My family (& especially my daughters) tend to give me a hard time about my predilection for visiting various infrastructure sites (e.g., power plants, trash incinerators, etc.) on my travels. The recent posting with pictures of a Maglev train station in Shanghai was merely the latest indication….. but what can I say? — I guess all that early engineering training left its mark!

So they were not at all surprised when I told them that we recently arranged – with our good friend and JHU colleague Dr. Yu Ningping — to visit a bridge here in Nanjing. But oh!!…. what a bridge! The Nanjing Yangtze River Bridge was built by Chinese engineers beginning in 1960 after the country kicked out its Soviet Union advisors – who unfortunately took all of the bridge’s plans & drawings with them. It took a full eight years to complete it (solely based upon Chinese designs) — and was thus finished & opened in the midst of the Cultural Revolution. It’s the longest bridge in the world handling both rail and vehicle traffic, and has ten-meter-high statues (symbolizing labor, peasants, soldiers, etc.) representing that era at both ends. The bridge’s towers are 70 meters (230 feet) tall, & we took the elevator in the south side down to check out the looming statue of Mao in its base.

Unfortunately, this remarkable landmark has a negative side as well. It is so famous that it has now surpassed the Golden Gate Bridge to become the number one location in the world for suicides. Luckily we did not see anyone in distress — but later did watch the award-winning documentary Angel of Nanjing describing the efforts of Chen Si, a local volunteer who patrols the bridge and who has saved or rescued more than 300 persons over the past dozen years.

 

Librairie Avant-Garde

Yet another infrastructure tourist site in Nanjing contains what CNN calls “China’s most beautiful bookshop” – but it is located in an underground parking garage (formerly a government parking site and bomb shelter)! The ‘Librairie Avant-Garde’ certainly has a unique style…. along with a great shop for postcards, drawings, knickknacks and sundry other gifts & souvenirs – as well as books! And so of course we took the visiting Raufer clan (see posting below) to help support the local Nanjing economy…. and to help fill the eleven pieces of luggage they somehow managed to carry home.