Shenyang: The truth flows with the wine
The story the government didn’t want to be told
SHENYANG, Liaoning — I expected Mr. Shi to be waiting for me at the train station with a cold beer in one hand and an itinerary in the other. In the weeks leading up to my departure from Shanghai, and during my first month of traveling, he had been by far the most attentive and persistent of my contacts along the route.
He sent long emails and presented a detailed plan of attack for visiting the dozens of attractions Shenyang had to offer (even though every Chinese person I questioned leading up to my arrival in Shenyang had trouble naming one thing worth seeing in the city). He called me weekly, sometimes more often than that, his deep voice checking up on my current whereabouts and my estimated date of arrival in Shenyang. He wanted to make sure he was at the train station to greet me.
In Beijing, I finally had an answer for Mr. Shi. I would arrive on Saturday — at 2 a.m. I felt bad, but there were no other options.
“Mr. Shi,” I said to him over the phone, “we would be happy to get a hotel room that night. You could just meet us in the morning.”
“Nonsense,” his voice boomed back at me. “Saturday morning is still Friday night to us. It’s time to play. We will drink beer while we wait for you. It will be a party.”
There are stereotypes about dong bei ren, people from northeastern China: They are a hard-drinking lot — chuggers of both beer and bai jiu — and they are so amazingly gracious it makes you feel guilty. I can confirm both of these stereotypes to be accurate.
09.24.2004, 1:45 PM · Liaoning, Stories, The Trip · Comments (20)
