My June 2025 Visit to China: Touchstones of History

The great American base-ball player named Yogi Berra was famous for his quotes like "that restaurant is so popular that no one goes there" and "we made too many wrong mistakes" and "we're lost but we're making good time". If I can add a few of my own quotes about China: "the Fushun mine is so big you can't see it" or "the railroad stations would not fit into my camera" and "if this country is so communist, why is the street-life and traffic such a riot of freedom?". click on the pictures and you'll get some idea of how China thinks big:

FUSHUN, the location of the great open-pit coal mine:

the strip-mine is now covered with greenery:

The coal mine museum:

unfortunately, the observation tower was not accessible!

Public art in Fushun showing miners at work:

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SHENYANG: I stayed at the old Yamato Hotel:

it is still elegant, although a century old and much larger than I had imagined:

the very stage where Yamaguchi sang at the age of thirteen:

an article about Yamaguchi which was posted in the hotel: 

the old Shenyang Railway Station:

NANJING Museum: has exhibit of 1930s Republic culture, 

had this picture of Li Xianglan in the above street shop:

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SANHAIGUAN, which Yoshiko mentions in her memoir:

SHANGHAI - GRAND THEATER and BROADWAY MANSION

looking down the Garden Bridge towards Broadway Mansion where Yoshiko lived in the early 1940s:

looking at the Garden Bridge from ground floor bar in Broadway Mansion:

BEIJING: at the location of Yoshiko's 1935 Beijing residence on Picai Hutong. 

The residence is no longer there, having been replaced some time ago by a small commercial building. 

Qi Baishi passed away in 1957 and his house appears to have been undisturbed since then. I think his property looks the same as it did in 1935 when Yoshiko lived next door.  

looking at the commercial clinic that occupies the former Pan residence:

this tree fronting Picai Hutong clinic may have existed in 1935:

The general neighborhood looks to be higher-end apartment buildings, and I assume this was the case in the 1930's also:

looking at Qi Baishi residence from the street:

and from opposite direction:

front door of Qi residence:

walking around the Qi Baishi residence:

other famous Beijing locations that Yoshiko mentions in her memoirs:

John M. bicycling around Tiananmen Square on a ShareBike:

the moat around the Forbidden City:

the Beihai Lake Park:

the Temple of Heaven: (it is huge!):

Chinese ladies love to dress up in hanfu clothing:

 

:Under Construction: