A Cold Nose in Shenyang

Statue of Mao Ze Dong in Shenyang.

My first real break from my job in China fell in the first week in October- 'Golden Week', as it was called. Shenyang, capital of ancient Manchuria, promised cultural delights that were in short supply in the mountain city that was my temporary home. Shenyang might be one of the most polluted cities in China, and take an overnight train journey to reach,  but in terms of Chinese culture it was a veritable Shangri-la. My English colleague Katharine had been invited to a wedding in Dalian, so I decided to go alone. I was eager to see some of the Emperors' palaces and tombs I'd only dreamt about in London classrooms.

 

Approach to the North Tomb in Shenyang

My American colleague Joseph advised against it . There were dangers, he said,  for a foreign woman who travelled alone;  what they were he didn't specify. But the fears of an elderly Franciscan monk weren't about to stop me.  There was even a Holiday Inn, I reassured him. In fact, the people I met during my stay, with an exception described in another chapter, showed the same courtesy I'd experienced in Tonghua and  on previous visits to China.

However, an encounter,  at the end of a very enjoyable visit, reminded me of Joseph's well-intended warnings.

I left Shenyang by an overnight train which departed at 9.30pm. The grim-faced, uniformed woman in charge of the ‘Luxury Waiting Room’ sold me a ticket for the standard 10 Yuan fee- about 60p at the time.  I entered a vast hall, built in the 1930s and not refurbished since, judging by the décor. It resembled a salon in an underwater Titanic, with huge chandeliers, damask wallpaper and battered sofas trailing brocaded skirts. Low, dark wood tables were ranged about , mostly empty. All this, illuminated by the customary Chinese twenty watt bulbs, created an atmosphere of faded grandeur. However, I was there only to pass through to reach the platform. In Chinese stations one always walked up stairs or escalators to the waiting rooms and then down again to the platforms. It was as if they had to find a use for the upper station storeys and employment for the multiple personnel who would check one’s ticket.

 

Before I boarded I had a brief and unpleasant exchange with the three men, fellow passengers going to Tonghua, who had been deputed by the waiting room attendant to escort me to the platform.  It was only when I tried to board the train I discovered that the assistant at the Holiday Inn had booked me  a hard sleeper berth but had not told me, as is the Chinese way with bad news.

 The guard at the door of the soft-sleeper carriage wouldn’t allow me to get on.  The three young men were laughing at my attempts to board while waving my ticket at the guard. I told them I could tell they were Shenyang people. ‘Wei shenme?’ How did I know? Well, for one thing, Tonghua people were more…and I stopped to think of the right Chinese word.  ‘Keqi!’ (Polite!) one of them suggested, and I nodded. They laughed even louder.