Nanjing pt. 2 Taiping Rebellion

The Taiping Rebellion

I am currently finishing up God's Chinese Son by Jonathan Spense. It is a fascinating book about the largest uprising in History. This book chronicles the rise of the Heavenly Kingdom where Hong Xiuquan started a following saying he was the younger brother of Jesus. The tale is fascinating and unbelievable. While the US had its own internal struggle between the North and the South. China's last dynasty was struggling to keep power against Hong and his "heavenly forces." Hong's armies were so successful that they captured the former Capital city Nanjing (South Capital) which he renamed Tianjing (Heavenly capital). I was curious what this looked like in the historic city of Nanjing so Ant and I went explored

This included two sites. The first site was the actual museum of the rebellion. This included lots of maps, weapons, drawings, coins and various documents from the movement. It was a little run down and hard but still very fascinating. I was left wanting more but it still was a very interesting museum.

The next stop was the Presidential Palace. This was the former capitol of the KMT and the Ming Dynasty. The Presidential Palace was the house of so many different ruling parties of China.

What fascinated me more was how both museums showed the Taiping Rebellion in a favorable light. It was the beginning of the movement that changed China from dynastic rule to a republic. Yet as more wise people than I also noted, it gave China proof of why they should be careful of religious influence on their citizens. It is not that the original intention of the religious teachings was revolutionary, but that the revolutionaries could use those teachings as a revolutionary tool.

History is still alive today. Sometimes it hinders...yet, other times hopefully we can learn from it and be enabled.

东北... going back to Siping.

After a not so fun beginning to my trip that included not landing in Shenyang at all but rather getting shipped to Harbin, and rushing to catch the last train to Siping and finally getting in at 4 am, I had a wonderful time going back to my old city of Siping. I was greeted by my old friend Syen and new friend Matt (both were waiting for me in Shenyang before the weather problems moved my final destination)

After a couple hours of sleep I went down to the Wu's house and met up with the rest of the team and we all had breakfast together. It felt like I still lived there, I say my old boss and a lot of the old workers that were there when I still lived there. We were both happy to see each other and in my limited Chinese I express my excitement to see them.


After breakfast most of us headed off to Nanhu 南胡 (southlake) Park. Being that it was May Holiday the park was packed with kids and parents going on all the rides. We made quite a spectacle, our parade of foreigners. We also felt obliged to try out a couple of the rides, the inflatable water tube was my personal favorite.


Five of us headed to the orphanage after that. And Wow! The new orphanage is sooo nice! And it is much closer, very convenient. It was awesome to see the kids. Quite a few new kids, but a lot of the kids I knew from before. They all are growing up into little people. Amazing, so much has changed in the last 5 years... The workers seemed glad to see me. They told us how much the kids look forward to us visiting and asked why we came to visit. And we were able to tell them :) He provides.


After the orphanage I was able to visit some old teacher friends and have dinner with them. After dinner we were able to get together for fellowship with each other. I was able to play guitar with Rach while she played piano. So much fun, and encouraging.

After staying up talking a few of us retired to Sonny's room to play a little guitar hero. I was a little rusty but it was still a blast. The next morning we left for Shenyang and my trip to siping was over. Short but oh so sweet.

Snow and Fire

I made back to Lhasa yesterday after a flyby cancellation and having to spend one more day in Chengdu. The airline put us up for the night and fed us so at least I got some good sleep and full belly out of the deal. But yesterday on our second attempt we made it! I was accompanied by Heidi and the new teacher Bethany so at least we had some company for our day of useless travels. We got in around 2 p.m. and were able to make it for a sticks hot-pot birthday party for Craig. This is basically what is sounds like, the food is on the end of sticks and you put it in a hot-pot. Pretty ingenious really. We were all pretty tired so we called it a early night... until midnight. Then the fireworks started. I was in and out of sleep all night (probably from the altitude not the fireworks) but they seemed to last all night. As I woke up this morning I was pleased to find the ground covered with snow.(as fireworks continued to go off in the distance)

The just says a few things to me:
1. I am back! Vacation is officially over.
2. Losar has begun (Tibetan New Year)
3. And winter is still here... burr.
4. Tibet sure is beautiful

Hope you all are have a good end of February. I will post some of my travel adventures later. I have a Losar party with the teaching staff this morning.

Blessings