Saturday, October 13, 2012

From Beijing to Zhuhai

So I left Beijing on Friday Sept. 21st and drove south towards Jinan which is about 430 km toll road. Traffic was moderate with a few accident caused back-ups but otherwise ok. I had intended to visit one of China's holiest places the Taishan Mountain but since the weather was very hazy and basically no view I skipped it as climbing to 1545m for hours and not being able to enjoy the view was not to my taste.

Therefore I continued a few kms more to Qufu which is the birthplace of Confucius and also the place he died and he and his descendents are buried. As he lived from 551BC 479 BC and there are so far 80 generations the burial ground is huge as are the descendents are numerous (about 3 mio according to Wikipedia) . About 50% of the population of Qufu with the last name of Kong claims to be related.

I found a nice place in a quiet side road to stay and went sightseeing the next morning. Huge hoards of Chinese tourists with guides with amplifiers and loudspeakers mad the exercise somewhat stressful. The Confucius mansion is quite large and was inhabited by family members until 1940 when the then last descendant fled to Taiwain during the Japanese invasion. For those interested in more detail here is the link:   

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confucius

The visit to the cemetery was more quiet but impressive because of its size. Sadly the Cultural Revolution did not spare the site but much seems to have been put right again.

I went on to Nanjing which I wanted to visit as I wanted to know the city where the Nanjing massacre was committed by the Japanese in 1937/8 one of the worst war crimes of WW II. I have read the diary of John Rabe the Siemens representative who at that time established a 'safety zone' thereby saving about 200000 people from being murdered.
For those interested in more detail… :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanking_Massacre

I also visited the memorial which was erected at the place of one of the mass graves and contains an highly detailed but gruesome documentation center/museum and John Rabe's house where he protected some 600 refugees personally and which was restored a few years ago with the partial sponsorship of Siemens China. Unfortunately the museum was closed due to major rebuilding but the former presidential palace kept me busy as it is practically a memorial to Dr. Sun Yat-sen the political/revolutional hero both Chinas honor. I was impressed by the balanced comments of the museum about all events involving the Kuomintang Chiang Kai Shek's.

The next station was Shanghai where I arrived on Monday and left Saturday afternoon. There I was invited by the Consul General Michael Heinz and his wife Mirka to stay at their residence which, of course was extremely comfortable and nice. From there I used my e-bike to tour that wonderful city. It wasn't my first time there but Shanghai changed (again) so much that I couldn't remember much from about 13 years ago except the Bund. I spent significant time just driving around and enjoying the various remainders of the European architecture but also visited Dr. Sun's former residence and that of his wife Soong Ching Ling in which she lived during Communist time. Unfortunately taking photos was forbidden for reasons unknown. This happens in many museums although no artifacts but only copies of documents are shown. Soong Ching Lin was somewhat like a Chinese 'Evita Peron' except that she lived until her eighties and was for a while Head of State of the PRC. While visiting the museum though I kept asking myself what her real position towards the actions of the communist leadership between the 'Great Leap Forward' and 'Cultural Revolution' must have been…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soong_Ching-ling

Her house, that she got assigned from the party and that still today is in one of the nicest areas of Shanghai, was very comfortable but she mostly lived and died in Beijing. For me interesting was her garage which contained one car given to her by Mr. Stalin and another state limousine produced in China.

One excursion took me to Suzhou which is famous for its gardens but also has a for me very interesting silk museum and the tallest Chinese pagoda south of the Yangzi which would offer quite spectacular views if there weren't so much pollution…

Saturday noon I had a little operation to take out a little tumor from my left arm after which I left Shanghai with target of Tongli near Suzhou which I missed on my first trip. Tongli is charming little town with a canal system and a lot of old building substance that miraculously survived and now is a tourist attraction. As I arrived late in the day most of the mob had left and it was quite enjoyable.

As it was not far I continued to Hangzhou, which is a town famous for its lake and scenery and rightfully so. I found a wonderful place in a side street not far from the lake which I surrounded starting at 8. There was already quite some 'competition' out but when I returned about 3 hours later it looked like 'Getreidegasse' in Salzburg on a cloudy day in summer when all tourist descend on the city.  Hangzhou's main attraction is its lake, the burial place and temple of one of China's most famous generals and a huge pagoda on a hill next to the lake which provides lovely views over the city. The pagoda is a replica the original having suffered from normal and 'Cultural Revolution' decay. Now escalators and lifts make the ascend easy… 

By 11am I was on my way again, this time the target  was Fuzhou where my hosts from Beijing were waiting to introduce me to Stephen Lau's mother and sister. As it was about a 600km drive it took me till about 9 pm to get there. The next morning Stephen and Fangfei showed me the town which has maintained quite some Ming Period mansions. A second night followed and late the next morning we all left, my hosts for the north and I for the South my next major target being Xiamen which I reached in the early evening and met Harriet Hu. Her Boss Mr. Reichel had left a day earlier for Germany as during the first week in October everything in China shuts one week for the Autumn Festival. We had a nice dinner but I disappointed her by not wanting to stay in Xiamen for lack of time reasons and as I had been there 3 years ago and had seen most of its sights. I spent the night in a side street and left in the morning for Zhuhai.

As the distance there is over 600 kms I had to stop at a place called Shangwei where I found a place near the sea and close to a temple. Early in the morning I quickly looked at the temple which was quite attractive. It was at the bottom of a hill the top of which sported a huge statue of a female Buddhist deity the name of whom escaped me.

Via Shenzhen where I stopped briefly for lunch and was impressed by its development as I didn't recognize anything from my last visit about 10 years ago I continued to Zhuhai. There I fought with the imprecision of Chinese addresses. It took me 1 1/2 hours until my GPS was able to find my hotel! Maybe I should change to a male voice as women are notorious for a bad sense of orientation? Susanne Zhang thankfully had arranged everything and so I spent 4 nights in a nice hotel for a change.

Zhuhai was full of social activities, grill evenings at Susanne's lovely house about 20 kms outside the city where I met Christian, a Viennese and professor at the local university and another one at one of her friends married to a charming Italian (here again the lack of proper address made finding the house a challenge). My attempts to solve my gas problem remained unsuccessful despite the support of our local staff.

The town is rather clean compared to other cities, has a lot of green and wide roads with relatively few traffic jams but, like Shenzhen, is part of the Special Economic Zone program and therefore has basically only about 30 years of history. The history bit is next door in Macao which is in walking distance from the center.

On Sunday I got up early and took the first ferry to Hong Kong to meet Edmond and his wife for lunch and stroll around a bit. We ended up being invited for a delicious lunch by Stephen Lau in his hotel together with his older son. At 4 I was picked up by Stephen Wong and his wife Rita who used to be head of the Hong Kong Trade Development Council in Berlin and who I met several times in Vienna. He now is Principal Government Counsel Secretary of the HK Law Reform Commission and took me to his new residence right next to the Peak cable car. The views were spectacular and the food excellent… I also met a friend of his with his wife who is a Kung Fu master in Vienna.

So on Monday Oct 8th I left Zhuhai for Guangzhou and now, on Saturday I arrived in Guiyang. But this is for the next sequel of my blog as it is midnight and I am tired… Also with the pictures you will have to be patient as it is really difficult to do from China due to their internet restrictions…

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