Train In To Nanjing (17th Oct)

It took a couple of hours from WuHu. We got to the station on Sophia-time; we only had an hour and a half to kill, which I spent people-watching or trying to but being outwitted by people watching me. I'm getting used to it, and most of the time accept it with good grace. I have had a couple of incidents when someone deliberately stared me down with a truly beligerent glare, and one of them cut across my path 3 times in 20 minutes (on that tour to the traditional village) when I yielded T'ai Chi-style twice, and stood my ground at the third attempt. I think I learnt something from that. He didn't try again! But one very old lady on the arm of her daughter spotted me in the street and stared, open mouthed, as her daughter nudged her. As we overtook them I gave her a smile and little wave and she beamed a huge toothless beam, eyes crinkling with delight. It doesn't take much to make someone's day sometimes.

There was ample opportunity to get a glimpse into people's lives at the station. Sophia explained that the huge plastic drums, the even bigger plaid plastic bags stuffed with God-knows-what and so heavy that the tiny women carrying them had to drag them on the ground, and the smartly-dressed woman taping several standard lamps into bubble wrap were all going back to the countryside. The buyers were probably small restaurant owners and in the smart woman's case, maybe a wedding arranger or photographic studio owner.

We were coralled on the concourse in long rows of metal seating, each aisle for a given train, and when it was due to arrive we were shouted at to get up and get going. I got up immediately and went nowhere for about half an hour, but we were shouted at some more and we all shuffled towards the narrow gate onto the platform. The train came; one of those ones like in the USA -- not so much Mind The Gap as Mind The Ascent. I heaved my Big Bag (Blinking thing) up the first and second steps, tried and failed up the next one and fell backwards, hitting my arm on the metal rail; another bruise I shall wear with aplomb. There was a collective gasp from behind me and a smoking man in the corridor way up above me felt duty bound to help. When we reached our seats the BBB was lifted gracefully up onto the overhead rack by a lovely army officer, and down, 2 hours later, by 4 lesser mortals.

Nanjing has roads 16 lanes wide. I know -- it's unbelievable. Crossing said roads on foot takes about 20 minutes and half a sandwich and you have to have eyes with 360 degree swivel attachments to avoid a regiment of bikes, scooters and mopeds careering round the corner (your corner). No one looks each other in the eye, but gently swerves or veers towards their intended goal. Oh, add rickshaws and bikes with long trailers piled high with allsorts. You're in the middle of the crossroads now and you might as well be halfway across the Gobi desert, so far away is The Other Side. You're pretty sure you remember starting out on a pedestrian crossing but it was so long ago, and now, somehow, with all these cars coming towards you with the same intention as yours, it matters less and less. They come at you 8-wide, sometimes 6, but will that make any difference to your Maker? I think not. Decisions are out of the question, no time, just go with the flow. Aim for the nearest, tiniest space, everyone else is! The Pedestrians streaming towards you and behind you do a sort of dance with the Pedallists. The cars oversee the melee and put it in its place, parting the crowd with no malice, just a volley of tooting to let you know they are about to run over your toes or their bumper is going to meet up with the backs of your knees. The 40 second clock on the gantry ticks down to a terrifying 6-5-4 .. will you make it? Will it matter? No one seems to take a blind bit of notice except me. Pedestrians saunter, chatting, dawdling, cars and bikes continue to take aim at their exits whether the lights are red or green. When you're in a car it's a whole different thing. By the time you get to the middle of the crossroads the turning you want is so vast it scrambles the brain and people forget how to indicate or perhaps lose the will to actually go to where they want to get to. It's possible, and if anyone admitted as much to me I would believe them.

At night, the gently polluted air forms a fine mist, and out of the gloom appear lightless bikes, scooters, mopeds and rickshaws, and a lot of cars have optional lights as well as the more common optional indicators. And the pedestrians are mostly in dark clothing, it being misty and everything.

We were walking along a main street in Nanjing, where our hotel was, in the old French concession (they went in for splendid trees that line the streets and give cool shade in the hottest mist). My ankle ricked into a crack or a gulley and I looked round to see which, and Sophia said, "Oh it's for the blind people"! This sent me into helpless giggles as I imagined people pitching into the purpose-built gulley one by one. In fact it's foot-wide paving with raised lines on it which can be felt underfoot, the only trouble being that it separates from the rest of the pavement at intervals, and as the pavement is cracked and sometimes completely disappears at random, I could imagine blind people deciding to stay at home.

The pavements aren't safe for other reasons; cars are often allowed to park there, and bikes of all kinds are parked and double-parked on them so that there's no room to walk. Bikes come up behind you on the clear stretches and shopfront stalls and street vendors fill up the rest. So you walk in the road and on the bike lanes where life expectancy can be very short indeed.
At WuHu I'd known about my grandparents' consular residence, separate from the consulate, but here there was no mention of it. The internet said the old consulate building was now a museum, but it was a hotel, on a main road. It was of British Colonial vintage; white, imposing, with large windows, now double-glazed, and with double doors under a grand portico. A brass plaque mentioned its history. We peeked through the glass to a long hall, but no reception area, so I went in, rather tentatively, and the first thing I saw was an enormous picture hung on my left. It was a bad copy of the Constable with big tree and sheepdog.

Brass wall lamps were lit, but no one in sight so we walked round the garden and took pictures. It was made up of formal flowers standing in serried ranks of orange and maroon. The car park bordered it and I don't think Granny would have been too pleased about the huge coach backing into her flowering shrubs! I swear I could feel her bristling! Round the back had been rather lovely at one time, with shady trees and pools leading to a fountain and a long one leading to a lion's head fountain in a wall. Everything was dry and dead leaves lay in drifts at the bottom. When I turned round to look at the house from this angle there was another portico; this one with properly fierce Chinese lions on either side. This was grander than the other and I could see a narrower corridor leading to the hall with Victorian bannisters running down the now marble stairs. (And that's another thing -- I've never seen so much marble in my life -- its on shopping mall floors, hotel floors, bathrooms, stairs. It's all Chinese, which is a good thing, or they'd have dug up the whole of Italy until it disappeared by now! It's also lethal, of course, when wet.)
We went inside and braved the stairs. I went first to face the expected volley of outrage (easier in a foreign language I feel!) but none came. The first staff we met defrosted enough to allow us entry into the rooms that had their doors ajar. There were only 2 rooms, both used for private dining now. Bedecked in draped flowery curtains and busy wallpaper with a chandelier over the table I tried to imagine it as perhaps my grandfather's dressing room. Next door was much larger and had a quiet view of the back garden. Could this have been their bedroom? I suppose it doesn't matter. Oh, but it does.

The Foreign Office blurb says my grandfather was made Consul at WuHu in 1902 and was called to the bar at Middle Temple in 1903, so presumably they both returned to London for a year or so before going back to WuHu when my father was born in 1904. Then my grandfather was "transferred" to Nanjing, I assume as Consul again, in 1905. They were there for 3 years.
At the moment I feel so overwhelmed by the size of the buildings, the constant noise and travelling that I'm finding it hard to connect with this place. Perhaps I'm at Halfway Point in my mind, and I've just had photos emailed to me of my golden retriever, Arlo, having fun on his hols in Richmond Park. I'm so glad he's having a ball but I never thought homesickness for me would be a problem, not for just a few weeks. But even that thought is useful. How did they manage that? "Get on with it," roars the reply! But privately, Granny must have had her moments of despair and I can understand now why the foreigners needed their home comforts and even, dare I say it, their life of privilege. They couldn't integrate into Chinese society in any real sense; only with a few people, their other friends had to be Brits and Americans for the common language (and how I love listening to Jeeves and Wooster, and Mr S Fry, and Dickens on my iPod, thanks Sheilagh and Richard) and the foreign, tight little community would have had its own cliques. I think Granny would have been in the thick of it as the wives had a lonely life if they weren't gregarious. Their husbands were working and playing hard, and from May to September the women and children escaped to the cooler hills, lakes and, for some, the seaside. The men would visit when they could.

A lovely tale my grandmother told was of Mr Bax-Ironside (universally known as Iron-Backside), a batchelor of mature years, who lent them his villa outside Beijing for the summer, and he would visit when work allowed. And what would he require for meals when he arrived, asked Granny. "Oh anything for breakfast -- eggs, bacon etc. For lunch, keep it simple; quail, pheasant, fish, green vegetables, and for dinner? Oh anything but pork, one tires of it so easily, perhaps some good red wine and cheese if you have any, and some of those little pastries I like ..." She rather wisely doesn't record her thoughts at that moment.

Change of plan.
Tianjin next.