2025 Shanxi Province, China: Lots to see in Nanjing

2025-10-15 (Wednesday)

The first item on the agenda was to visit the Nanjing Youth Senior University. Here we attended classes in Acupressure, Painting/Calligraphy and Traditional Knotting.

The acupressure class included a lecture/demonstration of using acupressure on the ear. We all had little massage ‘dots’ attached to our ears.

Sensitive zones

Receiving treatment

The next class was Chinese painting and calligraphy. Both were demonstrated by experts and we were allowed to participate. It was good fun and something I would like to learn more about.

Teacher

Note the beetle on the bamboo

Traditional Knotting (making decorative items using knots is very difficult - even for the regular attendees there). At the end of some unsuccessful attempts, the students did mine for me and also presented me with a couple of completed items.

Being taught traditional 'knotting'

Then we went to a singing class – they were really good (we didn’t have to sing in Chinese)

We didn't sing!

In the afternoon we visited the Memorial Hall of the Nanjing Massacre. It commemorates the massacre by the Japanese invaders of 300,000 people after occupation of Nanjing in 1937. The hall, built in 1985 is massive and built with notable artifacts inside and out.

We walked along the recommended route along with hundreds of Chinese visitors, listening to our guide Annie on our headsets. The system is so good that Marg, along with a few others, didn’t realise that she was far away from Annie. We found them outside when we came out.

We then visited Nanjing Yunjin Museum (established in 2004 and name changed to Nanjing Yunjin Museum of the Past Dynasties in 2020). It houses displays from ‘Warring States period to Ming and Qing Dynasties. We saw their traditional human-operated large silk weaving machines.

Weaving machine (two person job)

Finished product!

We had a Qinhuai River cruise in the evening. There were many old building right on the river (now commercial sites) well restored and lit up for the night. One common sight was people (mainly women) getting dressed in traditional gear and being photographed!