Tomb Sweeping Holiday

I had Friday off this week for the Tomb Sweeping Holiday. I didn't hear much about the traditions of the holiday itself from pretty much anyone; instead it was all descriptions of how much time off or overtime pay one gets, which I guess is a testament to how little free time most Chinese workers have. I did see people who couldn't actually visit their ancestors' graves in person burning fake money and other things on the side of the street, though.

I took advantage of the break to do a little sight-seeing in Nanjing, taking a two hour walk to the northern part of town to check out the Yangtze river bridge built in 1968. At the time it was a huge engineering feat and a triumph for the Communist Party. I don't have any photos, as I foolishly forgot to charge my camera battery before setting out, but I'm sure I'll be back there sometime and I'll get some photos for you then. The bridge itself is a huge steel trestle, with enormous concrete ramps leading up to it both for cars and trains. There is a park around the base of the bridge on the Nanjing side, and I hopped over the park wall to get to the bank of the river itself. Between the wall of the park and the edge of the water, there is a strip of land maybe about 100 meters wide, where people were tending to the vegetables they had planted and kids were running around with sticks. It is certainly not the kind of place you'd see farming taking place in the U.S., and I wonder whether these people own the land, or whether they grow vegetables as a sort of hobby or supplemental income.

After sitting and watching the barges going up and down the river while trains rumbled over the bridge, I climbed back into the park and struck up a conversation with a gaggle of young female tour guides who had no clients, apparently because of the holiday. They told me that the bridge was built during the Great Leap Forward when steel was hard to come by. Mao made people melt down their rice bowls to provide building materials for the bridge. They also told me about the large number of people who jump off the bridge (this was confirmed by my roommate's boyfriend, a Nanjing native, who laughed when I said I had gone there, saying that it's known for its suicide rate), as well as the retired old men who take it upon themselves to patrol the bridge trying to spot and dissuade jumpers and the soldiers who scan the roadway with binoculars attempting to do the same. Despite all of the efforts aimed at preventing suicide, though, the girls told me that there had been one two days before.

Before setting off for the bridge, I had lunch at a restaurant near my apartment that I had never been to. Despite the fact that it's an average restaurant, it seems to have been founded with a romantic theme in mind. Both the sign on the outside and the walls and tables on the inside are decorated with hearts and silhouettes of cupid. The Saturday afternoon clientele was just like any other restaurant, consisting mostly of groups of businessmen. While I was waiting for my food, I noticed a bizarre poster hanging on the wall:
有间餐厅
我想带你坐泰坦尼克
可惜我只有一张船票
我想带你去。。。有间餐厅
因为我有固定号码
（restaurant's phone number)

You Jian Restaurant
I wanted to take you on the Titanic
Unfortunately I only have one ticket
So I'll take you to . . . the You Jian Restaurant
Because I have the exact number
(restaurant's phone number)

It's probably a good thing the object of the guy's affections missed out on that Titanic trip, even though the consolation prize was a little lame. I said to the waitress, "That poster's pretty weird. Maybe the Titanic is romantic, but there's a pretty big disadvantage to going on it." She replied, "Think of it however you want." I'm not sure what to make of that reply.