Up until this year in China, 'May Day' was celebrated as a 7 day holiday, but because of all the transport hassles associated with this and other 'golden weeks' in China, this holiday has been altered. To make up for this loss of a week's holiday, some 'older' festivals have been elevated to 'public holiday' status. One of these in the 'Qingming' festival, which you can read about on the Taiwan Government Site.
Qing Ming, means clear and bright in Chinese. It is both the fifth term in the traditional lunar calendar and a festival to hold memorial ceremony for the dead.
This year the ceremony fell on a Friday. On the Thursday I only had two classes. Because I was free from Thursday at 9:40am until Monday morning I decided to treat myself to a long long weekend and do some travelling.Having made some prior arrangements with Ming Xing who is studying in Chengdu, we met up on April 3rd in Nanjing.
Just that meeting is a story in itself as both of us spent 2 hours walking round and round in circles at the Nanjing Railway station completely missing seeing the other. Anyway, once we got underway, we had a great time visiting Sun Yat-sen's Mausoleum Park. We also visited the Presidential Palace from which Chiang Kai-shek governed China.
Chiang KaiShek - Vicious man He saw me take his photo and then he began to demand money from those Chinese nearby who were also taking his photograph. I ran away.
My school has a tradition. Every year the foreign teachers are treated to a sightseeing weekend. By sheer coincidence, on April 12th, the week after I had been to Nanjing, they took us to Ningbo City. Within the city's environs are to be found the hometown village of Chiang Kai-shek's family, The WenChang Pavillion in which Chiang Kai-Shek and his wife Song Meiling lived for some time. Additionally at 'Xikou' Village, one can climb the endless steps up the mountain and see where Chiang Kai-Shek's mother is buried. (In China, important people are always buried on a hill).
Women at Xikou washing clothes in the River
Between these two trips I learned a lot of history, and I hope in the coming month or so to present to you numerous photographic articles on the various points of interest upon which I stumbled in my two journeys. For Instance:
Sun Yat-sen's Mausoleum Park
The Nanjing Ming Tombs and the remnants of the Imperial Palace of the Ming Dynasty
The Presidential Palace and Chiang Kai-Shek's Offices
Photographs related to the Taiping Rebellion and it's 'Heavenly King'
Chiang Kai-Shek's hometown and family history.
Chiang Kaishek was much more docile in his old age.
For today however, all I am presenting are some few photographs in Ningbo, and especially of the Cathedral of the Assumption. Some of the photos were taken during an evening stroll. The night time shots are courtesy of Miss Naoko Uehara who was kind enough to send me these photos because at the time I did not have my camera with me.
We had ended a long day in a restaurant, after which, Naoko wanted to go for a stroll. This is Japanese English for 'Window Shopping'. Whilst Naoko, Mr. Hamano, Myself, and Tan Teng (the Chinese Student who does the Japanese/Chinese translating) went into town, the rest of our party went for a good nights sleep.
It was quite an interesting night from two perspectives. The first was that everyone keep looking at me and saying 'Foreigner' in Chinese. This made me laugh since our party of 4 had only one Chinese person in it. The second interesting perspective, was watching Chinese mouths drop open when they heard all these people speaking Japanese.
Crazy guy on left and Naoko on the Right - Tower in background
Oh! You didn't know I could speak Japanese? I can say - 'Delicious!' 'Beautiful' - 'Coooooool' - 'Good morning' - 'thank you' and - 'would you like another beer?' My fascination with Japan started when I was young. I learned Karate, Judo, Jujitsu, and several other Japanese words like 'Sayonara and Nihon' at an early age. I even had a Japanese Pen Friend, not to mention Japanese Family in the form of a Great Aunt.
So there we were walking around window shopping, with me constantly trying not to speak English and constantly looking for an opportunity to say something in Japanese. As soon as a Chinese person got near enough to have a good look at me I would say in Japanese: "Naoko. Is that Beautiful?' - 'Mr. Hamano. Is that cool?'.
Eventually, we came across the Catholic Cathedral of the Assumption. We went up the stairs to the entrance to take a look - and lo and behold, it was a real church. Being as how I was the only white face in the crowd, the Chinese attendants jumped on me, baptised me, confirmed me and handed me the brochure with all the church services times listed on it. They wanted to know if I was Catholic or Christian. Usually I just tell people I am a Muslim, and it makes them think twice. This time I said something that I regretted. Ha! I'm not telling you what I said!
At any rate, in ending this little snippet of my trips away, I will leave you with the words of the story printed on the brochure given me at the church.
A concise History of Cathedral of the Assumption
Catholics have been in Ningbo since 1533. Guo Zhongchuan, a French Missionary, bought a piece of land and built a church in Yaohang street in 1702. During the Qing dynasty, an imperial edict banned evangelization and drove out all the missionaries in 1723. The Yaohang street church was then used residential homes and shops.
Another French missionary, Gu Fangji came to Ningbo and rebuilt the Yaohang street church in 1845 with the help of donations. In May of 1855, the church was completed and liturgy was celebrated, but collapsed later in July. A rebuilding project began in August of 1865 and was completed at the end of 1866 and named Church of the Assumption. The rectory was still under construction. With the help of donations as well, a 122 meter bell tower was erected in 1918.
In 1953 religious activities were prohibited and the church became a ballroom for the Municipal Shaoxing Opera. During the construction of the Municipal Shaoxing Opera house in 1978, the bell tower collapsed.
The church was re-opened in 1991 as religious activities were once again permitted, but soon collapsed in 1994 due to a lack of maintenance. In June of 1995 talks about rebuilding were under way, and the work began in 1997.
In June of 2000 the church was in use once more, and the new building, including rectory and an underground parking lot, totaled 9800 square meters.
R.P.BenDedek is from Brisbane Australia and is the author of 'The King's Calendar: The Secret of Qumran' at http://www.kingscalendar.com His academic articles set forth Apologetics for and results of his discovery of an "artificial chronological scheme" running through the Bible, Josephus, the Damascus Documents of the Dead Sea Scrolls, and Seder Olam Rabbah.
He writes photographic 'Stories from China' and social editorial commentaries, both at KingsCalendar, and as a contributing newspaper columnist. He currently teaches Conversational English in China and in addition to his English Lessons at KingsCalendar, he has created specific sites for Students of English.
