Botanical Gardens

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In the city of Shenyang, NEW VIDEO

This past weekend (fri and sat night) Miao and I stayed in Shenyang, the captial of Liaoning province.

We didn't come to Shenyang specifically to visit the city, but rather because it is on the way to Miao's hometown and she has two life-long friends that live in the city.

I arrived in the city sort with pretty neutral expectations. Dalian is a beautiful coastal city, whereas Shenyang is in the middle of the province and not really famous in the way Dalian is. It has 7.5 million people, and seems to go for miles and miles, as I noticed on the train coming into the city.

I don't have much time now to describe the wonderful time I had, but I will share one little story.

Miao's two friends, Ocean (translated from his Chinese name) and Tong (her nickname) took us out to dinner Friday night to a Korean bbq restaurant where you grill your food yourself. There is a little grill built into the middle of your table and they put red-hot coals in them after you order and they bring you plates of meat and you cook your food.

It was really fun, but I was having trouble with the chopsticks.

Ocean noticed the trouble I was having with the chopsticks and asked our waitress for a fork and a knife for me. The waitress left for awhile, then returned with a butter knife. She said she was sorry, but that they didn't have any forks.

I was happy with my chopsticks, but a fork and knife would have sped up my eating time. Ocean left the table for a few minutes and came back.

Now I want to tell you a little about Ocean. He works in a nice Shenyang hotel as a service person, and is actually a supervisor in charge of about 35 hotel workers. He used to work in a nice hotel in Beijing, but moved to Shenyang to be with his girlfriend, Tong. He is very very nice, but also knows how to talk to people.

After Ocean returned to the table, the manager of the restaurant came over to our table (one of about 50 tables) and started cooking our food for us and filling our glasses with drinks. She stayed at our table for about 10 minutes, until another waiter came over, wet from the rain, with a fork for me.

I found out after she left that Ocean had went to the manager and said something in Chinese along the lines of "Can't you see that man is a foreigner? He doesn't know how to use chopsticks properly and he needs a fork. How can you treat a foreigner this way? It is embarassing to us that you don't have silverware for him..."

Anyways, I wanted to share this story mainly to illustrate that in China, the local people treat foreigners very well. They want us to like their country, their city, their restaurant, their cab, whatever. I have found that in China, when someone calls you a foreigner it actually seems like somewhat of a positive, endearing name.... so different than in America where we talk about "foreigners" in almost a negative tone...

So, with that being said, I will leave you to this video. I think it is the best video I have made yet, and it is just under 7 minutes long. We had a lot of fun making it and I believe if you get a few minutes to spare you will really like it.

-Bill Conrad

CLICK HERE to go to YouTube to see my NEW CHINA VIDEO

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Photos

Miao, Ocean and Tong
We had a really nice time in Shenyang with Miao's two very good friends.

Shenyang Night
Taken without a tripod, holding camera with my hand.

Shenyang Wal-Mart
They got them in China, too.