City Sights

Spent the weekend getting familiar with the bus and subway lines going to and from some of the historical sites. On Saturday, my new roomie, Paul, and I went to the Nanjing Massacre Museum. This museum was dedicated to the memory of over 300,000 Chinese who were massacred by Japanese soldiers during WWII.  About half of those killed were women and children. The images and story of the massacre were utterly depressing, to say the least. However, I was very appreciative of the overall message and theme throughout the museum: this tragic piece of history must be remembered and always associated with the horrors of war, so that our future is focused on working towards the unifying power of peace.

We left the museum and saw another, different museum right across the street. This was an unexpected stop, but it was still afternoon and not much else on the agenda for the day, so we went in. Turns out, this museum was for silk brocade. Apparently, my new city is famous for the production of these silk brocades and has been famous for several centuries. There were many lovely displays of the fabric in different stages of development. At the end of the museum, there was a large room where real, giant looms were set up and in full operation, which is a two-person job. It was impressive to see the two artisans at work: one seated in a chair, bent over the fabric, continually making adjustments, the other seated on top of the machine, about ten feet in the air to feed the fabric. The entire machine was about thirty feet long; it was a beast of a wooden machine!

Unfortunately, neither museum allowed photographs inside. This was appropriate and should be the rule for the massacre museum, out of respect for the dead and tragic history. But I would have loved some photos and video of the looms in production!