Enjoying the Hidden Treasures of Shenyang

Shenyang is probably the biggest and most historic Chinese city that Westerners have never heard of.  It is the capital of the northeast region and was the first capital of the Qing emperors of China (before Beijing).  It is home to the first (and in our mind, the best) Imperial City along with emperor tombs.  We went there for two reasons – first, it is quite close to our final city of Dalian where I will give a keynote speech at a conference and second, a faculty member, Cuihua Zhang, from the Northeastern University in Shenyang was a visiting scholar with me in Auburn for several months some four or so years ago.  Northeastern University arranged for us to stay at the campus hotel, a five star want-to-be located next to the campus.  

We arrived very late from Hong Kong but had no problems going through immigration and getting our luggage.  Cuihua and a driver, Mr. Lee, were waiting in a minivan and took us to the hotel.  There we checked into our very large room with king bed (yeah!).  Unusually the staff had to install a mini-router in our room to create the wireless, but it worked quite well.  Like we found in Xi’an there were separate bath and shower with the bathtub next to an open window onto the room (we would also find this in Dalian).  Unlike the others, this window’s blinds did not work so the entire bathroom including the toilet was always open for view from the room.

The monolithic Northeastern University Hotel

View of the river from the hotel (but not from our room)

View of the university from our room

Another view from our room - Shenyang is not a charming city

We turned in late and took breakfast the next morning at the hotel restaurant (adequate).  Cuihua and Mr. Lee picked us up at 10:30 AM and the day was devoted to sightseeing and eating.  The rain held off for the first two hours but then started and continued the rest of the day.  However, we had big umbrellas and did not mind too much getting wet for the sake of seeing these interesting historic sights.

Our first goal was the in town tomb site, Qing Zhaoling Tomb, (there is another one - Fuling - that looks amazing too but it is located outside of town and we did not have time).  This was a large complex reminiscent of that of Nanjing with a row of guardian animals.  The tomb is located in a very large city park with small lake and other attractions.  On this wet Monday the park and tomb were sparsely attended, which was a welcome sight after the crowds we have experienced on this trip.  There were several unusual features to this tomb complex.  First, it is entirely walled and you can walk up the stairs to the wall and walk around on it.  Second, the actual burial is in a mound covered with grass and a large elm tree (the elm has some sort of special symbolism for the emperor but I don’t remember what it is).  We very much enjoyed this place.  We also got very wet on the long walk back through the park to where Mr. Lee was waiting with the car.

Entrance to the park where the Qing Zhaoling Tomb stands

Like so much else we saw in China, it is a World Heritage Site

Ceramic dragon relief

The entry door was nicely decorated too

Alice and Cuihua at one of the small lakes in the park

The entrance to the tomb proper

The entrance had an unusual three sided set of guardians on each side

Another guardian

I stand before another, larger dragon relief

This guardian was on a pillar

Walk to the walled part of the tomb

This walk is lined with animal guardians including the mythical Xiezhi (below)

The creature of justice

Another mythical guardian, the Kylin (below)

The kind of cute Kylin

The horse was round and friendly looking

These were modeled after the emperor's two favorite horses

The sitting two humped camel

A stern elephant

Randy admires a large stele in a building

The top of the stele and the ornate ceiling

One of the tall structures

Decoration detail includes dragons (symbol of imperialism)

The inner courtyard of the tomb

On the wall of the inner courtyard

The weather was breezy before the rain

A painted ornamental detail

A strange guardian - cute and ugly at the same time

Another tomb building

The emperor is actually buried under this mound which stands at the back of the tomb area

This gives some information about how the tomb was designed

A black and white magpie was enjoying the food found on the green lawn of the mound

Another view showing the big elm tree at the center

A description

Randy by more enamel relief

A fierce corner decoration

See how well carved this dragon is

A final guardian - the carvings of this 17th century place were exceedingly well done and well preserved

The emperor for whom the tomb was constructed

We then drove to the downtown area to a famous dumpling restaurant, Lao Bian Dumpling.  We ate upstairs and had an array of dumplings, which were delicious, along with some other foods.  We also tried warm soy milk, obviously an accrued taste.  We stuck to beer.  

A pretty delicious place for dumplings in downtown Shenyang

Cuihua spent a long time ordering and the waitress put the order in her hand held device

This device apparently sent the food orders in to the kitchen as they were entered because we got the first dish while Cuihua was still ordering!

Randy and Cuihua at lunch

Driver Mr. Lee and Alice

This salad was notable for its purple (!) glutinous noodles on top

The main attraction - the dumplings themselves - we tried four different varieties

Fortified (yet again) we went to the Imperial City of Shenyang.  This was not full of tourists and not so large as the Forbidden City in Beijing.  Also, it was better than Beijing’s in two important respects.  First, most of the buildings were open and furnished as they might have been which allowed you to get a better understanding of the buildings’ functions and how life was there.  Second, the buildings that are now museums were much more spacious and comfortable and the exhibits much better done than the sorry museum buildings of the Beijing Forbidden City.  We spent a happy if wet few hours seeing everything including the garden.

Two World Heritage sites in one day

Another nice enamel relief

It was still raining during our tour of the Qing Imperial City

A throne room

Throne detail

Column detail from the throne room

A dragon detail from a ceramic plate in one of the buildings which is now a museum

A painting of an Imperial Lady, maybe a Dowager Emperess

One of the impressive buildings in the Imperial City

Tile roof detail - these colors are the colors of the Qing emperors

An interior of a living area.  These are raised and heated by hot water under the raised area.

Very ornate ceiling of this harem living area

A baby crib hangs from the ceiling - not a bad idea

A bed chamber

An antique instrument in one of the museum rooms

This large chimney was found behind one structure

I guess I went crazy for the guardians that day - this one holds a little guardian

Cuihua on a bridge in the garden

A pavilion in another court of the city which also housed the horses and carriages

A pretty bowl with gold fish handles in a museum room

These grave stele predated the Imperial City and were brought here.  First, we have the lucky turtle motif.

Some deer

Bird detail from the grave stele pictured above

The oldest grave stele was another turtle

From the pavilion, a gold dragon detail

This large courtyard on a soggy Monday afternoon

View of the colorful building and note the grass growing on the roofs

Another throne room

Sweet ceramic elephant once adorned a building and is now in the museum

The same is true for this happy horse

Our final stop was the house of patriotic hero Marshal (or General) Xueliang Zhang (as he was described to us).  He is an extremely important figure in Shenyang (his hometown) but of course we never heard of him.  His father (Zhang Zuolin) was an aristocrat and soldier who died relatively young (and had five wives!) but the son lived 100 years (literally) and had two wives (but at different times, unlike his father).  He led the unification of China and fought against the Japanese.  Later he was placed under house arrest for many decades before he finally immigrated to the U.S. where he died.  I think he was in Taiwan also – it was hard to understand as most signs were in Chinese only.  His house complex was impressive indeed.  One section is built like a traditional Chinese set of courtyard structures (the complex was built in the early part of the 20^th century) and a series of smaller but still nice houses in the Chinese style are on the grounds.  However, the main house is a very large European style mansion.  Here, we were able to go inside and see the furnishings as they were.  Many of the other buildings were also open with appropriate furnishings.  It was interesting enough to us but clearly the local tourists (there were quite a few) were enraptured.  

Description of this mansion site

These were interesting - the actual rustic brooms used by the cleaning people of the site

One of a pair of splendid doors which allow entry to the Chinese style part of the compound

The other door

A recreation of the bank of the Zhangs.  Visitors have thrown money on it (presumably for luck or good fortune).

The rainy courtyard

General Zhang, the patriotic hero, himself

A pretty tree in a courtyard

Ornate ceiling with cranes

The impressive European style mansion and main residence of General Zhang

Near the mansion

Another view from a garden

The Chinese love these huge lake or river rocks to garnish their gardens

This fruit seller had remarkable looking wares just outside the mansion site

Faithful Mr. Lee was waiting with the van and we relaxed in the hotel for a while before being picked up by Cuihua and her husband (a government worker in the labor office) and 17^th year old son.  Another family friend served as designated driver and brought a minivan.  We went to the city center (the campus is on the south side of the city) and ate traditional Shenyang barbeque in a private room upstairs of a popular and cutely decorated restaurant named Ba De Mouth.  We drank plenty of beer and ganbei’ed frequently.  The barbeque was generally good – including the best fish of the trip which is saying something – but also included some undesirable things such as chicken heads (which our Chinese hosts loved and could not understand why we passed on them) and connective tissue of cows (as it was described to us).  We ate an awful lot and had a happy, informal evening.

The Gao family at the hotel lobby

All of us before going to dinner

The exterior of the barbeque restaurant, which was in a lively part of town

The name of the restaurant - Ba De Mouth - is supposed to be the sound of lips smacking because the food is so good

The son was not yet of drinking age (it is 18 in China) but he was practiced at opening the bottles

The husband mixed chilled beer (ordered for us) with room temperature beer (which the Chinese like) to get his preferred temperature

One of the dishes was tiny snails. You a toothpick to remove the meat from the shell.

The teenager demonstrates proper technique for the skewered meat

The skewers included lamb, chicken, connective tissue (as it was described to us) and more.  In front is a dish of barbequed green onion - we also had barbequed mushrooms and garlic cloves (separate)

The chicken heads were relished by the Chinese at the dinner but we passed (which they could not understand)

Scallops on the shell looked better than they tasted

Cuihua ate and drank heartily for a dainty woman

The son could put the food away

Randy perfected the skewer technique

Clams

Grilled octopus, which was pretty tasty

A very, very delicious grilled fish

Randy liked the grilled wings which were served stretched out as you see

After dinner at the table

The rest of the group - the friend and designated driver at right.  The two fingers is some Asian tradition for photographs.

The next morning, I gave two seminars in succession to an attentive audience of faculty and students of industrial engineering.  A student who is excellent in English provided the English to Chinese translation.  The faculty includes many women as does the student body.  This department is located in the business school.  We were then treated to a lunch in a private room back at the Northeastern University Hotel.  We had some beer again and lots of good food including a French-like delicious flaky pastry for dessert.  We also learned that it is Shenyang tradition (and maybe Chines tradition) that travelers are served dumplings upon leaving and noodles upon returning.  Therefore, after the dessert and fruit, a platter of dumplings was brought out.  Even though we were full, these were so good that we each had two.

This cattle is supposed to represent the hard working faculty of the university - I guess it loses a little in translation

In front of the current home of the industrial engineering department (which is housed in the business school).  They will move soon to a new campus near the airport.

The poster for my seminar was originally in English and was modified to Chinese to attract more attendees

Some of the audience on this Tuesday morning

Another part of the audience

I explain facility design for retailers - there was a student who translated the basics of what I said into Chinese

With the faculty of the IE department

With a student who is doing research in the same area - her English was very good and she wanted a picture with me

With Cuihua at the entrance to the business school

Lunch with the IE faculty at the Northeastern University Hotel - these guys also drank some beer as we did.  The women faculty stuck to blueberry (!) juice which had real blueberries in the bottom of the bottles.

The department chair at right hosted the lunch and had a student with good English (at left) there to translate for her

At the lunch table in the private dining room

One of the dishes (above) was totally new to us - cooked bamboo.  You peel the outer part off and eat the tender part inside.  It was pretty good.  Kind of like a studier hearts of palm.

Mr. Lee took us to the train station and Cuihua came in with us to see us off.  We had tickets on the fast (bullet) train to Dalian, a two hour journey.  We boarded the train smoothly enough and found our seats.  The ride was relaxing and comfortable and in no time we were in the main station of Dalian, the end of the line.  But that begins the next chapter of this blog!

Cuihua was allowed (informally and not according to rules) into the train station to help us laowei get on the train

Waiting on the platform for our train which was a few minutes late

Here it is - our "bullet" train to Dalian

Shenyang is not found on any tourist itinerary but it deserves attention.  The historic sights we saw were as good as anything else in China and there are more things we did not have time to see.  It is not a pretty city (as far as I can tell there are no pretty cities in China) but the food is good, the people happy to see “laowei” and the traffic manageable.  We did not like the return to the white haze skies of China after the blue skies of Hong Kong but that seems to an almost permanent condition of skies in most Chinese cities.  We also did not relish the end blocks of concrete high rise apartments.  Again, though, these are endemic to China.  Of course, we were very fortunate to have a friendly and knowledgeable host (Cuihua went to a lot of trouble to research each historic place we visited) and happy especially that she shared her family with us.  Thank you Cuihua and we were glad to among the very few Westerners to experience Shenyang.

The rain did not dampen our appreciation of the historic (and little visited) treasures of Shenyang nor the friendly hospitality of its people