I was glad we got to the mausoleum early because when we came out after paying our respect to Dr. Sun, there were several large groups of people waiting – either to enter the mausoleum or waiting for other group members to join. While my mom’s cousins went to the restroom, we seized the chance to get a few more photos. However, as I was trying to focus my DSLR, old men and women kept walking into my shots, as if they weren’t seeing me at all, and then an old man just stood there, his back inches from my camera, looking at his phone.
“Excuse me, mister” I said politely in English before switching to Mandarin, “I’m taking a picture here, can you move please?” He didn’t budge but my mom pulled me away before I could further react.
“Don’t piss them off,” she said, “everyone’s a pending volcano, one word and they can kill you.”
This is crazy, I thought. Is this why people are so reckless here? In the 3 days I’ve been in Nanjing, I’ve noticed people are always in a hurry. Even in a taxi, the drivers were weaving in and out of city traffic as if in a car chase.
A pending volcano, that seems like a good description.
Several more old men walked into the frame as my mom and I were taking each other’s pictures before we finally frustratingly gave up and decided to go find a place sit and rest for a few minutes. This kind of thing would happen several more times before the trip would move to Suzhou. That’s when people seem to be more mindful and not walk into other people’s shot. Another thing I noticed in Nanjing is that people like to step in front of people, not sure if that’s a tourist thing or a Nanjing sort of thing.
After descending the stairs, we visited the museum that told the story of Dr. Sun’s life and legacy. I couldn’t read some of it as the text has not been translated to English. This would also be a frequent occurrence as we visited the varieties of museums throughout this regions of China, either that or it’s translated so badly that I couldn’t comprehend the text. From what I could read though, the history perspective felt skewed, which made me felt a tad disappointed.
Continuing on the forested path we entered from, we reached Meiling Palace. Along the way, I spotted a lot of people standing in the middle of the road, most were girls, posing for their selfie-sticks. What a mad world we live in? I thought, where youngsters are coming to a historically-important place such as this, not for the historical value of the place but for the social media value.
They were taking pictures with the well-manicured trees in the background, nothing else.
In Meiling Palace, we couldn’t see much of any of the room as every room had a crowd gathered in the viewing area. The rooms I got to see, though, looked strangely familiar, as if I’ve seen it before. I asked my mom where I’ve seen this before and she said, “Of course, you’ve seen this before, in Taiwan when we visited Meiling’s house.”
