Martyrs' Park

Not entirely sure if it is clear that this is a hand clenching a rifle. It is suggestive, though.



















From the base of the gun.
Looks very Greek to me, in a BCE 5th C kind of way.





I like a good memorial and the Chinese do them well. Martyrs' Park is a very very nice place to spend time. On the 28+ degree day (with 95% humidity, that should be a given) that I was there, I reckon it was 5 degrees cooler and 10% less humid under the trees, of which there were plenty. In 20 years I'll be able to get in free (over 70, not from Guangzhou, for locals it's 65). meantime it only costs 3 RMB anyway.

Communism has tended to affect my perception of modern Chinese history, and Communism seems centred on Shanghai and Beijing, but in fact Guangzhou has a serious, if faintly overlooked political history. For a start it's the hometown of the Chinese republic in 1912. Most of the north of China was controlled by warlords at the time; one of the reasons Mandarin (a northern dialect) became the national language was as part of a deal to get political support for unity from northern power brokers. 1927 saw the triumph of the state - OK, the nationalist state, but still the state - so that China could see itself as a single political non-imperial entity.

And being a city with a significant urban proletariat, Communism was a strong political current in Guangzhou as well as Shanghai.

Unfortunately (or fortunately) the museum was closed so I can't provide more details (yet!).

Some of the martyrs were in their early 20's. What was I doing in my early 20's? Weed, mainly. Certainly not trying to found a city-state in the teeth of 5000-odd years of imperial tradition. Still, most of them were weedy looking guys with glasses, so I guess we had something in common.






Trees, etc.