Olympic torch on its way to Nanjing

After a controversial world tour, the Olympic torch is now travelling around China in the run-up to the Beijing Games in August.

The torch arrives in Nanjing on 27 May.

For foreigners, Nanjing is not yet one of the major tourist destinations of China.

Its attractions are not as famous as the Forbidden City in Beijing or the Terracotta Army in Xian. Yet for the visitors who do come, one particular place, a large concrete memorial in the outskirts of the city, is a must-see.

That site is the Memorial Museum of the Great Nanjing Massacre, an event still better known in the West by the title "the Rape of Nanking". It commemorates one of the worst atrocities of World War II.

Over six long weeks between December 1937 and January 1938, troops of the Japanese Imperial Army captured Nanjing, then the Chinese capital, and killed, looted and raped in an orgy of destruction.

When the Olympic torch passes through the city, many citizens will consciously contrast the pride that they feel in China's growing status today and the terrible events that their country, and their own city, faced only a few decades ago.