A Great Memorial for a Great Man

Story and photos by Vivienne Mackie

The SUN YAT SEN MAUSOLEUM, one of the renowned sights in Nanjing, and a place of pilgrimage for many Chinese.

(Note: Nanjing is in SE China, and was once a capital of China. It is still one of the biggest, most important cities.)

Sun Yat Sen, revered by Chinese in both PRC and Taiwan as “The Father of Modern China”, died of cancer in 1925, having been involved in the revolutionary movement since the fall of the last emperor in 1911. He was a modest man and probably wouldn’t have approved of the pomp and circumstance after his death but, to the Chinese way of thinking, this Mausoleum is fitting. Bigger is better, ornate is preferable, symbolism is a fact of life.

The whole Mausoleum complex is huge, a series of elaborately-decorated white granite buildings and gates at intervals up the hillside of Purple-Gold Mountain, leading to the Memorial, or Sacrificial, Hall at the top. The excited, chattering crowds are the biggest we’ve seen so far in China, but the students tell us that on May 1st (Labor Day) and October 1st (National Day) you can’t even move because of the packed throngs.

The Chinese people love symbols and signs and there’s symbolism in the design of the whole site. The mountain is shaped like a tiger and the Yangtze River, below, like a dragon, both auspicious animals. Others say that the mountain winds like a dragon, and call it “a mountain with a dragon inside”. The layout of the site is in the shape of a bell, symbolizing a call to rouse the people. There are 392 steps up to the Memorial Hall, as there were 392 million people in China during Sun’s time. The white granite and deep blue tiles of the Mausoleum are the nationalist colors.

From the parking area, we wander up the hill, past souvenir shops, to the entrance gate and into the site. The mountain is thickly wooded and the white buildings and steps contrast with the green trees. The crowds jostle and push, but the people are all amiable---they’re excited to be on this pilgrimage, all vying to have their pictures taken at auspicious spots, like in front of the black marble plaques inscribed with some of Sun’s better-known sayings, or in front of a bronze incense burner/drum, which was damaged by the Japanese in 1937.

The higher we climb, the better the view back down the steps and out over the misty hills. The Memorial, or Sacrificial, Hall is dominated inside by a 5-meter-tall seated white marble figure of the great man, the patterned ceiling of glazed colored tiles very impressive. Beyond the marble figure is the circular burial chamber with a life-size marble effigy lying on a stone coffin, the casket plain but awe-inspiring, in the center. The actual coffin is 5 meters below the statue.

Unsubstantiated rumors say that Sun’s bones were removed from the coffin by Guomindang leaders fleeing to Taiwan in 1949. The Guomindang ideals---Nationalism, Democracy, and People’s Livelihood---are carved above the entrance to the burial chamber in gold on black marble. These are the same ideals Sun brought to the revolutionary cause.

A small picture exhibit in the garden behind the circular burial hall documents the designing and building of the whole mausoleum (started in 1926 and finished in 1929), with a pictorial history of highlights of Sun’s life. His remains were buried here on June 1st, 1929. The exhibit is done in Chinese and English, so we could read some of it (between all the people). Behind is a small garden, peaceful in spite of the crowds milling below.

Bit of history:

After the final fall of the Qing Dynasty in October, 1911, and the revolution it sparked, Sun Yat Sen, the foreign-educated, exiled revolutionary, returned and was inaugurated as president of the provisional government of the Republic of China. His ideology for a revolutionary society was based on his Three Principles of Nationalism, Democracy, and Socialism. He knew he lacked the military strength to keep the nation together and soon handed the presidency over to reformist general Yuan Shikai. Compromises, changes, protests, fighting between warlords for government supremacy, and the rise of the Communist Party in 1921 were all part of that turbulent time in Chinese history. Sun Yat Sen tried to keep the nationalist cause alive, and established the Huangpu Military Academy in Guangzhou to create an army to wrest power from the warlords. Chiang Kai-shek, his brother-in-law who trained in Moscow, was the first commandant, and Zhou Enlai, a capable young Communist, was the political commissar. But, Sun did not see the results of this, as he died of cancer in 1925.

Mausoleum site open daily 6:30am-6:30pm.

40 yuan per person, with various discounts for groups, students, seniors, retired government people, and army people (all with appropriate documentation).

The Purple-Gold Mountain is not purple or gold, although supposedly purple clouds often hover over its peaks. But, it is densely wooded and undeveloped except for the famous sights. It’s all on a big scale as so much in China is---big mountain, long avenues lined with French sycamore trees (specially trained into a Y-shape) and huge buildings. The mountain has a number of famous sights. Besides this Mausoleum, the most famous are the Ming Tombs---ornate tombs of Ming emperors approached via a spectacular avenue lined with pairs of carved stone animals, some real, some mythical.