Originally, I had thought that my father lived in Nanjing, but I was incorrect. I talked with Jody, my niece, who is really the expert on the Myers papers because of her dedicated work transcribing and indexing the contents of the 9 books of letters my father left to the family. She sent me the following excerpt from a letter Daddy wrote on Feb. 20, 1935 to my oldest sister, Mary Rogers Myers.
QUOTE
I guess that mother [Daddy's first wife, Mattie] wrote you that I have been to Nanking. I spent several days there testing some vehicles for the Government. Not much for me to do except to observe the test as a representative of Dr. H. H. Kung. But I had to be there anyway. You have never been to Nanking so I will tell you a bit about it. It is a great big city spread over several square miles. It has a very crooked wall which seems to wander all about taking in fields and everything. They say that when one of the old king was building the wall he tried to take in a large hill (Purple Mountain) but when he started to build the wall around the hill it simply moved away and when he changed the course of the wall to catch it, it just moved again. Well, this may or may not be true but the fact remains that the wall is mighty crooked. The city is built on the great Yangtse River and is about 200 miles from Shanghai. The river is about a mile and a half wide there. The mountain I have mentioned above is a little to the south of the city and is a sort of national Park. It is here that Dr. Sun Yatsen is buried and it is here that the tombs of the old kings are buried. Nanking, you know, was the capital long before Peiping was. From the banks of the Yangtse to the tomb of Dr. Sun is about ten or more miles and a fine street has been built right thru the city. It is 100 feet wide and is paved all the way with asphalt. Inside the wall there are very few houses along the street. I was told that an order has been issued to the effect that all the land must be built up during the next year. There is a lot of construction going on there now.
The place where I went to test the vehicles was way out in the country at another mountain, or range of hills, known as "Tong-shan" (hot hills). It is a wild country where very few people live altho there are many rice fields there... There is a bathing place near where we were where the hot water pours out of the ground and where a small Chinese hotel is located. I did not go there because it was always so late when we finished the tests that we had to hurry back to town for something to eat. Many times we were there from nine oclock right through till three in the afternoon and all we thot of was getting the mud off our shoes and clothes and around some food. I was there over Sunday and went out to Purple Mountain with a couple of the others there to see some of the new construction work.
END QUOTE
I will be in Nanjing 3 days and 3 nights. So, based on this information, I think my wish list for sightseeing in Nanjing would be the following:
- Dr Sun Yat Sen Mausoleum
- "Tong-shan" (if possible - where the trucks were tested)
- Purple Mountain
- Ming Tombs (at the foot of Purple Mountain)
- National Nanjing Museum south of Purple Mountain
- The Hot Springs ("bathing place" he mentioned, again, if possible)
- The Old City Wall (that he mentioned)
- Zhonghua Men
- Fuzimiao (Confucius Temple)
If I don't get to see everything it is okay. This is a wish list, not a demand list.
