Sun Yat-sen Mausoleum

Listen first. Thousands of shoes shuffle across pale granite, and somewhere above you a guide's voice drifts down the slope. The air carries the smell of pine and damp earth from Purple Mountain. Ahead, a long white staircase climbs toward a building with a roof the colour of a clear winter sky. You are standing at the start of the climb to the Sun Yat-sen Mausoleum, the resting place of the man many Chinese call the father of the nation.

Sun Yat-sen was a doctor by training and a revolutionary by choice. He spent years in exile, raising money and plotting uprisings against the Qing dynasty, the last imperial family to rule China. When that dynasty fell in the 1911 revolution, he became the first provisional president of the new Republic of China. Few figures in modern Chinese history are honoured on both sides of the Taiwan Strait. Sun is one of them.

He died of cancer in Beijing in 1925. Before his death, he asked to be buried here, on Purple Mountain, outside Nanjing. The choice made sense. Nanjing was where the republic had first been declared, and Sun reportedly loved this green ridge above the city. His wish set off a national design competition. The winner was a young architect named Lü Yanzhi, who had studied in the United States. He did not live to see the project finished.

Construction began in 1926 and ran into the end of the decade. In 1929, Sun's body was carried south from Beijing by train and brought up this hillside in a grand state ceremony. Think about that journey for a moment. A country still divided by warlords and politics stopped to move one coffin across hundreds of kilometres. The mausoleum was meant as a monument, but it was also a statement about national unity.

Now look at the colours around you. The walls are white granite. The roofs are blue glazed tile. This is not an accident. Blue and white were the colours of the Nationalist Party flag, with its white sun on a blue sky. So the whole complex works like a flag made of stone. Once you notice it, you will see the pairing everywhere, from the gateways to the hall at the very top.

Here is something most visitors miss while they climb. Seen from the air, the layout of the mausoleum is said to form the shape of a bell. The paths and platforms form the body, and the hall sits near the top. The idea, as it is usually told, is an alarm bell to wake the people. You cannot see the shape from the steps, of course. You are walking inside the symbol.

At the lower end of the approach stands a stone archway. Above its centre are two Chinese characters, bo ai, often translated as universal love or fraternity. They are written in Sun's own calligraphy. Further up, the main gate carries another of his favourite phrases, tian xia wei gong. It means, roughly, that the world belongs to everyone. These were the ideas he wanted people to read before they reached his tomb.

Then comes the staircase. It is long, broken into a series of wide platforms, so you can stop and breathe. The steps are commonly counted at 392, and people love to test that number for themselves. Here is the second surprise. From the bottom, you mostly see the steps, rising like a wall. From the top, turn around, and the platforms disappear. You see only an open, gentle slope falling away toward the trees.

On the way up, you pass a pavilion holding a tall stone tablet. Its inscription announces that the party buried its leader here. The words are plain and formal. There is no long poem, no list of achievements. Many visitors find this restraint more moving than praise. Take a moment in the shade here. On hot days, it is the coolest place on the climb.

At the summit stands the memorial hall. It mixes traditional Chinese roof lines with a solid, modern stone body. Over its three doorways are carved the names of Sun's Three Principles of the People. In simple terms, they are nationalism, democracy, and the people's livelihood. Inside sits a white marble statue of Sun, made by the French sculptor Paul Landowski. Landowski is better known to many travellers for another figure, the Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro.

Behind the hall lies the burial chamber, a round room under a domed ceiling. Visitors walk around a railing and look down into a sunken circle. There, a carved marble figure of Sun lies at rest, by the Czech sculptor Bohumil Kafka. His actual remains are placed beneath it. The room is quiet, and staff usually ask for silence and no photographs. People slow down here without being told.

Step back outside and look at the view. The city of Nanjing spreads out beyond the forest. Purple Mountain is crowded with history. Just to the west lies the tomb of the founding emperor of the Ming dynasty, built more than five centuries earlier. Sun chose to rest near an emperor, yet his own tomb celebrates a republic. That contrast tells you a lot about the hopes of early twentieth century China.

The crowds here are not only tourists. You will see school groups in matching caps, grandparents taking it slowly, families who have travelled across the country. Some bow at the hall. Some simply take a photo at the top of the stairs. On national holidays, the flow of people can feel like a slow river moving uphill. It is a public place of memory, still in daily use.

Before you leave, stand still for a moment at the top. Feel the stone under your feet, cool even in summer. Look at the blue roofs against the sky and the white walls catching the light. Listen to the wind in the pines on the mountain. As you walk back down, the steps will open below you one by one, and the city will slowly rise to meet you again.