Day 18; Jiangmen (Tues; 15 Apr)

 Tour 2; Day 5

The schedule:

• Jiangmen Wuyi Overseas Chinese Museum
• Former residence of Dr. Sun Yat-sen 
• Zhangshan Commercial Museum

 Day 5, the mornings are becoming somewhat predictable - breakfast around 7:30, tour bus around 9 and off to the day's events. Breakfast must have been better than average as I don't see any whining about it in my journal. We had a little surprise this morning in that two group members tested positive for C-19. They did their best to sequester but not much can be done on a tour bus, we all masked up on the bus and indoors (Note re C-19; most of were a bit nervous about this news but no one else got sick (that we know of) during the tour).

 So, it was off to the Jiangmen Wuyi Overseas Chinese Museum . After yesterdays visit to what I thought was the Overseas Chinese Museum at the Wuyi University, my hopes were not high for this visit to be particularly interesting. I could not have been more wrong. Here is a description of the museum and surrounding area as we entered...

Wuyi Overseas Chinese Square is located in the administrative center of Development Avenue, Pengjiang District, Jiangmen City. The project covers an area of 81,766 square meters, with a total construction area of 82,300 square meters. It consists of five halls, including the Museum of Overseas Chinese in Wuyi of Jiangmen City, Jiangmen Art Museum, Jiangmen Cultural Center, Jiangmen Planning Exhibition Center and Overseas Chinese Museum in Overseas Chinese Capital of China. The main functions include cultural relics displays, calligraphy collection and painting viewing, holding cultural entertainment activities, film and television screening. Jiangmen city
construction achievements display, as well as holding all kinds of large-scale exhibitions, conferences and important forums, is a collection of tourism, patriotic education and culture and art viewing in one of the large comprehensive building. 

This museum was a very large building with thousands of artifacts, well organized and well displayed. We arrived about the same time as several bus loads of, what appeared to be, elementary school age groups. Kids are funny, they looked and waved at us and we thought it somewhat ironic that we (well most of us) were "Overseas Chinese" - maybe they thought we were part of the exhibit. Anyway, that was fun. We spent about 2 hours in the museum and I (and others) felt it wasn't long enough. Many, perhaps most, of the exhibits showcase OC contributions to the world. There was an extensive display addressing WW2 that had a very good description of interactions and exploits of the Flying Tigers. There was also a good review of the beginning of Chinese aviation that appeared to follow similar American progress (specifically that of the Wright brothers and Glenn Curtiss). There was another display addressing the prejudice many OC faced, including the US Chinese Exclusion Act as well as similar actions by other countries. A very interesting English phrase book was displayed as well as a good overview of the Chinese dynasties. We (I) used to think of Overseas Chinese as Chinese living in the US, and while that's true it's only a small part of the OC population. This museum visit remedied that incorrect perception as Chinese have emigrated all over the world and this museum documented much of that migration. As I mentioned, the displays were very well done and I hope our pictures convey even a small semblance of what was there, because even that would be impressive. Frankly, there was just too much here to absorb in 2 hours. We took a lot of pictures of which I'll show less than 10%.

Note re number of pictures; It is our intent to eventually cull the 3,000+ pictures we took on this trip and put that subset in a Google Photo album that we'll share with anyone who's interested, but that will come later as I'd like to finish this blog first... 

From the JWOCM we must have gone to lunch but as with breakfast there is no whining in my journal so I have to think it was at least better than average Chinese banquet.

Our next stop was the village and home of Dr. Sun Yat-sen who is described as the "George Washington of China". He is credited with leading the revolution that overthrew the Qing imperial dynasty, ultimately ending feudal rule. He served as the first president of the Provisional Government of the Republic of China. The village was well kept and it appeared that people were still living there. There is a Sun Yat-sen museum there but it was closed, although several other interesting exhibits were open.

Last stop for the day was the Zhungshan Commercial Museum that laid out how commerce developed in China. I must have been tired by then because that one sentence is the extent of my notes on that visit. Perhaps the pictures will convey more...

 I'll take some space here to show a "better than average" buffet breakfast (thanks to Donna who took these pix...). I won't try to describe what's what as I generally didn't know...

One school bus load of kids going into the museum...

Each bus/class(?) posed for a picture in front of the museum, as did our tour group (but I didn't get a copy of that pic...)

Hard to put numbers to the symbols but it appears that the US and Canada come in well behind Southeast and Southwest Asia as well as Venezuela. The table below does not appear to agree...

 

Not sure as to the currency of this data but note that these emigrant numbers are those only from Jiangmen - 1.68 million OC from Jiangmen to the US (I could be reading these numbers wrong though...)

There's a lot of history here, it was broken up into chapters with a short introductory paragraph as a lead into the main displays.

Interesting that portraits of both Samuel Clemens and Harriet Beecher Stowe are displayed. I can't find any direct link to China. It seems their only link, besides being neighbors in Harford, was their abolitionist views...

 

I gather that this is the author of the phrase book pages below and had hoped, on my swoop through the museum, that there would be enough resolution in my pictures to be able to later read what was written. This turned out to work only about 50% of the time...

... with phrases like "Let us drink a cup of wine" and "Your food is very nice". Maybe you can zoom in to see others.

The OC Museum has several exhibits pointing out the racism and discrimination they endured. Here, the infamous US exclusion act...

 

... and the very similar act passed in Canada.

"Success or death" - Feng Ru (1883 - 1912) was a pioneering Chinese 
aviator and aircraft designer. While Feng Ru is little known in the United States, his fame in China is equivalent to the Wright brothers’. Feng moved to the United States at the age of twelve, 
living and working in various parts of California. Funded by local Chinese businessmen, Feng established the Guangdong Air Vehicle Company in Oakland, CA in 1909, and completed his first airplane that year. That airplane borrowed extensively from the published works of the Wright brothers and Glenn Curtiss. Feng returned to China in 1911, upon the request of Chinese revolutionary Sun Yat-sen, who wanted to use Feng's planes to aid the rebellion against the Qing dynasty. On August 26, 1912, Feng was killed while performing an aerial exhibition before a crowd of 1,000 spectators while performing in a plane of his own design and manufacture. The Republic of China gave Feng Ru a full military funeral, awarding him the posthumous rank of a major general. At Sun Yat-Sen’s request, the words “Chinese Aviation Pioneer” were engraved upon Feng’s tombstone.

COL Claire Channault with OC members of the famous Flying Tigers

A Shenyang J-6 first generation jet fighter, a Chinese built version of the Russian MiG-19. Still reportedly in use in North Korea and others

There were several life-size dioramas depicting Chinese laborers, here mining gold...

... and here terracing a rock cliff for the railroad.

Lunch on our way to the village of Dr. Sun Yat-sen, looks like we're just getting started...

Our walk into the village... kind of a normal Chinese village town...

... still walking, note that this was our first day dealing with C-19 folks in our group. A lot of folks masked up even outside...

Now we're in the village, it was pristine...

Just another everyday average house in an everyday average village in China... 

Chinese Medicine Pharmacy

This used to be the house of a Yang family. It is now rearranged to show what a traditional Chinese medicine pharmacy and clinic was like in old times.

A display of a carpenter's shop...

I'm not really sure what this room is trying to depict but I am reasonably sure that's a portrait of Dr. Sun Yat-sen

On to the Zhangshan Commercial Museum. This was a bit of a let down after the first two. It could be that we were getting tired (at least I was...).

Statues of men famous for the commercialization of China. Actually, I was stalking that woman in the back there** 

 

 

 

 

Displays similar to those we saw at the Yen-sat village, a fabric store..

A typical sight in China - a building that could be hundreds of years old (in the foreground) and another a block away that's maybe 20 years old (in the background).

We'll close out the day with dinner - looks like were about a quarter of the way through here...

** For those of you not in step with my sense of humor, such as it is, the "woman in the back" is my wife, Donna...