Apart from the Purple Mountain, the other things I wanted to do was to catch up with some old Chinese and foreign friends in Nanjing before I leave China.
Bamboo Garden is very close to Nanjing South Station and as I arrived there I remebered the time when I went to see it being built and marvelled at the size of the place, unfinished as it was. It was Feb 2011 and I doubted whether, then, that it would be completed on time. But it was. Workers worked around the clock and through Chinese New Year to keep it on track. What they ended up with was a massive station with four ticket offices, 30+ platforms and the ability to efficiently process 80 million passengers a year.
They say that you only see a place properly when you leave and return and see it again with fresh eyes. There were a few things which I had forgotten about which mark the difference between Nanjing and Shanghai. One of them is the propensity to wear your clothes on your head.
If you leave the house without an umbrella to shade you from the burning sun, there is no option but to lift your coat onto your head. Still makes me smile.
Another thing which is different from Shanghai is that people are very friendly, they are keen to talk to you and ask you for photogrpahs with themselves or with their children. I had four requests between Ikea and the metro station. But I don’t mind, it costs nothing after all. Nanjingers are also very tolerant when you ask for photos too. The saxophonist and the girl in traditional costume on the metro, and the policeman in FuZiMiao, were all happy for me to take their photo. You don’t get that so much in Shanghai, certainly not from the police.
As I was fighting through the crowds at the Confucius Temple (Fuzimiao) I was reminded of another very strange and not altogether pleasant habit of Naningers, and that’s to have a strangers dig out the wax from your ears.
I came across a roadside shop where there were 4 or 5 people in chairs with attendants using a torch and a long metal scraping tool to carry out de-waxing. I used ot see it on the bridge near at Guanghua Men and had forgotten about it until I saw it again.
I wonder what it is about Nanjingers, why they have more earwax than other Chinese. Or maybe they don’t but maybe they’ve just turned this preening activity into a spetator sport. It’s true that Chinese need and expect very little privacy and do in public, what we in the west, would do in private.
Getting dressed up in Cosplay on public holidays is another habit which I had forgotten and on the Purple Mountain, on the metro and on the street of the city centre there were lots of girls in what looks like fnacy dress costumes. It’s all very strange.
It’s true that Nanjing is a strange place, and I loved living there for so long. It’s a fine city well worth a visit or as a place to work.