“In Nanjing, historical emotions linger in the air like bacteria. In this scholarly city, you can feel everything that is contained in art without even looking into the themes of art; you can discover the details of art without ever thinking about its forms.” -Qi Lan
I cannot consider myself a Nanjing dweller, as my experiences in the city have always been limited to a few days at most. For three years of my life, I lived two hours west of this noble city in nearby Wuhu. Throughout those years, as much as I loved Wuhu, there was an ever present longing to understand and experience that great capital city.
I remember my first time to Nanjing, coming up over the elevated highway to view her imposing wall on my right in contrast to a quiet park on my left with miniature bridges and impressive pillars bearing the Chimera-like creature that has come to symbolize the spirit of the city. In front of me opened up China’s trademark housing projects; rows of modern apartments and business buildings. In the distance I spotted Nanjing’s TV tower by the Yangzi.
My father emailed me shortly after that visit to remind me of my grandparent’s short stay in the city after World War II. Nanjing was to be their permanent home after many war-torn years of wandering. Had it not been for the events of 1949, my father and mother might have been born there. Rumor has it my second aunt on my mother’s side was born in Nanjing. He told me that he found it interesting that I had returned to the city a generation after my grandfather left it.
One of my first peer friends in Wuhu was a child of Nanjing, and he appeared to fit all the stereotypes I’d eventually come to learn about the city. He was a young twenty-something musician and scholar, sensitive and idealistic, upright but insecure. With a long, clean face and a short, lean, sturdy build, he exuded a pre-tense of modernity while simultaneously marked by tradition. He worked started as a music teacher for Anhui Normal the same year I began teaching with hopes of improving Anhui’s musical programs as a whole. He taught and researched global music ethnocology, was into the newest fashions and trends: a spittin’ image of the new Chinese yuppie scholar with global interests and aspirations. But if you asked him where his hopes were planted, he would probably tell you he wanted a true and authentic revival of the classical Chinese spirit of music.
I had the privilege of attending this friend’s wedding where I met many of his other Nanjing townfellows. One of them, drunk no less, learned my family was from Taiwan. He put his arm around me and mumbled with pride, “You know, people in Taiwan still see Nanjing as the capital of the new China.” He paused for a second, groggily considering his next thought. “And, you know, we Nanjing people, we remember that too.”
Dare I say it, I see Nanjing as a spiritual home of mine. I fully understand that it is an idealized home, given my lack of real experience. In another time or story, I might have been one of her many poets or scholars, or the spoiled grandson of an official; Ming, KMT, or otherwise. Or even a callous farmer on the fertile lands along the long river, or an undignified fisherman. It would not matter: I imagine I would have thrived with either the scholar’s brush or the peasant's plow.
I imagine this because, though I do not know Nanjing as well as I would like, I know myself; and the many adjectives I have heard used to address the city I find resonance with, whether positive or negative. It’s historical tones, traditional posture, and reflective habits expressed through scholarship and ideals, ironed out through many cycles of destruction and reconstruction. Romantically poetic in its unrealized hopes yet staunchly realistic in its sufferings, Nanjing’s unbridled nostalgia betrays its desires for modernity, her sensitivities always lead it toward a quietness that those seeking hustle-bustle play and power cannot understand nor tolerate.
For those things, Shanghai is king. Somehow, I quickly skipped over those years of youthful abandon in favor of a more solemn spirit. I have no drive for success on the worldly level, yet I am still unsure of myself inwardly. Like my native Nanjing friend, I dabble amongst different cultural ideas and have a visible interest for things modern, but in the end I’m nostalgic and sensitive for the things of the past. Now that I am married, my wife is beginning to see that I am hopelessly backward in my desires for simplicity paradoxically paired with a convoluted drive to modernize the ancient and extract timeless principles from clearly, time bounded circumstances. My ideal of a good date is a stroll through an ancient temple coupled with a visit to a modern art gallery. History is a story I love, the present a gift to treasure, and the future a mystery to behold.
This Nanjing friend of mine often shared clean set, modern Chinese, meals with me at a coffeehouse chain (that originated in Nanjing, no less). In our conversations, we shared a generally similar spirit and perspective on things as perhaps only poet-at-heart types do. As our years of work in Wuhu continued, however, we lost touch due to our ever increasing busyness and investment in our work. By my third year, the best we could muster was a passing hello on campus on our ways to class. Despite the seeming fall out in relationship, he was adamantly present the morning of my final departure from Wuhu. Sensitive, like me, he shed a few tears as my van pulled away.
These many spaces near the Yangzi River are all a sort of home to me. Wuhan, Yangzhou, and Zhuji are the land of my grandparents. Wuhu and Nanjing, my adopted homes during some of the most impressionable years of my youth.
These days, I often tell my friends and family that I am finally sick of China, ready to be home in the United States for a few. But at the same time, I know I love this space more than I probably care to admit.
I am a long-lost child of 江南.
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