Impressions from the Southern Capital 南京: Playing Hooky at Purple Mountain

We made it to Purple Mountain.

Brad and I spend hours every week teaching and even more time preparing. Sometimes it feels like aren’t really seeing the amazing city we live in. So we’ve decided that Friday is our day to play hooky. Neither of us teach on Fridays, so we’ve started visiting some of sights in Nanjing.

One of my favorites is Purple Mountain. It’s only about six metro stops away, but all of a sudden we found ourselves in a huge park (4800 acres), and, yes, there is a mountain. Supposedly it got the name “purple” because its peaks are often found enveloped in mysterious purple and golden clouds at dawn and dusk. I didn’t see any purple envelops, but I’ll go with it.

Climbing the 392 steps to Sun Yat-sen's Mausoleum.

The area is home to many historical sites, but we chose to focus on a couple and leave more for another visit. We rode a tram from metro stop up to the base of the Sun Yat-sen Mausoleum, and began our climb. Sun Yat-sen was a Chinese revolutionary and the first president and founding father of the Republic of China in the early 20^th century. He helped overthrow the Qing dynasty and was a uniting figure in post-imperial China (thank you Wikipedia!). He’s considered the father of modern China. What’s interesting about him is that he is equally revered in both main land China and Taiwan.

We walked up the mountain for a while, and then started climbing the 392 stairs leading to the actual tomb. It’s considered quite a sacred place, and no pictures were allowed in the actual sanctuary. The climb was well worth it for the view alone. It was a beautiful day, and the vista was beautiful. And then we walked back down!

Brad and the Ming Xiaoling Tomb.

Another part of park we wanted to see was the Ming Xiaoling Mausoleum. This tomb dates back to 1381 and was built for Hongwu Emperor, the found of the Ming Dynasty. We walked to the mausoleum, but my favorite part of the site is the Spirit Way or Sacred Way (Shendoa). At Purple Mountain it’s also called the Elephant Road. Spirit ways are found throughout China as ornate roads leading to tombs of major dignitaries. The one leading to the Ming Xiaoling tomb is lined with huge statues of animals – camels, elephants, lions, horses, qilin (Chinese unicorn), and xiehi ("righteous beast, which rams the wrong party when it sees a fight, and bites the wrong party when it hears an argument") – all guarding the entrance. Four pairs of ministers and generals (or warrior guardian figures, wengzhong) of stone have been standing there for centuries to guard the journey to the after life. I had seen pictures of the Spirit Way before coming to Nanjing, and it definitely lived up to my expectations.

We’ll be playing hooky more often!