Belated Posting on China

I started a post on Shenyang more than a week ago and never finished. Here is part of that post plus some thoughts on China in general...

Shenyang is a city of over seven million people that until two weeks ago I had never heard of. It feels like a more vertical city than Beijing. I think though that's a function of the wide streets and large footprint buildings in Beijing rather than there being extremely tall buildings in Shenyang.

I had thought that there was little to no ancient history in Shenyang, but you just need to look for it. We has some of our best tourist experiences there. The Northern Tomb and the Imperial Palace are both well worth a few days in Shenyang. There is also apparently a huge botanical garden but we didn't make it because of the soaking rains.

We took the train to Shenyang and watching China roll past the window early in the morning it became clear how much the landscape has been shaped and reshaped over the centuries. Looking out at China that morning every tree and rocks looked like it's been placed. The landscape feels like a collaboration of generations in a way that is both readily apparent and very different from how it feels to travel through America. China is remaking itself now to be sure, but it has been remade itself many times before.

Beijing feels like it is set. The vision is in place. It works. It is the Chinese capital and it is a prime site for visitors to China. Someone understands how to move people around and give them a good experience. We were not an oddity there. Occasionally in a local restaurant but not usually.

Shenyang is a city on the move. Tons of construction, a complete reinvention of the downtown. They are realizing a new vision and it is far from complete.

Retail is a seemingly huge part of that vision. The area we stayed in was mall after mall, often with same stores. People were buying. Shenyang feels like it has tremendous middle class. This was different than Beijing. Beijing feels like there is a large wealth gap. There are still a lot of very poor people in what is seemingly a hugely prosperous city.

All of the above is obviously anecdotal and comes from a tiny little window of time and experience. I was fascinated by China. I'm looking forward to checking out Shanghai in a few weeks and getting another look at a tiny piece of China.