History, the good, bad and ugly

The Chinese sure knew how to live like kings. Well their were emperors so it is sort of the same thing. This morning we started at Shenyang Palace. The was the capitol before Beijing. It was beautiful with many, buildings, rooms, court yards, but still only 1/12 the size of the Forbidden City. We could also see more here. The rooms, the thrones etc. It was a beautiful and sunny day. On our way there, every hotel in the city seemed to have a big, blow up red arch in front of it with white cartoon cerubs holding bows and arrows. Quite tacky if you ask me, but anyone getting married has this outside of the hotel. We must have seen 20 weddings today. Weddings here take place on Saturday and Sunday.

Since the morning adventure did not take long about have the group decided to go on and see a memorial for September 18, 1931. This is the day the Japanese invaded China, specifically Shenyang. The horrors that happened to the Chinese, the brutality and total destruction is beyond belief. Millions of Chinese were killed, they were all driven out of their homes, running away into the mountains. It is amazing to me how I could be 32 years old and never realize what happened during World War II to the Chinese. I do not want to spend more time here talking about this since the graffic pictures stories and images I have might be too much for many readers. There were two touching things about the whole experience. First the Chinese people touring seemed very upset and moved. Many young adults had tears flowing as the read the accounts and saw the pictures. The other was the forgiveness of the Chinese. At the end of the exhibit, they spoke of human treatment of prisoners and building up positive relationships with the Japanese. People can be horrible and evil, but they can also be so generous and forgiving. I hope we all can embrace the later of these values and continue to love, help, and respect one another. Let us all learn from the mistakes of history. Let us all be shining examples of goodness.

This might be hard to see, but it is a statue of Chinese family feeling to the mountains when the Japanese invaded. Our guide, Shiyan, said her mother was four when this happened and she remembered walking with her family, everyone carrying quilts and food. She was so tired she could barely walk and a kind stranger picked her up and carried her. They hid in the mountains for days until it was safe to return, their village was destroyed.
Sarah and Lina at the Shenyang Palace
Sarah at the entrance to the throne room used to entertain guests
Sarah posing with some Chinese tourists. They really wanted my picture with them
Sarah posing with one of the "Kings"
Broom and dustpan used by Chinese "cleaning crew" This was at the palace, but these homemade brooms are used all over China.