the kongdan foundation

June 2017 Part 1 (Beijing to Nanjing)

Notes from trip to China

Lessons learned from my recent trip to China to build on: My last full day in Shanghai, and China on Tuesday afternoon I was writing in my journal at Starbucks on W. Nanjing Road, when I kept thinking about traveling alone in China and not having a traveling companion, something that seems always the case. As I wrote the words just came… Your traveling companion is not intended to be another person. You travel as if unattended through time, but rest assured that you are being upheld. Live the life you are meant to become -be natural and unafraid. Be gentle with never a harsh word and let patience be your virtue. You are in no rush because you have already arrived. Again, let patience be your virtue. Let acts of patience be illustrated by your kindness towards others through virtue. There can be no rush to the virtue found inside yourself that you already possess. Do not allow weakness within yourself to cloud your virtue. Stay totally within yourself. Find the confines of what makes you happy wholly within you. Become the companion you want to be and this person will always be present. Let your own happiness be the sunshine that brightens every day.

Stand clear of antagonism – be the first to leave when contention appears and the first to stay when love arrives. Make your own perceived weaknesses your greatest strengths. Become the person others are looking to that soothes away fear and anger. Perhaps this Buddhist inclination on the trip is a signal to let go of self and that you stay within your own higher consciousness or enlightenment. Become a Buddha. Change yourself and change the world. Change yourself first – then change the world. Become or emulate the world the universe is counting on or looking to. Surround yourself with love and be happy with what you already have. Exemplify the person that you want the world to know and become.

Bring others to their highest endeavors, or selves – without judgment becoming the mentor they need. Be the companion they should have knowing selflessness, not one’s ego is all that survives. Live solely within the virtue that defines you. Enlightenment is the process of self-change leaving behind traits not in keeping with who you are ultimately to become.  If you come back to experience them – then use them to lose them.

Let virtue define you. It is not an either/or…You know the path you are to follow. Just do it leaving no one behind. Leave no one behind – not your family – not your students – not your friends – and not those waiting to be your friends. Become the road map for others to find the way for and within themselves. There is no choice to make. Live the choice you have become regardless of where you are. There is no paradox, only the paradigm you have chosen to follow.

If we want others to see beyond what they see as weaknesses in us – then we must first be able to see beyond what we perceive as the weakness we see in others. As we grow and mature, gaining wisdom and insight along the way – we must bring them along with us.  Remember your own virtue is tied to having patience for others while the world is catching up with you…

I have returned home from my trip to China (May 12-June 21), and after some difficulty, the details of the trip are here and complete. I could not do facebook in China, but we will attempt to move things from here to The Kongdan Foundation facebook page. I have done a travelogue with highlights of each city as I go.

Thursday, June 1st

Joy’s wedding and Jining Sports School and return to Qufu

Today I was honored as a guest at the traditional Chinese wedding of one of my students, Joy (Han Tingting). The day began at the home of the bride about 7AM with fireworks and a small band playing outside her parent’s home. With many family and friends present Wang Guangliang made his way through the front gate with seeming great difficulty provided by her friends. Only after providing several small red envelops (with money), was he allowed to enter. As he made his way in he again was only allowed into the house after more red envelops. He then made it to her room where the door was closed and only after much cajoling was he able to see his bride. After many pictures and preparation, Joy was carried out of her house in a chair back to the street where cars waited to carry them and the wedding party to the groom’s home in the countryside where the festivities were to continue.

The actual wedding was conducted by an emcee outside in the courtyard of Wang’s parents’ home after he carried her from the car into their house. The bride first had to gain approval from the groom’s parents. Then the wedding continued with an exchange of rings and a shared glass of wine and they were pronounced husband and wife by the emcee. The final part was the giving of red envelops in the ceremony by family members and friends to the new couple. Afterwards a lunch was served to those in attendance and the festivities were concluded. Pictured here at lunch are two of my other students from Jining University (Ann and Sabrina) who were bride maids at the wedding.

Jining Sports School

After lunch, I went by car to Jining with Sabrina and Tom and visited the Jining Sports School that was the former Jining University. It’s now as if I have come full circle. During one of my first visits to Jining in 1999 or 2001, I was shown a model of the new Jining University that was to be constructed in Qufu at the Planning Bureau in Jining. Construction was completed in 2006. This school is where I taught from 2011 to 2013. Now I’m back in Jining touring the Jining Sports School that trains students from the age of 11 to 18 in various sports to compete in events here in Shandong, nationally, and if good enough the Olympics.  Students work in classrooms in the morning and athletics in the afternoon. They train to compete in judo, weight lifting, wrestling, track and field, fencing, volleyball, ping pong, and other sports. Sabrina was kind enough to give me a tour of the facility where she teaches and students as the practiced.

I was to stay in Jining until after the reunion with my students on Sunday. But my contact, Oreo, was asked by his school to do something tomorrow and Saturday, so I could not go as planned to his school in Jaxaing on Friday. I returned to Qufu tonight. I will return to Jining on Sunday for the reunion.

Thursday night, June 1 to Tuesday, June 6 in Qufu (with trip to Jining Sunday for reunion). Thursday through Sunday night stay with Mr. Ji. Monday, June 5^th stay at Shangri La.  Monday afternoon, June 5^th Young Artist Program with Jenny. Give Peter my proposal before leaving for Nanjing on Tuesday. Meet with Maria and Kong Tao.

Friday, June 2 and Saturday, June 3 were quiet and relaxing with many old friends, but busy planning day. I was limited due to having no internet connection until early afternoon on Friday afternoon I confirmed my reservations to go by plane from Nanjing to Chengdu for Friday, June 9 and for Monday, June 12 to fly from Chengdu to Lhasa with return on Thursday, June 15^th to Chengdu. I spent the morning doing website entry (in Word to be moved to web page) for wedding and sports school yesterday and on Friday did the website entry. I then learned that my paperwork to go to Tibet had to be completed ten days in advance.  The tour group was only for four days and two of these were getting there and returning.  The total was going to cost about a thousand dollars. Not worth it. So I decided to stay two more days in Nanjing and more time in Chengdu. Plus add another city before returning to Shanghai and home. A couple days downtime is good. My friends here try to remind me that I am almost sixty-five. No Tibet… but maybe next time.

Sunday, June 4 I went to Jining for the reunion with my students at the Canal Mall and to highlight many of my activities in Jining, especially the emphasis on the Jining Museum and its founding. Today was the final reunion of my students in Linyi, Qingdao, and now Jining. Hera’s baby and teaching elementary school. Iris teaching seventh grade, Hathaway and Gloria how much they liked teaching. Oreo, who joined the group later explained he had over one hundred fifty students in two classes. He was the class monitor in several of my classes. His primary job was to keep a close eye on his foreign teacher (me). We became very good friends.  He likes the NBA in USA very much. We discussed school now four or five years later and how much they learned from my classes. Many students talked to the group during our conversation on WeChat in order to join the group. It was great connecting with my students and letting them know I am here for them.

As I mentioned earlier I have been coming to Jining since October, 1999. It was during that visit during a luncheon banquet I mentioned a flying horse from the Han dynasty (about 200AD) that I could not get out of my mind. That it seemed to be close by. After lunch, we went a few miles out of the city and pulled up to what looked like an old shed. We got out and went to see what was in them and there were stone steele from the early Han that measured two by four feet. One was about six feet long depicting Confucius meeting Lao Tzu carved in stone. Afterwards we went over to another small shed and they handed me a replica of the flying iron horse. It was then that I knew there was something to all this. While in Jining a few years later I visited the Jining Museum that is highlighted by the “Iron Pagoda”.

While I was teaching in 2012 in Qufu I returned to the Jining Museum with my good friend, Mr. Li Yizhong who had re-designed the museum. An addition had been made. The stone carved steele that I had first seen in 1999, had been re-located here to the museum. For myself, one of the great things about studying the history of Jining, was that it was the halfway point of the Grand Canal that was more than a thousand miles long with most of the canal being dug by hand. The Grand Canal was fully completed under the second Sui emperor, from the years 604 to 609, first by linking Luoyang to the Yangzhou (and the Yangzi valley), then expanding it to Hangzhou on the south and to Beijing on the north. The canal meant people from everywhere would focus here and create a unique cuisine, i.e., very good food. I often was able to visit historic sites not on the radar of tourists because of my interest in Chinese history and their desire to have others tell the story. Naturally the, Canal Mall, visited earlier today was paying tribute to the original Grand Canal.

After leaving my students at the bus station I returned to Qufu and was met by Tom , the friend of Sabrina at the B1 bus stop at Jining University here in Qufu,who brought me by car back to Mr. Li’s apartment.

 

Monday, June 5 – Move to Shangri La Hotel this morning. Talk to Katie and Marie. Talk to Chris about Shangri La and Sister Cities and to Maria, she reserved a ticket on fast train for me to go to Nanjing tomorrow. I met with the General Manager of the Qufu Shangri La, Mr. Peter Qi and KongTao for coffee Monday afternoon about development in Qufu.

I took a taxi at 5:30 for 6 PM Sister Cities Young Artist presentation at the Shishang Training School. The Boynton Beach Sister Cities Committee and schools in Qufu have been doing the Young ArtistProgram every year since 2001. On behalf of the sister cities program, the Kongdan Foundation provided more than 800 RMB for prizes for first, second, third, and honorable mention. All students who participated received a small prize as well. The teacher for the school is Shi Zhiming. A guest artist was present, Mr. Kong Youqiang. The program was moderated by Jenny Jiang, a teacher at Qufu Number One Middle School (high school) who has helped to coordinate the Young Artist Program here in Qufu since 2006, while Kongdan (me) handed out the certificates and awards. Next year we will have many more schools participating in the sister cities Young Artist Programs.  Over the years, students in Qufu and Boynton Beach have provided excellent artwork for judging. Some of those entries are as follows:

 

     

Tuesday, June 6 to Sunday, June 11 in Nanjing with Odelette and other students.  On Tuesday morning, I checked out of the Shangri La in Qufu and Tom took me to the fast train station that left at 11 AM.  After a two-hour train ride I arrived in Nanjing and went to Nanjing Sunflower International Youth Hostel. (reservations confirmed).  After taking taxi that could not find the address, with more help I found the hostel. It is in a great location in a walking district with many shops and the Confucius Temple of Nanjing. Amazing that I would find Confucius first after leaving Qufu. He always seems to be looking over my shoulder. People don’t appreciate dragons like they should you know.

I spoke to Odelette after she got home from teaching school. I will have lunch tomorrow with her and her mother, who is a good friend, and two other students of mine who are now here in Nanjing. Odelette’s mother is a Christian minister and had a church in Zoucheng a few years ago. Now they are here with in Nanjing with her grandmother. She had heard about me (KongDan) and knew about the Daily Word while we were publishing it (2006-07) and my activities from ten or twelve years ago before we met in 2012. We are meeting tomorrow morning in front of the Confucius Temple that is a few blocks from my hostel. It’s about 8 PM time for an evening stroll.

Wednesday, June 7^th

I met Julie at the Confucius Temple and we went to the School of Arts and Chinese culture where she is a teacher. The director Ms. Ren said they have kids from 3 to 16 attending their school that is on the 5^th floor of a shopping Mall. I had a long discussion with the piano teacher Tang Qiong, who also teaches urban planning at a local university. Afterwards we went to lunch to Odelette’s where I am treated like an old family friend who I have known  for many years. We were joined at lunch by two of Odelette’s friends, Matthew and Michael. I think Odelette’s mother will join us tomorrow. We talked about a day-trip to Suzhou, but maybe it will be here at the Nanjing Museum.

After lunch Michael, Julie and I went to the Meiling Palace, the home of Soong Mei Ling. She was a remarkable woman who played an instrumental role in world politics over a period of many decades. she was also known as Madame Chiang Kai-shek or Madame Chiang, was a Chinese political figure who was First Lady of the Republic of China and the wife of President Chiang Kai-shek President Chiang Kai-shek. Soong played a prominent role in the politics of the Republic of China and was the sister-in-law of Sun Yatsen, the founder and the leader of the Republic of China. She was active in the civic life of her country and held many honorary and active positions, including chairman of Fu Jen Catholic University.   During the Second Sino-Japanese War she rallied her people against the Japanese invasion and in 1942 conducted  a speaking tour of the United States to gain support. She is pictured here with Gandhi in India. She was also the youngest and the last surviving of the three Soong sisters, and the only first lady during World War II who lived into the 21st century. Her life extended into three centuries. In the early days of the US/China People’s Friendship Association (USCPFA), an organization I was a member of for almost twenty years, she played an important role in cementing people-to-people contacts between USA and China.

Afterwards, Odelette, Michael and I went to the nearby Sun Yatsen Mausoleum located at the Longshan Mountain National Park here in Nanjing. Dr. Sun was born in Guangdong province of China on 12 November 1866, and died in 1925 in Beijing, China He is considered to be the “Father of Modern China” both in mainland China and in Taiwan, fought against the Qing government and after the 1911 revolution ended the monarchy and founded the Republic of China. I especially liked the inscription over the entrance that reads, “The world belongs to all of us”.

We finished the day by going to dinner at the Lao Men Dong walking district that sits adjacent to the ancient wall that surrounded the city. When the first Ming emperor was proclaimed in 1368, the name of the city was changed again to Yingtianfu (responding to heaven). A “new city” was built to the east of the old one to be used as a new palace or “forbidden” city. The city was laid out in much the same pattern as Beijing and Qufu’s Confucius Mansion and Temple. Both served as patterns for Beijing’s Forbidden City.

The Donghua Gate

Thursday, June 8

The morning at 9:30 I met Odelette and her mother at the Confucius Temple and we spent the morning at the JiNing Buddhist Temple. When we arrived, we were greeted by the artist, Li Tang. He is with the Research Institute of Chinese Traditional Art at Peking University in Beijing. Upon meeting, he gave me two books of his artwork. On one he signed the following:

To Mr. KongDan – To live a life with dhyana and deep meditation.

Yours Sincerely, Li Tang    2017.6.8

The temple, which literally means “rooster crowing” was first constructed in 557 AD during the Liang dynasty and has been destroyed and reconstructed many times. The existing temple was initially constructed during the Ming dynasty during the reign of the Hongwu Emperor in 1387. It was destroyed during the Taiping Rebellion but was rebuilt later.

By 1931 most temple buildings had been appropriated as barracks by police and army of the National government of China. The main hall had been emptied completely apart from the large Buddha statue. Only one hall, near the city wall was still being used for worship. The temple remained popular primarily because of its tea house which was also situated in that hall.  The seven-story YaoShi Pagoda overlooks Xuanwu Lake. We had lunch at the Temple then left for the Nanjing Museum.

This is my third major museum I have visited in China. In May/June 2014, I went to the Sichuan Museum in Chengdu and the Shanxi Museum in Xian. I have gone to smaller more local museums here over the years in Shandong, but it is the National, or provincial museums, that give more context and depth to historical figures, adding what was occurring from dynasty to dynasty and add what things were like at the time. My visits to Buddhist, Confucian, and Taoist Temples are as much like going to a museum, as observing personal religious beliefs. Although, I feel infused by the sentiments of all three, my own core beliefs are centered around all three. Visiting all three serves to continually confirm what I have written over the past more than twenty years, and fine-tunes the journey I, we are here to take as living history. It’s not just walking through a museum seeing ancient artifacts. It’s reliving what was occurring at the time and visiting with old friends.

The Nanjing Museum was one of the first museums established in China. The predecessor of the Nanjing Museum was the preparatory department of the National Central Museum was established in 1933. The museum took over 12.9 hectares (32 acres) in the Half Hill Garden of Zhongshan Gate. Cai Yuanpei, the first preparatory president of the council of the museum, proposed building three major halls, named “Humanity,” “Craft” and “Nature”. Because of China’s political instability in the 1930’s, only the Humanity Hall was built. During the Japanese invasion, part of its collections were transferred to Southwest China, and in the end moved to the National Palace Museum in Taipei when the Kuomintang lost the Chinese Civil War.

I think the dynasty I most relate to is the Han dynasty. My earlier explanation of finding the flying horse in Jining was indicative of this. During the Han dynasty, this area around present day Nanjing and Yangtze River was called Tiangsu and was the center of many feudal kingdoms. It was here that kings of the period constructed very ornate mausoleums for themselves. The mausoleums of the Western Han were mainly cliff tombs and vertical earth cliff tombs and those of the Eastern Han dynasty were mainly brick tombs. The artifacts and burial objects represented the concept of “treating the dead as the living.” The Nanjing Museum contains many of these artifacts that were located in nearby Xuzhou, Yangzhou, and other locations close by. There is a certain respect that is warranted when seeing these remnants of history that reflects man’s nature at the time. Understanding the history of China is for me in large part in being present to the end. Afterwards we had dinner on Hunan Road, famous for dining in Nanjing.

Friday, June 9

I am alone here in Nanjing now until my departure on Sunday morning for Chengdu. Katie and I are still having difficulty in opening the edit page on my website. If I cannot update and make entries, then she cannot move to face book… and no one can follow me. Today is more history and two sites of interest. Confirm with Megan in Chengdu my arrival on Sunday and that we will have dinner Sunday night. I will visit her school where she is a teacher while I am in Chengdu.

Ultimately, my role is as both a storyteller and teacher. I don’t always pick the subject; the subject sometimes picks me. While my greatest interest in China seems to be before the visit of Marco Polo in 1271 when he met Kublai Khan, there exists the need to comply with the rest of the story.  Saturday morning was no different. I went to Zhan Yuan Park that is dedicated to the Taiping Heavenly Movement, more commonly referred to as the Taiping Rebellion. Understanding Chinese history is not just about the I Ching, the shaman, dynasties, museums, Confucius, and Buddhist and Taoist Temples, but also the five thousand years of evolution that makes China what it continues to evolve to become. The essence of that can be traced back to Ji Dan, the Duke of Zhou in 1000 BC, who was from Qufu, who formalized the Book of Rites which defined the rights of the individual. This was institutionalized over the centuries later with the benevolence of Confucius.   What occurred here in the 19^th and 20^th century in Nanjing did more to change and reshape China than anywhere, in my opinion. An example of what signaled the end of “old China” happened here. The 19^th century up through the occupation by Japan in the 1930’s was epochal and a period from which there was not return. What began in the 1930’s that led to 1949 and the beginning of the People’s Republic of China began here in Nanjing. The foreign powers, opium, the Boxer rebellion, and finally the founding of the Republic in 1912 and the end of the dynastic cycle had many seeds. But one was here in Nanjing, and through it you can see what was to be the future of China. It was here that I visited this morning in a place called Zhan Yuan Park – the Taiping Heavenly Movement, or more commonly called the Taiping Rebellion.

The combination of aggression by the foreign powers who wanted to create their own “spheres of influence” and weakness caused by a feudal examination system fueled only by China’s elite, meant the common man was left to fend for himself. The garden that surrounds  the museum was once called the “Enthusiasm Garden” or “Zhan Garden” of the first ruler of the Ming Dynasty. Hongwu (1328-1398). In 1853, it became the residence of Yang Xiuqing, a military leader in the Taiping Rebellion. During the rebellion, Nanjing was captured by the rebels and used as its headquarters. They acquired large portions of land throughout China. At Beijing, the Qing Dynasty narrowly defeated the rebels in 1864, but it ended the war. One of the core values instilled by the Taiping Rebellion was the need for land reform and the end to the landlord system and need for distribution of land equally. The Taiping Rebellion provided valuable lessons and greatly influenced Sun Yetsin and the forming of the Republic in 1912. Something that would resonate with Mao a few years later. It is the complimentary opposites (found in the origins of the I Ching and Yellow Emperor from 2700 BC) that defines the role of those in control, and the people themselves, and pragmatism that defines China today.

Friday afternoon was back to the museum… in the form of the Oriental Metropolitan Museum  that focused on Six Dynasties (222–589), and is a collective term for six Chinese dynasties in China during the periods of the Three Kingdoms (220–280AD), Jin dynasty  (265–420), and Southern and Northern dynasties (420–589). It also coincides with the era of the Six Kingdoms (304-439). This era immediately followed the fall of the Han dynasty in 220 AD, and was an era of disunity, instability and warfare.

The six dynasties were the Easter Wu (222–280),Eastern Jin dynasty (317–420), Liu Song dynasty (420–479), Southern Qi (479–502), Liang dynasty (502–557), and Chen dynasty (557–589). They were an important era in the history of Chinese poetry, especially remarkable for its frank (for Classical Chinese poetry) descriptions of love and beauty. Especially important, and frequently translated into English, is the anthology New Songs from the Jade Terrace, compiled by Xu Ling (507-83), under the patronage of Crown Prince Xiao Gang (Later Emperor Jian Wen) of the Liang dynasty.

Murals from a tomb of Northern Qi dynasty (550-577 AD) in Jiuyuangang, Xinzhou, showing a rural hunting scene on horseback.

This was the first time in history that the political center of China was located in the south, with a surge in population and continual development of economy and culture, this transformed southern China from being remote territories to an economic center that could rival the north from the Tang dynasty onward. Buddhism, which first reached China during the Eastern Han dynasty, flourished in the Six Dynasties (and simultaneously in the Northern Dynasties) and has been a major religion in China ever since. This is not meant to be definitive, simply an overview for context and continuing the story. Friday afternoon I returned to the hostel to update and write new entries for my website from today. I did a load of laundry and researched my plans for tomorrow, my last full day in Nanjing. Sunday morning, I leave early for the airport and Chengdu.

Saturday, June 10

8 AM Today it appears as though it will rain heavily all day. It gives me pause to reflect on all this and my own role, and the seeming paradox I live. As if captured in time reflecting things past here in the Middle Kingdom, while absorbing them like a sponge as I acknowledge that I myself am one with it all. Not just as the storyteller, but providing the gist for my own story that will follow. The prevailing thought being… you don’t know where your life is going to turn, but you must look for guideposts as you are constantly reminded along the way. Where inclinations you follow lead to decisions you ultimately must make, as if a constant nudging propels you onward to the source of it all. It is as if the dragons, my peers, are close by waiting and asking what is taking me so long? The answer has always been present, only delayed. While they keep pushing me forward saying… it’s time, it’s time. As if all these historic sites I visit are only for the purpose of reminding me what I have always been,  seen and known, but forgotten. Once reminded, the past becomes the present and my future become ingrained in the path I must take. To stop telling the story and create what ultimately must become my own.

Letting go of attachments and who you think you are is always the hardest part. As you come closer to see the reflection of who you have always been and will return to be again. Moving beyond being simply the storyteller, to writing and telling my own story to its ultimate conclusion. Whatever answer that may exist, here in the present, it lies here in China as if I am re-tracing my own steps along the way.

It’s noon on Saturday and it is still pouring rain outside. They say this won’t end until about 8 PM tonight… The one piece of story (there are really many), that I intended to capture here is the Treaty of Nanjing

The Treaty of Nanking or Nanjing was a peace treaty which ended the First Opium War (1839–42) between the United Kingdom and the Qing dynasty of China on 29 August 1842. It was the first of what the Chinese later called the unequal treaties on the ground that Britain had no obligations in return. In the wake of China’s military defeat, with British warships poised to attack Nanking, representatives from the British and Qing Empires negotiated on board HMS Cornwallis anchored at the city. On 29 August 1842, British and Qing representatives signed the treaty. It consisted of thirteen articles and was ratified by Queen Victoria and the Emperor nine months later. A copy of the treaty is kept by the British government while another copy is kept by the Taiwan Ministry of Foreign Affairs at the National Palace Museum in Taipei.

The fundamental purpose of the treaty was to change the framework of foreign trade imposed by the Canton System, which had been in force since 1760. Four additional “treaty ports” opened for foreign trade alongside Canton (now Guangzhou), where foreign merchants were to be allowed to trade with anyone they wished. Britain also gained the right to send consuls to the treaty ports, which were given the right to communicate directly with local Chinese officials.  A total sum of 21 million dollars was to be paid in installments over three years by the Chinese government.

The Qing government agreed to make Hong Kong Island a crown colony, ceding it to the British Queen “in perpetuity”, to provide British traders with a harbor where they could “careen and refit their ships and keep stores for that purpose”. This was later amended so that Hong Kong would be transferred to back to China on July 1. 1997. This treaty and its aftermath was to foretell what would spell the end of dynastic rule in China seventy years later and the forming of the Republic of China.

I will have a vegetable pizza for lunch here in the hostel. This afternoon I need to finish my laundry and pack to leave early tomorrow morning for the airport and Chengdu. My flight from Nanjing to Chengdu is on Sichuan Airlines flight number 8924. Departure is at 11:50 AM and arrival in Chengdu is at 2:30 PM. I need to check out no later than 8 AM tomorrow morning. I am literally living history – re-tracing my steps along the Way