When Chinese people decide to make a memorial, they don’t mess around…this place is BIG.
This is fair enough, considering the reasons this place exists. Yuhuatai is a massive memorial park, in a nutshell, because this area became a mass execution ground during the anti-communist revolution starting in 1927. The actual historical details of this uprising, and the political reasons and results of it, have far too large a scope for this article. But this place – along with the Nanjing Massacre Memorial Museum – are sombre reminders of the violence that this city has witnessed in its past. Thousands of communist leaders, thinkers and believers died up on this mountain. Remember that Nanjing was the capital until 1950, and so, unfortunately, its logical that violence would be centred here.
So what’s here now? Well, there’s a lot to see, especially if you’re interested in Chinese political history – this place is ALL about politics, propaganda and Chinese patriotism. It’s known as a national base for patriotic education. There’s even a museum seemingly dedicated to Chinese party members through history…I’m not entirely sure, because there’s a sign in Chinese, English, Japanese and Korean telling you that you can’t come in unless you’re Chinese. Curious, eh?
There’s also Mao Ze Dong (Chairman Mao) exhibition hall, which is everything and anything Mao. This place will strike many foreigners as rather odd, but hey the Chinese love this guy. You can get your photo taken with a life-sized bronze statue of Mao for 25 yuan. You can also leave a cigarette for him by placing it on a table in front of him – it sounds odd, but people are doing it. You can also buy Mao statues, posters, trinkets, books, DVDs, hats….well, anything basically. The most curious thing about this exhibition room, to me, is that there’s not ONE WORD of English in it.
There’s also an eternal flame on top of the hill that was only made last year for the PRC’s 60th anniversary. And as you walk around and take in the scale of this whole place, you walk towards the “Memorial of Revolutionary Martyrs”, which is a massive exhibition building, telling of the lives of those killed for their communist involvements and beliefs here on this mountain. It wasn’t just one or two people, it was thousands. Something that I noted in this particular exhibition is that it’s the most Chinglish-free place I’ve seen in China. They really put effort into this, and it shows. This is open from 8am to 5.30pm.
There’s also many other places to see here (including a pagoda that’s currently wrapped in scaffolding, so you can’t see that at the moment), in fact so much that there’s no way you can see it in just one day. There’s also recreational areas, including a BBQ area (apparently). It’s really big, and really nice…it’s so strange that a mass execution ground has become a world-class park.
There’s no official website (well not in English), and actually not too much info online apart from a few “sightseeing” sites.
Open from 8am. Free entry.
