Residue of Tragedy

Nanjing from the thirty-third floor.  I pulled in here late last night in the wee hours of the morning.  Up before the dawn and I’ve time to watch this city materialize.  There is the requisite taller-than-thou skyscraper a few blocks down the road.  Every city in China over a certain size and GDP must have been approved for one.  Most of the Nanjing before my eyes though is soldiering through with the rough constructions thrown up quickly in the late eighties.  Looking down in detail it makes me feel nostalgic.  I haven’t really been here in twenty-two years. 

I’m up early enough and follow through on my determination to visit the gym.  Down to the requisite floor, through a strange doorway, and out into a hallway that is nearly one hundred yards long.  What are they thinking?  There are window on either side and I can look out to Purple Mountain and into the dormitory style housing, which abuts on either side.  Up ahead there is another tower.  The Westin must have facilities in both buildings and part of my exercise routine is simply getting to the gym.  No one is there in the enormous glass room with it’s state of the art equipment.  I have nothing to interrupt my broad view of the city for the next twenty minutes.

Breakfast then, with colleagues in the lounge.  There is a remarkable corner perch we pounced upon when it freed up that looks down over the Xuanwu lake with its arched bridges and islands and duck boats.  Both my colleagues are here for the first time.  “Where are the city walls?”  “There, you see?  Running along that side.”  The rain makes it all seem romantic and tragic.  Nanjing always has this residue of tragedy, the bloody end of the Taipings, the bloody arrival of the Japanese.

So we drive around the city to two or three meetings in the rain.  We burrow under a jammed up tunnel.  Later we cut through another.  I ask our partner “why so many tunnels?”  He suggests it was done out of consideration for preserving the city.  Great to hear. Thoughts turn to Beijing where the city walls were destroyed and the chaotic entrance/exits of the second ring road that replaced it.  What would Beijing be like with tunnels under town, to cut through the gridlock? 

An enormous lunch of typical Huaiyang food is provided.  Dishes keep piling on but I have my eyes on the shizi tou (“lion’s head” aka massive meat ball).  Its light and flavorful and the more I enjoy it the more I realize how fatty the meat really is.  It’s delicious but I’m certain it isn’t very good for me.  My host asks if we want to drink baijiu, but fortunately one refusal suffices to dissuade them.   Sometimes its good to be in the south.  All this rain is refreshing.