Dressing Up the Red Chamber

It should be obvious to even the casual observer that Nanjing is in fact a city of great historic importance in the large casserole of historic facts that is Chinese history. As a Flagship group we got to visit some of these sights already and today, on a bright and relatively warm early November day, we went on yet another trip. This time our destination was twofold: A museum dedicated to clothes and novels, and a the presidential palace in Nanjing.

Let me elaborate on our two destinations. First the clothes museum. Here I must admit that I did not quite follow the historical significance of it, only that it was important. The museum was dedicated to the Cheongsam, the Chinese Gown or Qipao, as it is known in Cantonese, English and Mandarin, respectively. The museum chronicled the development of the dress and how it function as a symbol of Chinese culture in Shanghai initially and now all over the world. The exhibit was nice and very well set up, one felt like one was walking through the streets of 1920's Shanghai. Besides that there was not too much to it, you can only be impressed by fancy Chinese dresses so many times.

But there was a highlight to the visit: A qipao fashion show! Yes, the museum puts on fashion shows, displaying all the pomp and beauty of classic Chinese sartorial history. It was very enjoyable and the number of dresses displayed was impressive, especially since they only had about 4-5 models. These girls must have been able to change at a neck-breaking speed.

After that fun little interlude, we spent some time in a museum dedicated to the novel "Dream of the Red Chamber". This novel is a whole story in itself (pun intended), it is one of the four classical Chinese novels, it is considered the pinnacle of Chinese fiction and an entire field of study is dedicated to the study of this Novel, called Redology. The novels boasts 40 main characters and about 500 supporting characters; it's a beast of a novel. The novel is closely connected to Nanjing, although I am not sure how. The exhibit featured a lot of editions of the book and background information on the characters and history of this epic literary journey.

For our second destination we went to the presidential palace. As the name implies, it was the palace of the ruler of China at certain times. Twice during the Ming dynasty, once during the Qing dynasty and then again in the 1850's during the Taiping revolution, during which the palace reached its peak of beauty and general impressiveness. The palace was important again during the rule of the nationalist party in China, as it was the main office for Sun Yat-sen. Beautiful gardens adorn the palace grounds, especially in the residential area. The actual rooms where Sun Yat-sen and family lived were fairly humble by today's standards, but set in a beautiful serene environment. The last building in the complex was a tall yellowish building set between two trees and served as the office building for Chinese officials. It is a large and impressive complex.

Valentine's Day themed water drain

But, as in all places the Flagship group visits, the main attraction was Peter, Clara and Marshall, the three babies of the Flagship group. As we were waiting to be picked up by the bus, hordes of baby loving Chinese people gathered around, wielding cameras and iPads and trying to get a good look at, and maybe even a picture with, the foreign babies.

And thus passes another day in the life of us China travelers. And as a little reprise: On the bus ride back home we happened to see a cafe called "Rock Hard", with the same font and label as the well known "Hard Rock Cafe". No one strained any muscles coming up with that name.