National Day

[First published October 2, 2014] ​While searching the Zibo area in Google Maps, I noticed that there was a "Cemetery of Revolutionary Martyrs" on the outskirts of town, not far from the school. I gather there was no shortage of martyrs in Shandong Province. Even if you survived the brutal Japanese occupation and the civil war, you could still be executed by the Communist Party's "Traitor Elimination Bureau" or be eliminated by a political rival for being a Trotskyite. 

What better day to visit the cemetery and contemplate the hardships that this region endured than October 1st, National Day, the anniversary of the day when Mao proclaimed the new Chinese Republic from Tiananmen Square? 

October 1st marks the first day of a three day national holiday, which is extended into seven days off by re-scheduling some classes. For the last few days we've heard the happy clatter of wheeled suitcases rolling over the brick pathways as students returned to their homes after only three weeks of classes. The city buses were crammed full and the taxis, both licensed and unlicensed, couldn't keep up with the flow of students heading to the bus or train station...

But Ross and I didn't have to be stranded at the campus because we have our bicycles. We headed south through the neighboring villages, picked up some baozi (meat-filled bread dumpling) and apples and then crossed the Xiaofu river. Ross snapped a picture of the view beyond one country field. The campus is surrounded by little farming settlements but high rises are encroaching in their way of life, for better or for worse.

Our route took us along narrow unpaved village alleys and honking big highways and everything in between, and we had to detour around a barricaded road and climb a long hill til we spotted the memorial site. The roadway leading to the site was being used for drying corn. There was very little traffic to the memorial site but I think a ceremony was held in the morning, which we missed.

Memorial site on hill

Looking back down the road

After passing the entrance gate, we pushed on uphill to the entrance proper. The cemetery is laid out in terraced rows and there are hundreds of tombstones. 

Ross counted -- there were two hundred steps from the entrance up through the gravestones to the obelisk at the top of the hill.  Many graves had little incense burners in front of them and there were also large urns in between the rows. Below is one with some incense sticks still burning. Some people had come that day to visit a loved one, still remembered. 

We saw three headstones larger than the others, and they displayed photos of the deceased. They had pride of place in the cemetery and large banners had been placed at the foot of the headstones, probably just that morning. 

Then, on the bike ride home, as we rode through the village behind the campus, I spotted a poster -- hey, that guy looks familiar....  Turns out he is a local hero, Ma Yaonan, a schoolteacher and engineer who became a military leader fighting the Japanese. He died in battle at age 37.