Next to the Ikea in Shenyang is a large shopping mall. This could be a mall in America. China is an interesting mix of modern and traditional, east and west, progressive and traditional. I have not felt bored a single minute that I’ve been here.
Part of the menu on the wall of the Korean bibimbap place near the Consulate. The item is a fried pork chop with rice. The handwritten addition reads: “SOLD OUT!! We will make it in the winter.”
That had better be some great-tasting pork chop. Now I can’t wait until winter so I can try it.
Here in the consular section, I am caught in the middle of an office dispute. Two factions at war: we can call them the Heat Wave and the Cold Front. What’s at stake is the optimal office temperature. The battlefield is the Holy Thermostat of Shenyang.
We work in an open office. The interview windows are along one wall, and the officers and local staff all have desks in a big open office (I’d post a photo, but regulations prohibit that). During interviews, the room is very noisy, as you can imagine. In spite of the high noise level, noise is not the source of the dispute. We find a way to work through the cacophony of interviews. But the temperature of the office is another thing. Another big thing.
The dress code for officers “on the line” (conducting visa interviews) is business attire. For men, that means suit and tie. Locally-Engaged Staff (LES) can wear business casual attire.
When we officers are standing at the interview window in our suits, we get hot. But many LES, wearing a sleeveless shirt and a short skirt, sitting at their desks in an air-conditioned room, get cold.
You start to understand the source of conflict now, right?
The officers, wearing several layers of clothes, complain that the office is too hot, and ask for the A/C to be adjusted to make the room cooler. The Facilities Manager (an American officer) asks the maintenance crew to make the room cooler. The LES, dress more sensibly for the summer weather, complain to the senior LES that the room is too cold. The senior LES — who I suspect actually runs the consular section, if not the entire consulate — then asks the maintenance crew directly (bypassing the FM) to make the room less cool.
Back and forth we went, the temperature of the room swinging up and down like the forehead of a feverish child. Battle cries echoed through the office. Snarls from the LES when the room cooled. Howls from the Officers when the room warmed up. The layer of civilization that governs interaction with our fellow man was wearing thin. Bloodshed seemed inevitable.
I recall Captain Picard’s famous line, uttered when he captained the Starship Enterprise into a life-and-death battle: “We have engaged the Borg.”
The Facilities Manager, a reasonable and even-tempered man, was (understandably) getting tired of the back-and-forth. He directed the installation of a thermostat control near the interview windows. It’s a nifty control box with an LCD display and buttons for adjusting the temperature up and down.
Hooray! Dance of joy! The officers win the war! we think to ourselves. We can set the office temperature to whatever we want! Suck it, LES!
The victory parade was thrown prematurely, though.
It came to light that the thermostat, with its fancy LCD display and responsive temperature controls, is not actually connected to the temperature control. It was installed as prop, possibly to give the officers the illusion that we were in control of the temperature. Maybe the thinking was that if we thought that we were making the room cooler, that we would feel cooler.
The thermostat is just a placebo. A placebostat, if you will. No matter how much we bang on the buttons, we can not change the temperature of the office.
I suspect that the LES know that the thermostat is fake, but they’re hiding it well. No smirks or guffaws as we feverishly punch the buttons, muttering obsenities to ourselves. It seems that the officers have lost the battle.
BUT…
It is summer now, and it’s hot outside. It will not always be hot, though. Air conditioning will not always be a useful weapon of war. Summer’s influence on the temperature of the office, and on the clothing choices of the LES, will not last forever. We officers have begun silently chanting that famous line from Game of Thrones:
Winter is coming.
There is a another Forbidden City in Shenyang. It is smaller than the one in Beijing, and the design is a bit different. The palace in Beijing was built during the Ming Dynasty. The palace in Shenyang was built later, just before the founding of the Qing Dynasty. The Qing Dynasty actually originated in the northeast part of China, by the Manchu minority. When the dynasty was founded, its capital was in Shenyang. Only some years later did the capital move to Beijing. The Imperial Palace in Shenyang is now a museum and a UNESCO World Cultural Heritage site.
Although it’s smaller and less well-known, it’s a great example of imperial architecture. It isn’t as well maintained; in fact, there’s some serious deterioration in some parts of the buildings, and some of the decorations are damaged. The government seems determined to improve the museum’s position on the international stage, though, and the effort seems to be paying off. Attendance is up.
This past weekend, I had the opportunity to be a special visitor to the museum as part of a program to enhance the visibility of the museum to international tourists. We were given a standard tour, then we met with the museum’s director to give some feedback, as foreigners, about how to make enhance the experience of foreign tourists when they visit the museum.
One of the regular performances that we saw was a reenactment of a Manchu wedding ceremony that apparently actually occurred in the palace in the 17th century.
The stage: the imperial pavilion.
The emperor’s throne
The officiant of the ceremony reading the script and presiding over the ceremony.
The emperor receives representatives from the bride’s family
The bride presents herself to the emperor
The bridal party performs a Manchu dance
The bride’s family preparing to enter
Another dance, by buff male dancers
The performance is over, the cast takes a curtain call.
Here’s a video of the curtain call. The fancy costumes were really nice-looking.
It was a wonderful experience. After our official program was over, I lingered for a few hours to explore the rest of the grounds and take some more pictures. I took over 200 pictures that day. Â I’ll upload some of the better pictures soon.
Mrs. Hoopie, wouldn’t these window patterns from the Imperial Palace in Shenyang make good quilt patterns?
This was the second guy that I saw on this street this morning. Sad.
A local volunteer group put on a 5K fun run at a local riverside park last night. Two of my coworkers and I participated. It was my first time running with a group of people, and my first time running outside since I got to China.
Because the run was at night, the organizers gave out glow sticks. Because it was China, there were also various molds to put the glow sticks into, like eyeglasses (shown here), wrist bracelets, and antennae.
Wearing the bling, and striking the required Asian photography pose.
It wasn’t a formal race, there wasn’t a time keeper or judges. It was a good time, and I think that next time there is a real 5K, I’ll try it.
Not the best bottle of wine I’ve ever had.
Not by a long shot.
By the way, the Chinese word for Chardonnay is XÃa DuÅ Lì. Who’d have known?
I don’t know about you, but my tooth diseases are almost never peaceful.
