and raping the women. During this period, over 200,000 man were executed and over 150,000 women were raped. The had some testimonials of men who had survived, along with their pictures. One testimonial that stuck in my mind was of a man who was bayoneted in the neck three times before being thrown into an open grave with his neighbors. He was the only person at this site to survive.

There were then photos of mass grave burn sites and jars of soil that had been collected from those burn sites. There was also a large mass grave that had been transported to the museum. For the record, I think this is about where I started crying.

A Mass Grave from the Nanjing Massacre

The next section organized the executions of Chinese by type and were accompanied by some of the most grotesque photos I have ever seen. First there were all the men who were shot (including a photo of a three year old that had been shot 6 times, and a boy of 8 who was shot 14 times and fell face down into a puddle.) Then there were the stabbings (again, many involving children. One boy was stabbed 24 times and lived in a hospital for 6 days before finally dying.) Then the burning. Then those who were buried alive.

The Japanese would have killing contests to see who could kill the most Chinese. There were large posters advertising these contests that would often have cash prices, not to mention the gambling that went on between the Japanese soldiers themselves.

Then there was the raping. There were testimonies from women whose children were murdered in front of them while they were raped, pregnant women who were raped multiple times and miscarried, there was even a testimony from one 14 year old girl who had been rapped over 150 times by different men over the course of a few weeks.

The next room is filled with video screen interviewing elderly survivors. Many of the survivors, in there 80 and 90s, weep while recalling events from their young adult lives. One woman described watching a baby try to nurse from her dead mother.

The next section was all about foreign aid (aka white saviors) who stayed in Nanjing during the attacks. These men and women where mostly doctors, refugee organizers and reverends. All though these people did great things are deserve to be honored, the white guilt in me is made uncomfortable by this room. How many Chinese doctors, reverends and refugee organizers who also helped have been forgotten? And if a movie is made about this horrific event, what are the chances one of these people will be the lead? Am I too liberal? Should I just be able to honor these people for what they did? Yeah, probably. It just feels weird to see white allies after all that horrible death and rape.

The next section is all about the trials for war crimes after the events. Many of the men who were accused of war crimes committed suicide in prison and many of those convicted were hanged. I am very anti death penalty, but after reading about those killing competitions, it's hard not to think about the death of these monsters and think "good."

But I regret those thoughts. Even though the men who created this horrible war crime were monsters of the worst kind, I do no think they should have been killed. In the last room, there is a giant hologram of an old woman named Li Xiuyung. When she was 8 years old, she was stabbed three times and left in a ditch to die. In her adult life, she became an advocate and she had a quote on the wall which I found very powerful.

Remember history, but not with hatred

The next section was celebrating the new national Holiday, Nanjing Remembrance day, which was created by the President 5 years ago. As horrible as this sounds, the first thought that went through my head was, "Yay, I definitely don't have to work on my birthday."

Tired of all these travesties of war? This museum is ready for you. The next area is a cafe where you can sit and take a break for a bit before diving back in. As hungry as I was and as much as I could have used the break, I had to pee even more and there was, for some reason, no bathroom in the break area. So onward I pressed.

The next exhibit was a temporary exhibit that was entirely dedicated to a Danish cement maker who start a refugee camp in Nanjing during the bombings and then funded and started a hospital. Over the course of the war, he sheltered over 200,000 refugees in his multiple camps. The exhibit after this was a Chinese stamp collection. What relation this has to the Nanjing Massacre, I don't know.

I still hadn't found the bathroom yet so I pulled out my translator app, typed in where is the toilet, and showed it to the nearest attendant. I hated asking for the bathroom in a museum like this. It seemed disrespectful. But what seemed even more disrespectful was the bathroom it self. We have seen enough horrors for one day, the bathroom shouldn't look like a war zone too. I have been to a lot of museum bathrooms in China and this one was by far the worst. I was terrified I would get urine on my socks. Everything was sticky and reeked. I was really disappointed, I was really hoping this museum would have a really nice bathroom.

The next exhibit was a collection of photos from the war trial. It had a lot of portraits of lawyers and judges and testimony. Honestly, I think it would make a great book or documentary, but the exhibit was pretty boring. There was nothing to look at, it was like trying to read a giant picture book with people walking in front of the text constantly.

Statue of man beheaded while crawling

Then there was another even larger mass grave. I didn't take another photo because it seemed like the first one did enough damage, but you never really get used to seeing mass graves. This was followed by a memorial area where family member could leave flowers or gifts for those they lost. At the exit, there is a long hallway filled with candles where a disembodied voice reads the names of those we lost in the massacre.

And then you walk out into a little park with a man made lake called peace park. There are a bunch of trees that were planted called the peace trees and a giant statue called the peace statue. In general, I think preaching peace is good. It's hard to argue that fighting is better than not fighting, especially when people are committing war crimes. Maybe that's a controversial opinion, but I don't care. I've got the guts to say it.

This is the first museum I've been in that hasn't had a gift shop. I guess it makes sense, people don't necessarily want Nanjing Massacre Mugs but they sold tons of crap at Sun Yat's Mausoleum. I thought no gift shop was nice sentiment, but I would have happily walked through some tasteless bags if it meant a cleaner bathroom.

I texted Josie saying I got out of the museum but she doesn't respond so I start making the long walk back towards the entrance. The museum ends in the middle of nowhere and at the exit are tons of taxi drivers yelling at the tourists. They spot me instantly a begin to yell in my direction, but I just walk past them.

20 minutes later, she is parked all the way on the other side of the museum. I tell her it will take me 15 minutes to walk there and carry on my way. When I finally get there, I can't find Josie. I text her again, it turns out Josie did park and go inside the museum so I have to wait for her to come out. This dickwad just didn't want to see the museum with me! She wanted to do it alone! Mother Fucker, I'm sure we both had a better time that way but I would have parked with her and then we would have gotten out at the same time. So now I have to wait for her to finish. I walk to a nearby cafe and get a coffee and bread while I wait.

Bread with Scallion Floss

During the ride back home, Josie asked if I would like to play some American music. I played her "Tightrope" by Janelle Monae and she said "Is this rap?" As soon as the song was over, she switched back to her Chinese music. I think I should have played Joni Mitchell or The Beatles, maybe Josie would have liked that more. I would say next time, but I doubt Josie will ever let me DJ again.

I tried to cook myself dinner when I got home, but it seems like my stove had decided to suddenly stop working. So I decided to take my scooter out and find the one restaurant in Gaochun recommended on Trip Advisor. While I was waiting for my elevator, my neighbor came out of her apartment, saw me waiting, and went back inside.

It took me thirty minutes to get to where the restaurant was supposed to be (my bike's top speed is 30 km/hr) but the restaurant was nowhere to be found. I drove through the surrounding area, nothing. I couldn't find a god damn thing. So, after about 15 minutes, I drove back home and ordered in sushi. Again, because I am unable to give my exact address because that's not what's plugged into my phone already, I got a bunch of calls from the delivery guy yelling at me. At least he didn't leave this time. I came upstairs and ate my sushi while watching more stupid comedians in cars getting coffee. It was the worst sushi I've ever tasted. It made store bought Ralphs sushi look like a Michelin star restaurant. I could only eat half of them before I gave up, dumped the rest, and went to bed.

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