D - Holy Shenyang Batman!

Well, this entry will be the last for a few days. We're one week away from our trip to Xi'an and somehow we managed to get another trip together. Our student volunteer was going to the International Horticultural Exposition in Shenyang, China this weekend with her roommate and we asked her if we could tag along. Shenyang is a heavily industrial city about 6 hours north of Dalian by train. The pronunciation sounds like "Shunyahng" according to the Chinese pinyin phonetic system. It's the capital of Liaoning province. Once known as Mukden, it was a hub of industry setup by the Japanese during their occupation of Manchuria during the second Sino-Japanese War. Throughout the 60s and 70s it was among the most successful industrial cities in China, but as market reforms took place in the 80s and 90s it fell behind some of the other cities. It's supposed to be rather dirty and polluted so I suspect this exposition is an effort to try and rebuild some of its reputation.



Ironically, my father has actually been to Shenyang. He gave a speech that was broadcast on state TV in the mid 90s. He gives an interesting description of his visit there. His company was investing about $50,000 in a local Chinese firm, which is pretty small. The hosts of his visit however went all out with a huge banquet and celebration at this magnificent occasion of Sino-American partnership!

The trip will see a number of firsts for me (C is far more Chinaperienced with her study abroad trip so this is old hat for her).

First stay at a Chinese hotel
First train trip in China
First visit to Shenyang
First trip with Chinese friends

One of the firsts I hope to avoid is - "First time using a squat toilet while going around a curve on a Chinese train"!

Some maps from the exposition web site are below...in English.

C - worth a thousand characters

Before we take off for the weekend, here are some pictures from our latest adventures:

At Noah's For Your Ark bar, which D alluded to in his previous post, we came across this very special menu:

The picture isn't the greatest, but if you click on the photo and view it full-sized, you can clearly view the many humorous offerings, not the least of which is "peach pai" ("pai" would be pronounced "pie" in the Chinese phonetic system.) What really takes the cake (or pai, perhaps) for me, though, is #9 -- BBQ wikipedia. I knew that the Chinese government didn't like the thing, but jeez! This is a bit cruel!
-----------

China is corrupting my value system. Two American businesses I've consciously objected to buying from for years, KFC and Wal-mart, are now something I treasure and look forward to patronizing! I realized the extent of my depravity the other day while throwing KFC take-out containers into a plastic bag from Wal-mart we're using for garbage:

Sad.

-----------

I've been wanting a Chinese scroll painting for some time, so our student volunteer, Sylvia, took us to a mall downtown last Friday. I was able to find a beautiful painting and a very pretty fan. Each item cost 50 yuan, or just over 6 USD. I am very pleased with both:





The photos don't give a very good sense of scale, so I'll guess that the painting is 10" x 30", and the fan is probably just over a foot wide.
-----------

This next photo is of a bizarre food made from potato that is apparently exclusive to Dalian. It's pretty tasty. I forget the name of it, but here you can see me chopping up what was left over after Sylvia made it for us the night before:


-----------

And finally, a delightful photo I took just now of my dearest darling D:



He was feeling pretty bad this evening after finding out that he hugely offended our student volunteer by offering to pay for the hotel we booked for our trip to Shenyang, and then I had to ask him for computer help afterwards, which always puts him in a rather, how shall we say, brusque mood, so he wasn't exactly inclined to take a silly picture. I REALLY thought that the cookies he was eating looked like cigars, though, and after some pleading on my part he agreed to put his feet up on his desk and "smoke". And that is why I love him.