We are currently in the middle of a heat wave here in Suzhou. In the UK this would be something to celebrate but here its just sticky. Imagine only being allowed on a London tube during said heat wave and you're getting there. When the temperature never dips below mid-20s writing something witty and meaningful isn't necessarily top of my agenda, stopping from overheating would take that spot, but I persevere.
Experiencing Suzhou's heat is a mild introduction to what we can expect as we head south during June and July. Guangzhou, where we're heading towards, is known as one of the Seven Furnaces (七大火炉) of China because of its unforgiving summers. At the moment while Suzhou is 31° and feels 33°, Guangzhou is 33° but feels like 45°. Yuck. This is because of the high humidity, it makes everything horrible and sticky and basically is like sitting in a sauna. Its the one thing I'm not looking forward to on our travels.
We went to one of the other Seven Furnaces, Nanjing, over the weekend and it was then that it hit me how hot it was going to feel down south. Before then I'd known it was going to get sweaty but didn't really understand how sweaty it really would get.
Our trip to Nanjing was an impromptu one, decided on the day before, so I didn't really know much about the city. It was one of the cities on our post-teaching itinerary but mainly because it was near us and we'd actually heard of it. We'd also been told by a friend that the Nanjing Massacre Museum was "the best museum" he'd ever been to. Pretty big claim, so worth checking out. We tagged along with some of our British Council friends who were going for a farewell blow-out to one of the Nanjing British Council teachers and went with high hopes of a big night out followed by a day of serious touristing.
Our trip to Nanjing was an impromptu one, decided on the day before, so I didn't really know much about the city. It was one of the cities on our post-teaching itinerary but mainly because it was near us and we'd actually heard of it. We'd also been told by a friend that the Nanjing Massacre Museum was "the best museum" he'd ever been to. Pretty big claim, so worth checking out. We tagged along with some of our British Council friends who were going for a farewell blow-out to one of the Nanjing British Council teachers and went with high hopes of a big night out followed by a day of serious touristing.
Stepping off the train the heat hit us like opening a sauna door, so very humid. The night out was fun, sleeping in a room without aircon was less so, and we woke up at a vaguely reasonable time to hit the Massacre museum. I didn't really know very much about the Nanjing Massacre except that it was a rape and pillage style attack on the region by the Japanese. The museum was full to the brim of horrific stories and artefacts from the era, the number 300,000 was everywhere (the death toll) and the exhibition was dimmed throughout with creepy atmospheric music to add to the experience. There was more information in there than anyone could read in one visit but we still managed to spend a couple hours browsing the exhibition.
We came out of the museum educated about the horrible things that have happened to China at the hands of Japan (in the form of an entirely one sided propaganda machine), but really our main comment was how the museum sorely lacked aircon. Testament to how the heat trumps every other thought and feeling.
We came out of the museum educated about the horrible things that have happened to China at the hands of Japan (in the form of an entirely one sided propaganda machine), but really our main comment was how the museum sorely lacked aircon. Testament to how the heat trumps every other thought and feeling.
I'm glad we went to Nanjing, but its not a place I'd be rushing back to. For now there's plenty of things to keep us occupied in Suzhou until we embark on our travels. This weekend is a big one so to speak. Sunday is Children's Day, which will be celebrated at school on Friday afternoon, and Monday is the Dragon Boat festival (long weekend, yay). Both are festivals that we don't really do and ones I'm interested in seeing what they involve.
Children's Day seems to be a celebration of the children of China, they don't really do Mothers Day but Children's Day? Sure! From what I can tell it's sort of a day for children to get spoilt, a bit like Christmas. At my school each class is putting on a show and then they all get sweets and presents. Not a bad deal for the kids.
Dragon Boat festival (or 端午节 Duānwǔ Jié as those in the know call it) is more traditional and 'chinese'. It's a commemoration of the death of the famous Chinese poet Qu Yuan, who committed suicide in a river after falling out of favour with an emperor. Legend says that the villagers, fearing that the fish would eat his body threw rice into the river so they wouldn't be hungry and rowed boats across the water so the splashing oars would scare the fish away. And from that Dragon Boat festival was born!
The day is celebrated with Dragon Boat races and by eating rice dumplings wrapped in bamboo leaves. We have friends who are participating in a Dragon Boat race in Suzhou so are going to go cheer them on, and probably laugh as they struggle to move let alone place in the competition. Most teams train for years, ours have never been in a dragonboat, what could go wrong?
Children's Day seems to be a celebration of the children of China, they don't really do Mothers Day but Children's Day? Sure! From what I can tell it's sort of a day for children to get spoilt, a bit like Christmas. At my school each class is putting on a show and then they all get sweets and presents. Not a bad deal for the kids.
Dragon Boat festival (or 端午节 Duānwǔ Jié as those in the know call it) is more traditional and 'chinese'. It's a commemoration of the death of the famous Chinese poet Qu Yuan, who committed suicide in a river after falling out of favour with an emperor. Legend says that the villagers, fearing that the fish would eat his body threw rice into the river so they wouldn't be hungry and rowed boats across the water so the splashing oars would scare the fish away. And from that Dragon Boat festival was born!
The day is celebrated with Dragon Boat races and by eating rice dumplings wrapped in bamboo leaves. We have friends who are participating in a Dragon Boat race in Suzhou so are going to go cheer them on, and probably laugh as they struggle to move let alone place in the competition. Most teams train for years, ours have never been in a dragonboat, what could go wrong?
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