Out and About in Shenyang

Shenyang was the hometown of an (in)famous historical person from China’s Republican period, Zhang Xueliang (Chang Hsueh-liang). He is famous for having contributed to the unity of China in the 1920s and 1930s. His infamy stems from his involvement in the Xian Incident of 1936. After that, he was kept under house arrest for 54 years, and died in Hawaii in 2001, at the age of 100.

His house in Shenyang is now a museum. His father (also a warlord) built it in the early 1920s. The compound consists of several buildings, a traditional Chinese house and a Romanesque mansion that served as residence and office building. It’s a fantastic combination of traditional and modern architecture.

When you first enter the compound, you enter the Chinese residence, which is a top-rate example of traditional Chinese architecture.

Inside the outer wall

Facing the main entrance

One of the three inner courts

From the inner courts, you can see the mansion on the other side of the compound.

The western-style building was a government office and residence.

The “Tiger Hall,” a reception room.

Banquet Hall

Office (1)

Office (2)

Office (3)

This was a very interesting historical artifact. This is a meeting room. Between the flags is a portrait of Sun Yat-sen. The flag on the right is the national flag of the Republic of China. The flag on the left is the flag of the Nationalist party (Kuomintang). Both are common sights in Taiwan, but are anathema in China, because they represent the government of Taiwan.

There is a lot more to the site, but my camera battery ran out before I saw everything. I will have to make another trip to the site.

I took a taxi home yesterday. A lot of times, drivers want to engage me in a conversation, which I really don’t mind. However, the conversations almost inevitably focus on the same few topics: where are you from, gosh, your Chinese is good, what do you think of China, how long have you been here. For my own amusement, I sometimes make up little stories, I sometimes try to engage them in a little bit of wordplay. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes it’s complete and total failure. Yesterday was one of those times.

The driver asked me where I was from. I was tired after an 11 hour day in the office, and feeling a little snarky. Instead of answering directly, which is what I usually do, I asked him to guess. He was a simple man, and he said, a little wistfully, that he couldn’t guess. I didn’t respond, content to have a quiet ride home. But then he asked if I was from Canada. At this point, I could have just said no, I’m from America. But, I was tired and cranky, so out came the snark. I said close, I’m from the country south of Canada. Ah, he said, you’re Canadian. Again, I could have just let it rest there, but I decided to push it. No, I said, I’m from the country south of Canada. He seem confused, and asked what country was south of Canada. Then the snark really came out. I told him to go home and look at a map and then he’ll know where I’m from.

I usually regret saying something sarcastic or nasty, and this time was no exception. I felt guilty about my condescending comment about the map. After all, this guy was probably not very educated, I realized. That’s probably why he was driving a cab. I recognized that I was being a jerk, and wanted to try to make amends. When we got to my apartment, as I was paying him and getting out of the cab, I told him that the country south of Canada is America. Ah, he said, you’re American. He seemed to have shaken off my snarkiness, he probably didn’t even understand the snark in the first place, which made me feel even more guilty. Here was an uncomplicated man, just trying to make his way in the world, having to deal with smart ass foreigners.

So, I tried to be a smart aleck, and ended up regretting it. I’ll try to be nicer to taxi drivers in the future. After all, they’re just trying to make a living, like of the rest of us, and their job is a lot harder than mine.

A store window caught my eye this morning.

It stopped raining over 12 hours ago, and a big puddle still remains on the street.

It appears that the city planners did not spend too much time worrying about drainage of rainwater here in Shenyang. After just a brief rainfall, water accumulates on the sidewalks and streets, and takes hours, if not days, to drain off.

Maybe they just don’t get enough rain here to make it worthwhile to worry about drainage. I guess my view of this is colored by my years in Taiwan, with the monsoon and typhoon rains. If they didn’t have good drainage in Taipei, one good rainfall, and the whole city would drown. Maybe that isn’t such a big problem here in the northeast of China.

Or maybe this is just symptomatic of a developing country that still is moving towards modernization.

Of course, they moved to simplified characters here decades ago. However, at some level I think that they recognize that traditional characters project a sense of class.

Whenever I see traditional characters, my soul smiles.