The Nanjinger - November 2021

THE NANJINGER | 2021.11

NOVEMBER 2021

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THE NANJINGER | VOLUME 12 ISSUE 02 | NOVEMBER 2021

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THE NANJINGER | VOLUME 12 ISSUE 02 | NOVEMBER 2021

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THE NANJINGER | VOLUME 12 ISSUE 02 | NOVEMBER 2021

Androgynous anjing has a staggering array of architecture. And in a way, it's almost an offence on our part that we have given the fascinating topic too little attention.

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Still with food & drink, we leave our city behind for a short, virtual gastronomical trip. Yanghou Fried Rice is well known across the world; and it’s a cinch to make it at home too!

That all changes with this issue. Introducing "Capital Constructs", a new monthly column exploring "The Building of Nanjing". We begin with that which one first sees looking at Nanjing from a Distance; Zifeng Tower (p.24).

And so to our theme for this month. Two quotations perhaps sum it up best; "Women hold up half the Sky" (Mao Zedeng), and, "The world has changed and we must change with it" (Barack Obama).

Elsewhere, Matt Ford commences his review of craft beer bars in Beijing, cementing the view that Nanjing still has much to learn in that department (p.28-29).

Welcome to “Gender” from The Nanjinger.

Ed.

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can the QR Code to visit The Nanjinger on WeChat, from where you can download a free PDF of this issue, find a full list of distribution points for hard copies or arrange a subscription to have The Nanjinger delivered to your home or office!

This magazine is part of a family of English publications that together reach a large proportion of the foreign population living in Nanjing, along with a good dash of locals, comprising: The Nanjinger City Guide www.thenanjinger.com Facebook, WeChat, Twitter & Instagram

All of the above are owned and operated by HeFu Media, the Chinese subsidiary of SinoConnexion Ltd; www.sinoconnexion.com

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THE NANJINGER | 2021.11

When I was eleven, Ma’emoiselle B———- melted our minds when she told us that le ciel was male, but la mer was female.

She was most definitely female.

Year seven hung on her every sensuous word As her body, soft under that light summer dress, sashayed around the class, Her moist lips whispering in an accent of foreign romance, words of worlds we had never heard before.

We were under a spell we could not yet understand.

She was our everything.

Till, at the end of the year, with no au revoir she left us… …To be replaced by the colonel; A gruff stereotypical military monster with a strict and demanding regime.

He barked as he marched, clipped Orders issued from beneath his moustache As we were drilled in tense and declensions till we thought we would drop.

‘Feminine not female, masculine not male,’ he insisted.

Of course, we would be thankful years later when the exam to us read like a child’s picture book.

But..Ma’emoiselle’s perfume yet permeated, her gentle declarations still enshrined in our minds with her smile.

And for years we have wondered: How can the sky have gender?

Is it the way he protects us, selflessly holding back the black void?

Or how he can be bright and smiling but at night be Heathcliff; dark, unreadable and brooding? No? How can the sea have gender?

May it be in the way she cradled you one day so gently,

By M ait iu Bra lligan ‘2 1 9

THE NANJINGER | VOLUME 12 ISSUE 02 | NOVEMBER 2021

By Wu Tianhao

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THE NANJINGER | 2021.11

"This is the word ‘emperor’, and this is what Europe looks like on a world map, and here is China, your majesty."

case, females in Japan earn as much as 50 percent less than their male counterparts in all walks of life.

Talking back and forth, practising everyday English with his tutor, the young Emperor, Guangxu, was said to spend nearly 2 hours each day on this alien language, and his accent was described as "reasonably good" by a British scholar.

When it comes to names, “crowning” the family with the male’s name is still the practical social more in many countries, including Japan. More astonishing is some of the expressions found in today’s Japanese language. Even in 2021, when a married Japanese woman refers to her husband, she still shall say, “ご主人” (Go-shyu-jin), meaning “master” or “owner”.

In what was a personification of China's feudal system, this was the first time in Chinese history when the male-dominated society probably thought about their great grand fathers’ social faux-pas during the reception of the British delegation headed by Lord McCartney nearly a century before.

Nevertheless, the fact was simple, Guangxu understood that China no longer topped a patriarchal international system. No more.

This was indicative of a new dawn, an era when the "upper structure" opened its eyes toward the world, mentally treating other countries as equals, if not superior, deviating from traditional concepts that those are secondary entities which bear obligations to stand in awe of the Middle Kingdom in female-to-male relations.

Over the past century, especially since the founding of the People's Republic, for the people living on this soil, gender relations have undergone tremendous transformation.

Looking at an income table featuring two genders, people are often surprised by the stalemate in income levels for females through all age brackets. In the most severe

Make no mistake, throughout the history of this island nation, women have been in every way inferior to men, therefore leaving an indelible trace in its language.

Although bred in roughly the same cultural ambience as much of Northeast Asia, China has progressed much further in advancing gender equality, at least by every means to which the competent authorities could resort, during the past 7 decades and beyond. I recall my great grand mother’s name as Wang Yao Shi (王姚氏), meaning the “the woman surnamed Wang Yao”. Spending my illiterate preschool childhood years believing this to be her real name, in fact it was not. Having married my great grand father, Mr. Wang, and hence losing her maiden given name, her original family name then came only second.

“This is preposterously unfair”, I thought to myself later on. What we are right here, right now, stems from our first 9 months’ residence in the female womb, yet this great gender didn’t even deserve a full upright name when grown? This, fortunately, is just a “did”. Those days are long gone in my country.

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In today’s China, women enjoy as many equal rights to men in so far as their physical capabilities are capable. Gladly, they also fare as well as men in many other aspects.

A friend of mine informed me recently that she feels relieved to know Chinese female scholars now boast the gender advantage during the selection of academics.

Perhaps in the eyes of some feminists, such should not be necessary, as females are inherently and genetically equal to their male counterparts. But in the broader picture, just as the Americans did with Affirmative Action back in the 1960s, this helps our society to attach greater importance to the rights of a once vulnerable group of people.

For all the progress made, there are fields, nevertheless, that still have room for improvement. First and foremost, educational opportunities in remote rural areas for females.

Born and raised in East China, it’s hard to entertain the idea that when a family’s school attendance is limited due to lack of financial means, girls often renounce it for the future of elder or younger brothers.

these years have assisted nearly 2,000 girls to enroll in college and chase their dreams of life. The school script allegedly used by Zhang to boost the confidence of the her students went viral on the internet.

“We are born with endowed talents... and what modern day female should pursue are dreams and how to fight for them...

(Girls,) you deserve to be great, and are able to stand on a higher platform (for achieving your life goals)!”

In his farewell speech, Barack Obama said, “The world has changed, and we must change with it!” For us Chinese males, this is also an admonishment. As Chinese females are working hard to get ahead and garner their fair share, we males need to catch up.

“Our Chinese men cannot just get back home from work and rush to the sofa for the rest of day or just play video games like a “Da Ye” (大爷; acting snobbish). If they do, the harmony between us will be adversely affected”, claimed one of my classmates.

“What’s the point of getting married then? To serve a ‘master’? Get over themselves!”

As the expression goes, “Females eventually marry into a new family like a basin of water poured out for good”.

Thankfully, the traditional Chinese family style described as, “Nan zhu wai; nv zhu nei” (男主外女主内), or “men centred around career, women the home”, has gradually been swept into the dustbin.

Yet this is the real case in areas in the far west of the country. Listening to Ms. Zhang Guimei’s speech on the conferring ceremony of “July 1 Medal”, the highest honour within CPC, I felt deeply touched.

And who would say it is not a movement toward greater good for everyone? We Chinese males are obliged to be in a better version of ourselves with each passing day to get along with our dear girls and ladies.

Zhang spent most of her life in Yunnan, where she founded a high school offering education to girls for free. Her efforts during

For the genders in China, there is today in place incremental equality in resources, and tomorrow hopefully, equity in mindsets.

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By Nahee Kim

IN

South Korea, which is where I was born, there is a larger gender discrimination issue compared to other highly developed countries. Many have treated women unfairly over hundreds of years; women were only able to compete in the Olympics from the 1900 Paris Games onwards.

And according to SavetheChildren.org, it will take over 200 years to reach gender equality in the United States alone.

So that future generations can inherit a society with absolute equality, the issue of gender inequality worldwide can be solved by a change in the opinions as to what certain genders can and cannot do. Even though gender equality was incorporated into a part of the International Human Rights Law by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights on 10 December, 1948, there are still many places

with unequal pay for women and a large bias in the education and health sectors, as well as a general preference for boys over girls.

If this worldwide issue is affecting many nations, then how is it impacting the most populated country in the world, China?

“Women hold up half the sky”. This well-known phrase by Chairman Mao Zedong from the 1960s has allowed the people of China to mostly support gender equality going forward.

However, much gender inequality remains.

From early times, men have been the ones to lead households and are known to be the only carriers of their ancestors’ blood. Then there was Confucius who stated that women must act following the requirements of men near them; their fathers when they are young, their husbands when they are married, and their

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sons when they are widowed. Mao’s phrase addressed these stereotypes as to what women could and could not do.

China now asserts full support for gender equality, but the exponential growth and economic development of the nation has also made this a challenge. For instance, the gender gap in China’s labour force widens every year, the increase in the ratio of men to women in businesses that was 9.4 percent is now 14.1 percent.

Additionally, in the global gender earnings gap rankings, China was last year ranked 106th out of 153 countries, significantly lower than in 2006 when it was in 63rd place. The reasons are governmental and societal.

Firstly, there has been a decline in childcare support from the state, which has forced many women to take care of their children on their own while their men go out to earn money.

And today, fewer and fewer newlymarried couples are living with their parents, which has increased women’s parental responsibilities with grandparents of the children not around to help take care of them.

While China officially supports gender equality, there is still much to do to put an end to implicit bias in employment and parenting roles.

However, Confucius also, ironically, claimed that everybody should have equal access to education. Indeed, the equal education of both men and women in China has been on the rise; the country’s illiteracy rate decreased from 16.6 percent in 1995 to 7.5 percent in 2018 for all women 15 years old and above. Back in 1949, the illiteracy rate of all citizens in China was even at 80 percent!

In 2018, women in master's and doctorate programs represented 51.2 and 40.4 percent of all students in 2018, respectively, up by an average of 22 percent from 23 years ago.

Due to such rising education levels, girls are receiving more attention from their families than ever before and are clearly showing that they are also able to get a good job with good earning potential, just like a son could.

What’s in a (gender-equal) name?

In today’s China, there has been a notable change in the passing down of surnames since the end of the one-child policy in late 2015, with more and more people now preferring to give their babies their mother’s family name. As time goes on in the 21st century, last names have become less significant to families, while many parents are also deciding to give their children a combination of both their father and mother’s surnames, as reported by the South China Morning Post.

In 2018, among the 90,000 babies born in Shanghai, 91.2 percent had their father’s surname, 8.8 percent had their mother’s, and 2.5 percent had both.

So, while China still has gender bias in some sectors, it is working hard and improving equality in others.

As a female student who has been studying abroad with people from many different cultures, I believe that although not everyone may think the same nor have similar backgrounds, people should all respect each other as fellow equal human beings, without stereotypical thinking about gender nor race.

In China, about 700 million people are women.

This means there are many possibilities for how this nation can lead the trend for gender equality, through greater education, job opportunities and equal pay for women. Combined with making child gender preferences a thing of the past, China could become a place of near-absolute gender equality.

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a

By Tríon he/her) Ryan (s

Ten years ago, my daughter was born in the early morning of a cold and dark November. I was quietly confident. I had been mothering for 15 months by then; I was cured of frights, like the saying goes.

Ha! Turns out, I knew nothing. I was the Jon Snow of parenthood, a fool at the gates of the new world.

Nobody and nothing has schooled

me in the meaning of life like raising Child 1 and Child 2. Assumptions about love, education, identity and the self were shredded and used to compost acceptance and openmindedness. Indeed, on our decadeplus tour of life together, suppositions and presumptions have fallen much the same as the cast of Game of Thrones, especially those around the concept of gender.

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Gender. It’s all the rage lately to discuss it, debate it, downright celebrate it.

The word ‘gender’ can be traced back to 1882 when it first entered The Oxford Etymological Dictionary, defined as: “kind, breed, sex, derived from the Latin ablative case of genus, like genere natus, which refers to birth”.

And that is pretty much how it has been used since then; to refer to the biological sex of a species or the genus of a word in a gendered language.

We had masculine and feminine nouns, but not masculine and feminine people. Women were womanly and men were manly and that’s just the way it was.

Or perhaps the cultural assumptions around gender roles and gender performance are so deeply engrained, so much in and of us, we don’t even see them anymore.

Like privilege, or the water in which a fish swims, when a concept or construct becomes so normalised it is imperceptible because of its pervasiveness.

The idea of a gender binary; male and female expressions of gender, is so embedded in our culture, the concept wasn’t even included in the dictionary until 1955 and not mentioned in the Journals of the American Physiological Society until 1982.

Since then, it has been stirred around in the pot of filling for the Equity Pie that remains elusive even in the progressive era in which we live.

As recently as September 2021, Merriam Webster, the USA’s oldest dictionary manufacturer, gatekeeper of lexical correctness, added the pronoun “they” to the dictionary to reflect the growing awareness of the complexity of gender identity as distinct from biological sex and sexual orientation. Confused? And well you might be.

Gender became common parlance in the 1970’s when the Second Wave Feminist movement

embraced it as helpful in articulating the distinction between assigned sex; that which is assumed at birth as being coherent with the physical and biological characteristics of each individual when they are born, and gender expression; the behaviour, mannerisms, interests and appearances that signify gender to the world at large.

Those whose personal sense of identity corresponds with their birth sex are known as Cis gender.

There are advantages to moving through life with a sense of personal identity that matches the bells and whistles of mother nature. Assigned gender is very much imposed upon the most innocent and helpless among us, newborn babies.

Even the most articulate of them is a good five or six years away from any kind of expression of self, and even then, it is far from pure and unfettered by that stage.

Experts agree that gender stereotypes and gender roles, these prototypical scripts for males and females in every culture on the planet, are embedded as early as 18-24 months.

So a two year old can already clearly divide across the gender binary, and three year old’s are able to articulate basic gender stereotypes.

That, in itself, is not problematic, especially if you are one of the winners of the heteronormative lottery and happen to be cisgender and heterosexual.

Winners of this lottery move through the world unchallenged and accepted for who they are, just as they are.

And that is a wonderful thing. No one is advocating for making life more difficult for anybody.

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But equity and equality are not pie, giving some to others does not mean less for those who currently have all the pie.

Sharing the pie is more like the Jesus with the Loaves and Fishes analogy. There is enough pie for everyone, when the attitude towards sharing changes.

The first step towards more equitable pie distribution is a recognition of how much pie one actually has, and who has a mouldy crumb. Merriam-Webster’s inclusion of the pronoun “they” for gender nonbinary singular, third-person pronoun (instead of she or he) is but one example of this acknowledgement of privilege.

Peter Sokolowski, an editor and lexicographer with Merriam-Webster says, ”The dictionary, after all, is more of a rearview mirror than a vanguard of change.”

If the usage of “they” as a pronoun is so commonplace in current usage, then it is fair to say that the dictionary is not the only place where recognition of nonbinary gender expressions should be made manifest.

Sadly, this is not yet the case, and one of the moldy crumb holders are still the Female sex.

A recent petition created by Maria Beatrice Giovanardi in the UK decries the synonyms for “woman” listed by Oxford’s Dictionaries: “biddy”, “wench” and “piece.”

Much the same as dismissing gender-neutral language as being ungrammatical or difficult to learn, the inclusion of pejorative terms to define and refine the concept of “woman” is a clear refusal to share the pie.

Amanda Montell explores this and other nettle patches in her highly enjoyable romp through the

socio-linguistic and etymological meadows of gendered language, Wordslut: A Feminist Guide to Taking Back The English Language, (Harper Wave, 2019). Montell does not mince her words, “That we have used language to systematically reduce women to edible, nonhuman and sexual entities for so many years is no coincidence. Instead, it makes a clear statement about the expectations, hopes and fears of our society as a whole.” She was using other examples of gendered language; tarts, cupcakes and cows, but the principle remains sound.

If language is the means by which culture is created and communicated, then it must be through language that change and inclusion are championed and cultivated.

Non-normative gender and sexual identities still remain taboo in many parts of the globe, many without even a mouldy crumb to their name.

Parenting two wildly distinct mini humans has been a daily adventure in gender assumptions and equity.

I have a child that sings and one that drums, one that cries at sad movies and one that hates kissing scenes, one that cooks and one that inspects wounds with clinical curiosity.

Neither of them like U2, or call the rubbish “the trash” at home, which is all I really ask of them.

Ten winters into parenting on the gender spectrum, I am still pretty clueless. I get it wrong more than I get it right, and for certain sure what I don’t have are any answers. Questions, though. Now that’s a different story. Pockets are the emblems of the patriarchy, you say? I am on it! Mx. Is a new genderneutral form of address? Tell me more!

There are more men named John employed as CEO’s of Multinational companies than all women? Challenge accepted.

Change doesn’t start with answers. It starts with questions. Will anyone at all be alive at the end of G.O.T.? How is it possible to conceptualize change in a linguistic system designed to marginalize and oppress? Where does the Equality Pie recipe need tweaking to make one big enough for all to partake? Or do we all just need to share a piece of the pie on our own plate?

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Legal notes from The Nanjinger in association with:

D’Andrea & Partners Legal Counsel

Women as Judges; Legal Representation

by Females in China

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omen in law denotes the role enacted by women in legal profession. Lawyers are also known as legal counselors, advocates, attorneys, barristers, solicitors, prosecutors and paralegals, and also acknowledged as Judges, Law Professors, Legal Scholars, Law School Deans and Feminist Legal Theorists.

A 30 percent representation of women in the legal profession is the yardstick for significant social change and studies have showed that 52 countries have now attained that threshold. Venezuela and Uruguay were the countries first off the block, achieving the mark as early as the 1980s.

By the mid or late 2000s, women made up the 50 percent of the lawyer population in countries such as Bulgaria, Poland, Romania and Latvia. Countries such as Denmark, Norway, Germany and the US came to the party late to achieve the threshold mark during the same period.

But sadly, the world’s two most populace countries, China and India, only have a legal representation by women of 20 and 5 percent respectively.

Feminisation of Judges in China An interesting phenomenon can now be observed in China; while most Chinese law firms are filled with male lawyers, there is a significant portion of female judges in the Chinese judicial system. This is a huge turnaround from the 1980s, when only men dominated the judicial system, both in the private and the public sectors.

In 2007, female lawyers accounted for less than 20 percent of the total number of Chinese lawyers. In 2012, that number jumped to 26.6 percent and in 2010, it was estimated that there were 45,000 female judges in the Chinese judicial system, a number rising faster than the rate of increase for female lawyers. In general, Chinese women seem to prefer working in courts rather than in law firms.

Impact of COVID Pandemic on Women Lawyers As per a 2020 report on women in workplace by McKinsey/LeanIn.org, ominously revealed that 25 percent of women in the profession are contemplating the unthinkable; either downgrading their career or to quit the work totally. While this was was before the pandemic onset, it is now worse, especially for women with children; they now stand at one in three in favour of quitting.

The most pessimistic prediction in the aforementioned report is that progress by women could be set back by 5 years, which would result in fewer women taking the mantle of leadership or far fewer in future leaderships. According to the study, everything achieved in the past 6 years could be wiped away. The Bureau of Labour Statistics says that women in the legal profession have been exiting the industry since the onset of COVID and the percentage is more than that of men. Even more challenges are in store for women as the world emerges from the pandemic.

Today’s new generation of women lawyers may not face the discrimination of old in the legal industry because globalisation has been a mitigating factor. It has eliminated the stereotyping of women in the legal profession and helped them to move to bigger organisations, where they will occupy influential positions and have their voice heard.

However, there is still a fair amount of male domination in the legal industry because women choose specialties, such as taking up corporate laws and functions. This helps them balance their professional and personal lives.

Growing technology has also helped women navigate unchartered waters; tech companies have been immensely helpful in this matter, by being flexible and inclusive. Women lawyers of the present enjoy more freedom and are self-determined to carry on both professional and personal lives in a very balanced way.

Despite the challenges, women lawyers have a great future, mainly as the result of technology and diversity of demand.

DISCLAIMER This article is intended solely for informational purposes and does not constitute legal advice. Although the information in this article was obtained from reliable official sources, no guarantee is made with regard to its accuracy and completeness.

For more information please visit dandreapartners.com or WeChat: dandreapartners

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Great Nanjingers (17)

By Frank Hossack

Northern Capitalist who was “King of Cement”; Zhou Xuexi Zhou Xuexi (周学熙) was a late Qing Dynasty industrialist who, as Minister of Finance, became one of the most powerful men in country and to latterly use that influence in bringing about social welfare and industrial reform which earned him a place in school text books.

Born in Nanjing on 12 January, 1866, Zhou was the fourth son of Zhou Fu, one of the eight regional Viceroys in Qing Dynasty China.

A scholar by the age of 16, Zhou was elected in 1894 to initially become an official in Zhejiang Province. Just 4 years later, Zhou got his first glimpse of his entrepreneurial future when he took office at the Kaiping Mining Bureau, based in northeast Tangshan, as a major military supplier.

Zhou’s knack for spotting a gap in the market emerged while travelling the southern provinces supervising coal sales.

He noticed that, as factories, mines and railways took hold, the potential market for cement was huge. But China had not one cement plant.

Zhou took on Hans Kunde, a German technician, to conduct tests on Tangshan soil. They found it and the surrounding rock to be ideal for making high-quality cement.

Qixin Cement would go on to hold together buildings such as the Beijing Library, the Bank of Communications, Hebei Gymnasium and the Shanghai General Post Office.

Among the most famed of the many companies and institutions which he founded, Zhou got the chance to build a tap water project in Beijing in 1908. Over 22 months, Zhou laid 200 kilometres of water pipes all over the city.

Then the Jingshi Water Works, and as today’s Beijing Water Works, the project was the first of several major contributions to public welfare.

With his family major players in government, Zhou had over the years built a close association with Yuan Shikai, the military commander who would bring about the abdication of the Qing Dynasty’s Xuantong Emperor and become the first President of the Republic of China. With the treasury then empty, Yuan sent Zhou an invitation.

The upshot was that in 1912, Zhou commenced the first of two stints in the position of Minister of Finance as the fledging Republic of China took to the stage.

Latterly, Zhou finally chose to withdraw from politics and devote himself to industry. Gathering the Zhou clan together in Tianjin, the "Zhou Family Enterprise Group” was established. It would go on to be a huge industrial group, well known at home and attracting worldwide attention in the following decades. The group greatly changed the fortunes of northern China’s then-lagging textile industry, playing a pivotal role in shaping the entire industrial field.

It would also cement Zhou’s business credentials as the "Northern Industrial Giant” which put the country on the road to industrial salvation.

Constituting a picture of modern Chinese national capitalists seeking survival and development in the cracks, Zhou’s deeds which would find their place in the history textbooks of Chinese high schools.

The father of China’s northern industries passed away in Beijing, on 26 September, 1947.

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By Matthew Stedman

Legal High (with Free Tea) Simply Nuts about the Nut Especially here in Asia, it’s common to hear how smoking is good for stress. Men, particularly, face stress in their lives which needs a remedy.

Tobacco, though not intrinsically healthy, at least helps to assuage that greater health threat; stress. Or so the logic goes.

Well, smoking does greatly reduce stress, if you are a nicotine addict overdue a nicotine fix. If one of the significant sources of your stress is chemical withdrawal then, yes, a cigarette will greatly alleviate that.

But if you are a never-smoker who has reached an unsusceptible age, and if you are currently experiencing stress, then neither the nicotine nor the ritual will offer you much relief. That’s because there’s nothing inherent to this one drug that “cures”.

I write this as a caffeine addict, of course (and some-time smoker).

I know how that first brew of the day isn’t going to make me feel special; it’s going to help me feel normal. I know that headache pills contain caffeine, not because caffeine is a remedy for head pain, but because the most common cause of headaches is caffeine withdrawal.

Attaching ourselves to a drug train like this is a pretty silly thing to do.

And that’s why mature adults rarely take up new drug habits. But… Maybe you’ve seen the residue on the concrete stairs of your apartment block. Maybe you’ve encountered one outside a subway station. Small, furry and brown; in poor light, you could mistake one for a small mouse.

Or maybe, like me, you didn’t notice them until you encountered one yourself. I’m talking about betel nut [槟榔].

I bought myself a black packet after first noticing them littering the ground and then displayed in a mom & pop c-store. I loved the crammed Chinese characters on the surface, like a newspaper printed in gold on matt black. The package cost more than I expected; dearer than candy. I still didn’t know what it was.

And inside that glittery bag, together with the small black bags of betel nut, there was another bag, a red bag, containing one of my favourite varieties of tea!

Yes, despite this brand boasting of its origins in Hunan, here was a sachet of Yunnan Dianhong tea, not the best but… anyway! And what’s that Tencent Video logo doing on the packaging?

I’d tried betel nut once in India as part of a preparation called “pan”, mixed with cardamom and fennel seeds. This is different, so saturated in sugar and menthol that one senses a great effort to disguise the natural taste. That’s a pity for someone curious like me.

There is a numbing sensation and perhaps mild stimulation. I’m tempted to say there’s nothing here to bring me back for more; neither the artificial taste nor the sensation especially excited me. But this does, evidently, become habit-forming for some people.

Yesterday, I saw a car dashboard strewn with packets of this same brand. And I’ve started hearing of people unable to concentrate without chewing these bark-like lockets into furry balls. Perhaps they’re just more stressed than me.

I’m guessing the red tea is a “healthy” counterbalance to the addictive substance, added to placate critics.

Just a guess.

Anyway, it must be better than smoking, right?

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The Building of Nanjing

~1~ Zifeng Tower

By Frank Hossack

W

hile it is obvious that the Zifeng Tower is the tallest building in Nanjing, slightly less well known is the fact that, upon its completion, it was the second tallest building on the Chinese mainland, behind the Shanghai World Financial Centre.

Now of course, its position has slipped. At time of writing, Zifeng is the 10th tallest building in China, 14th in Asia and 19th in the world.

Formerly known as Nanjing Greenland Financial Centre, Zifeng stands 450 metres tall, of which 316.6 metres are occupied.

After 6 years of construction, Zifeng was completed in January of 2010, but it would take almost another year’s work on the interior of the now-iconic, 89-floor building before it opened to the public.

Zifeng draws as its influences three central elements key to Nanjing’s rich history. There’s the Yangtze River for one, and the green garden landscapes, together with the dragon and column elements that are central to traditional Chinese architecture.

The columns speak for themselves. To achieve the former, the tower’s two main

interlocking forms were intended as dancing dragons, while Zifeng’s upper façades were to feature staggered, angled panes of glass to suggest the scales of a fish.

But none of these are the most interesting aspect of this building. Neither are they what makes it special.

That is in fact to be found nearer ground level. Or more specifically, the first batch of floors that comprise offices, conference rooms and that part of the retail and restaurant space and that is above ground.

The building’s plot almost necessitated it be a wedge. Architects, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP, took this to extremes. They made the vertice razor sharp and then pointed it at the very centre of the Gulou roundabout that sits adjacent to the traditional Gulou, or the drum tower that was the centre of many a Chinese city, situated on high ground from where signals could be beaten out far and wide.

When all things considered, it was little wonder that in 2012, Zifeng scooped up an award from the Structural Engineers Association of Illinois (USA), for “Best International Project Over $150 Million”.

But the sun is sinking on Zifeng’s empire.

Eclipsing it in a few years shall be the 499.8metre tall Jinmao International Financial Centre.

As another Greenland project, at least Nanjing’s tallest building will be keeping it in the family.

Image shows Zifeng Tower under construction in November, 2008

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THETHE NANJINGER NANJINGER | NOV. | 2021.11 2021

Yangzhou Fried Rice The Legend & How to Make it!

I

t’s about time we had a new Italian restaurant in Nanjing.

Especially one called BioGreen. But the eco credentials seemingly end there…

But that it’s in Jiangning particularly spiked The Nanjinger’s interest, since this was a part of the city utterly devoid of a decent pizza.

Not anymore.

Opened back in July, BioGreen is not the first restaurant we have reported on to open and be promptly hit by a COVID outbreak.

It’s also not the sort of place you’re going to stumble across, being located on Zhuangpai Lu that sees not much in the way of foot traffic, a little ways north of Dinosaur Mall, or to use its boring, proper name, 21st Century Sun City Mall.

But on to the pizza. The Nanjinger awarded 10/10 for that first out of the oven. We then promptly slashed five points off for not

THE NANJINGER | VOLUME 12 ISSUE 02 | NOVEMBER 2021

"Wash away childishness and impetuosity; recite the rules of the disciples; set up lofty ideals." With a series of rituals respecting Confucianism, students at RGS Guildford took to research and study in Nanjing’s Confucius Temple, bringing about in them a deeper understanding of traditional culture.

RGS Guildford

29 October, 2021

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THE NANJINGER | 2021.11

“Who won the skeleton race at St John’s Sports Day? No body!” However, there were lots of winners in other categories as children competed in a variety of races and events to demonstrate their sporting prowess, all the while dressed in Halloween costumes! Children enjoyed the relay race, obstacle course, dash sprint, long jump and shot put. Don’t worry, they’ll be back next year, make no bones about it.

St Johns College School Nanjing 29 October, 2021

To see photos from your event on these pages, contact The Nanjinger via info@thenanjinger.com. Conditions apply.

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In addition to celebrating one another’s abilities, EtonHouse Nanjing also celebrates its community of diverse cultural identities and rich heritage. At this time of year, the school recognised Autumn, the transition between Summer and Winter, with their Harvest and Heritage Festival.

EtonHouse Nanjing

29 October, 2021

To see photos from your event on these pages, contact The Nanjinger via info@thenanjinger.com. Conditions apply.

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Talent is nurtured, not forged in the heat of competition, so all 23 of the acts that took to the stage for this year's incredible BSN Idol were the result of weeks, months and years of work, with supportive parents, caring coaches and a marvellous music team. Each and every act showed what was already known; students at BSN have talent!

5 November, 2021

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THE NANJINGER | VOLUME 12 ISSUE 02 | NOVEMBER 2021

Grade 5 students at Nanjing International School embarked on a 3-day adventure that is one of the most exciting learning experiences at NIS; Discover China. For this year’s excursion in Camp Naturejoy, CNN invited the school to partner with them to raise awareness of environmental issues and engage with conservation education through the network’s upcoming #CalltoEarth Day initiative.

20-22 October, 2021

To see photos from your event on these pages, contact The Nanjinger via info@thenanjinger.com. Conditions apply.

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THE NANJINGER | 2021.11

THE

Download this map to your smartphone via The Nanjinger’s official WeChat account

The Nanjinger’s Metro Map is the only map of the city’s metro system to include first and last times for every station, perfect for planning a late night out or an adventure to somewhere new with an early start.

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THE NANJINGER | VOLUME 12 ISSUE 02 | NOVEMBER 2021