Another two-hour bus ride took us from Wuxi to Nanjing, where 300,000 people were killed in 1937 during Japanese’s six-weeks occupation. A Deconstructivistic memorial hall was built on the site where piles of skeleton was found. Located by survivors of the Nanjing Massacre, the Memorial hall covers approximately 280,000 sq.m. Before arriving at the exhibited section of the burial ground, Visitors first walked along a tall, dark, and hostile wall at entrance that leads to a lose cobblestone pathway which signifies the multitude of victims. Archaeologists point out that judging from the positions of these remains, many victims died of “abnormal death.” A young boys skull was located on his chest, and long nails were pierced into the bones of different victims, including women and children. The Japanese “sliced babies not just in half but in thirds and fourths,” author Iris Chang wrote in her book, the Rape of Nanjing. Chang succumbed to depression and took her own life in 2004, seven years after writing the book. The Memorial Hall is designed by Qi Kang, a Nanjing Architect who was six years old during the Massacre.
Nine days into 2012 and a day before entering into a new age group is an opportune time to nail down some New Year's resolutions. 2011 was a good year, one that filled with transitions and norming -- be it moving from California to Charlotte, from being a student back to an architect, or starting fresh in a new territory to establishing roots and relationships. My new running and swimming communities had made the transition easy and welcoming, and partly because of that, much of my attention in the past year was on either sports, like running my first 50k and participating in my first swim meet. Having just graduated from seminary was probably the other half of the reason why I had been keeping a distance from structured studies / reading in 2011. With that said, my 2012 focus will be on balanced growth. While I still have a long list of goals in swimming and running, I need to make sure I allocate enough time and attention to spiritual and intellectual grow...
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