I got directions for the Nanking Memorial Memorial. Most of the girls wanted to take the taxi, but I really wanted to get a taste of the local Nanjing transportation. Plus I can be a cheap skate. Lisa was my local transportation buddy as others took the easy way out. (cough* taxi)
Lisa and I clung for our lives as the rickety bus hit every bump and pot hole. I forgot to mention we had street kebabs clutched in our hands.
For an odd reason I felt that I needed to pay respect those who perished.
The front of the museum has a black marble wall and white stones covering the area. The number is printed in bold, the word victim translated into several languages, but the death toll number is universal.
The graves were somber. To make it worse speakers broadcasting these bone chilling, melancholy soundtrack. Like a woman wailing, as if she's chanting everyone's screams and suffering. Lisa pointed out (made me aware) of how charged the museum's attitude was. I came to understand that the Chinese has put a lot of anger underlying the tone. The place bore resentment, hatred, anger, pain, suffering and scars. Hence the description of the massacre. "The Rape of Nanjing."
The names of who died.
Though the Japanese gov are reluctant to acknowledge of a genocide, many Japanese citizens have expressed solidarity and deepest regret for this tragedy. Many school children sent threads of paper cranes to the memorial. It's a start :-D ['Dre and Merrin]
Everyone began to grow weary as we saw the depressing poems, the graphic descriptions and the skeletons of the thousands that were slaughtered. it didn't help that more creepy music played in the background. "how could they get away with this?" "how did they not apologize?" My friends wondered.
By the end of our tour, the museum designed the conclusion on a hopeful note. When you leave the candlelit vigil you enter a giant garden of peace with Lady Justice or Liberty with a child in her arms about to send a white dove into the air.
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