So my last post was about Madrid. And yeah, I'm totally still there! Being all... Spanish, and stuff!

Unfortunately no, so I figured an update was in order. We did go to the US after all. It was an odd time, to say the least. Physically it was relaxing, which of course was needed after walking nonstop every day for 3 weeks. Emotionally it was exhausting. The final day of our trip I had learned my last grandparent had passed away. While not unexpected, it it put everything in a very different light. So our first stop of the US was a funeral, which was book-ended but another unfortunate turn of events - dad caught COVID, amazingly for the first time (no worries, he's fine now). So after warning everyone, the funeral was much smaller than planned. For the rest of our visit, we had to socially distance. Anywho I'm going to take the next paragraph to talk about my thoughts of, well, death, so if that's not something you want to see (which I totally understand), just skip down one:

I guess the privilege of being young is that death isn't something you usually have to experience. I was lucky enough to have one surviving great grandma when I was a kid. She died when I was maybe 7 or so? At least old enough that I understood what was happening, and yes, it was sad. But in my naive mind, this was a very unusual and isolated incident - I mean c'mon, being an adult might as well be a million years away, and being older a million more. Then of course as you get older, it becomes more common. First it was acquaintances, and friends of friends. But since starting my not-US journey, I've unfortunately now lost all four grandparents, a friend, and now, days before writing this, an aunt as well. And of course I knew these things would happen eventually, although not so much the latter two. I think it's cliche to say it's not something you ever get used to, and I'm not sure I agree. It is and it isn't. Even just by looking at my writing from earlier, I could tell that I moved from "I don't know what to do" to "This is awful" to "Oh no, not again.". So I think the hurt is the same, but you also get better at dealing with it. I know as I get older it is going to become increasingly more common, so I guess you're forced to get better at it. But if I can be a bit reductionist, saying goodbye to people makes it easier to say hello to others. It reinforces the idea that life can be fleeting, and that we should try our best to appreciate the relationships that we make.

Anyway, let's try to move on to happier things. Despite the cloud hanging over the US trip, I did get to see some great friends as well as visit Goettafest. I think every time we've been to the US, Goettafest has been at the same time, so it's sort of becoming an expected tradition. At the very least, I think Ella can say she's one of the few, or maybe only, person from China to visit Goettafest or even know what in the world goetta is. But we did return to Shanghai after all, unfortunately as the new semester was starting. And when I think about the situation I was in one year ago, working while simultaneously doing the thing-that-shall-not-be-named, I am so incredibly grateful I don't have to do that. To top it off my kids this year are better than last year. Still, I felt that doing the same thing for 3 years was maybe getting to me, so I came up with a solution this year - there's a supply closet that is opened maybe 5 times a year. I set up a table and chair in there, and now it's my quiet refuge. I like to sneak in there once a day for 30 minutes or so, just to enjoy the silence while I browse Reddit. It kind of reminds me of the year or so I lived in Taipei, which was the only length of time I had where I was actually alone. I think most of my life I run on autopilot, so having some time to yourself really helps to figure out yourself. Or maybe as I age, it is just something that you learn to appreciate more. I actually spent one Saturday traveling around Shanghai by myself, to visit silly places in the city I've always meant to go to, but were too far out of the way and Ella was uninterested in. For example, there's a mall with a slide that goes from the 5th floor to the 1st. Or, the random giant robots. I don't know why Shanghai has life-sized Evas and Gundams, but they're cool photos anyway.

But we did get some other travel in, to the far off land of Nanjing. I've been there twice before, the first time way back in 2012. My first impression of Nanjing was actually not so great. I got scammed, and overall I just did not like the city. I did "like" the museum talking about the Japanese occupation of Nanjing during WWII, although "impactful" is a much better word. My 2nd impression of Nanjing was better, but I thought it was a little dull - granted this was during Chinese New Year, so that's a bit expected as all the cities become ghost towns. This time I don't know if it's because we went to different places, or because we were with friends, OR Nanjing has changed, because this 3rd trip was a lot better. I'd actually even say I like Nanjing, more than many other cities in China. The people were very polite, the things we saw were interesting, and overall it was just a better experience.

 

 

I joke that Nanjing is a "far off land", but in reality there is a new (or at least new to me) direct high speed train from Shanghai which cuts the journey down to an hour. It's nearly 200 miles from Shanghai, so you do the math - that train is going pretty quick. At the very least it's in "weekend trip" territory, so that's what we did. I left straight to the train station after work, and we came back Sunday afternoon. After checking in, our first stop was to get the local specialty for dinner - Duck Blood Noodles. Yes, it is what it is. Blood is actually a somewhat common ingredient in Asian food, kind of like a block of tofu. I like it just as much as I like tofu, which is to say not at all. But of course I did give it a taste, and it gets a solid "meh" from me. But the other food in Nanjing was pretty great. Their bao, or at least the ones we found, were really good. In fact, we got some to take home. Ella is a big fan of mei gan cai dumplings, which are preserved mustard greens. To be honest, mei gan cai is also one of my favorite Chinese foods, so I had no problem eating those for breakfast. We also visited a German and a Thai restaurant, so it was quite the culinary tour.

But for other stuff in Nanjing, our first night there we took a boat ride down the canal. Nanjing is surrounded by a very large and lengthy city wall, which itself is surrounded by a canal. They do a good job of keeping everything very clean and interesting, with some neat lights projected onto the side of it and some things to see when going under the bridges. At about $12 a person for a 30 minute ride, I'd say it was a pretty fair price, and a nice way to get a "feel" for Nanjing. But the next day proper we went to see a few museums. The first was the city museum, which was nice enough I suppose. There wasn't anything that really "jumped" out at me, I guess because it was pretty much like any Chinese city/provincial museum - namely pottery, which I am incredibly tired of. But each of the exhibits were separate buildings in a park/temple complex, so it had a nice, chill vibe moreso than other museums. Speaking of, we also went to a park with a small museum for Zheng He. You may have not heard of Zheng He before, but he was a pretty big deal - for one, he was once the leader of Nanjing, and is buried there. His big claim to fame though, is that he was the Chinese version of Columbus, being good at exploration but without being a trash person. He traveled all the way to The Middle East and Africa, even bringing back a giraffe - which people thought was a qilin (kirin), a mythological creature. Funny to imagine that first impression.

The other museum of note was the Taiping Rebellion Museum, which, I gotta say, more people should be familiar with this, because it's basically Chinese Game of Thrones. So, strap in for this doozy: It's 1850. Qing Dynasty (the last dynasty in China before the Republic, AKA Taiwan's current government). This guy named Hong Xiuquan is trying to pass the Civil Service Exam, having failed 3 times. He's in a bad mental place, so he has a dream about visiting heaven. In heaven, god tells him that he is part of his family, and that he alone can lead everyone to make the world a better place. He originally thinks "Wow, dreams are crazy. Well, let's give that exam a 4th try." But fast forward to later, and a traveling Christian missionary gives him some pamphlets about Jesus. Hong says "Holup. This Jesus guy is the one from my dreams. He must be my brother, so I will start a revolution." Then he goes to get baptized, to have the legitimacy as the "Ruler of Heaven." The priest is like "Uhh, you seem to be not 'getting' this baptism thing" and outright refuses. Hong decides "Who needs baptism when you're already Jesus's brother?", and starts his revolution anyway.

Fast forward 15 years, and 20 million plus people are dead - an entire World War I of casualties, in only one part of China. Nanjing, being the capital, was the last significant place to fall. Understandably, the Qing government was not happy with Hong. So, what do you do with people you are angry with? First you cremate them, and then blast them out of a cannon to make sure there is no resting place.

And that's really just the tip of the iceberg. There's a lot different stuff with this person betraying that person, or Hong dying because of bad vegetables. Or poisoning. Regardless, there's no way I can compete with a bonkers story like that, so I'll stop here. Usually my rule is "If I complain, you get pictures of cats", but we found so many cats in Nanjing, they seem to be half my camera roll. So instead, I'll just end with that.