The Qing Dynasty and Shenyang
Written by Julianne Altman about the events of May 27
Our class today was about the Qing Dynasty, which is of much importance to Shenyang as seen in the Imperial palace that we went to yesterday. This lecture was given in Chinese by Professor Haipin Ding and translated for us by our guide Jerry.
After dinner, we stopped at Holland Village. Once upon a time, a Chinese man went to Holland and fell in love with its gardens and architecture and decided to build a replica of a small town here in Shenyang. However, his first plan was to have a garden but he did not have the right permit to build the apartment buildings and other buildings he had built. For this, he was sentenced to ten years in prison and another man was sentenced to death. So, Holland Village lies empty and left to decay. Yet, it is a beautiful place that is relatively unknown to those outside the city.
Next we went to the Botanical Gardens. It was a lot larger than I had imagined it would be. A large part of the park was a series of miniature buildings and gardens that were representative of places in China and around the world. The water park there was of many bridges, objects like barrels, and swinging things that one needed to cross over a pool of water to get to the other side. This was a lot of fun but it would have been a better day to get wet if it was as hot as it was last week, but still it was an enjoyable day.