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Shenyang’s Outskirts are Another World

We took the bus to meet Feng’s family (yes, there were more members to meet!) in the suburb of Shenyang. The forty-minute ride took us through the city, and across the river. The furthest we went, the flatter the scenery was—goodbye new tall constructions, welcome to older one-storey buildings.

It was a world apart from the city, a world where people still live in a tightly knit community, with chickens and dogs roaming free, very basic bathrooms and huge pipes running from one building to another to bring hot water. A world where people ride bicycles instead of motorbikes, play mah-jong instead of computer games and live with their elderly instead of moving to another province for better opportunities.

“They are going to stare at you,” Feng had warned me. “Most people have probably never seen a Westerner before.”

They can stare all they want, I was probably staring too.

Shenyang’s suburbs weren’t a huge shock to me. We’ve travelled quite a bit, from Singapore’s shiny malls to Bolivian shanty towns, from Sydney’s cosmopolitan Darling Harbour to street markets in Honduras. The cool air and the smell reminded me of Guatemala, actually.

There was the old movie theatre where Feng used to go when he was a kid and when movies cost a few cents. The building was empty and abandoned—we stepped in through a broken window. There was the old steel factory where his mother worked for twenty years, with its loudspeakers broadcasting the news from the top of the building. A navy blue uniform and a cap with a red star were hung at the entrance, probably the gatekeeper’s.

Chinese apartments are small but pretty functional and spotless. There are “fu” characters hung at the door to bring luck and happiness, and you may find several bicycles parked in the grim hallways. There is always a faint smell of food in the air—a neighbour cooking, people having a bowl of noodles outside, a cart selling sweet potatoes.

It’s another world just at the door of the city.

It probably won’t exist for long, for better or for worse.

Chinese Apartment Building's Hallway
Chinese Apartment Building’s Hallway
"Good Luck" Characters
“Good Luck” Characters
Rural and Urban China
Rural and Urban China
Chinese Apartment Building
Chinese Apartment Building
Old Street
Old Street
Public Bathrooms
Public Bathrooms
Old Street
Old Street
Old Movie Theatre
Old Movie Theatre
Old Movie Theatre
Old Movie Theatre
Old Movie Theatre
Old Movie Theatre
Old Movie Theatre
Old Movie Theatre
Old Movie Theatre
Old Movie Theatre
Old Steel Factory
Old Steel Factory
Old Steel Factory
Old Steel Factory
Old and New
Old and New
The Outsiders
The Outsiders
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Zhu

French woman in English Canada.

Exploring the world with my camera since 1999, translating sentences for a living, writing stories that may or may not get attention.

Firm believer that nobody is normal... and it’s better this way.

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