Shenyang is not trying to be anyone’s elegant surprise. It comes at you with palace roofs, winter air, traffic noise, and the blunt fact that it has spent a long time making things, ruling things, and then making things again. Shenyang does not need...
Every summer, thousands descend on Xinghai Square with beer in plastic bags and blankets spread across the lawn. The square is built on reclaimed coastline in the south of the city, and by early evening the crowd is thick enough that finding a patch...
Steel is still the word most often put beside Anshan, and with reason. Ninety kilometres south of Shenyang, this Liaoning city of more than three million people grew around iron, mills, mountains, jade and hot spring water.
钢铁仍然是人们提到鞍山时最先想到的词，而且并非没有道理。这座辽宁城市位于沈阳以南约90公里，人口超过300万，围绕铁矿、钢厂、山地、玉石和温泉水发展起来。
The name means “saddle mountain”, after a nearby...
Seen from the Hun River, Fushun is a city of apartment blocks, older works, bridges and hills. Its modern shape was built on coal; its national place has also been formed by revolutionary memory and the older history of Qing beginnings.
从浑河边看抚顺，它是一座由住宅楼、旧厂区、桥和山组成的城市。它的现代形态因煤而起；它在全国版图中的位置，也由革命记忆和更早的清朝开端共同塑造。
Many visitors treat Fushun...
Way long before Liaoning province built its reputation on heavy industry, the hills around Benxi were already doing something quieter; growing the forest that now covers more than three quarters of the city's land.早在辽宁把重工业名声做出来之前，本溪周边的山坡就在做一件更安静的事；养出如今覆盖了这座城市四分之三以上土地的森林。
That contrast, between blast furnace and canopy, is the first thing...
Ferries do not run here anymore, but the crowd on the Broken Bridge does not seem to mind. By eight each morning, tour groups are already three deep at the ticket gate, ¥30 apiece, craning for a look at Sinuiju on the far bank.
渡船早已不再运营,但这并不妨碍断桥边的人潮。每天早上八点,旅行团已在售票口排起三层长队,每人¥30,只为一睹对岸新义州的模样。
The...
Twice a day, the sea at Jinzhou Bay pulls back and a stone path appears, joining an island to the coast. Visitors wait hours for the moment, then hurry back before the tide swallows the crossing again.
每天两次,锦州湾的海水会退去,一条石路随之显现,将一座岛屿与海岸连接起来。游客常常等候数小时,只为这一刻,随后又要赶在潮水吞没通道之前匆匆返回。
The island is Bijia Mountain, named for three...
Go at dusk if you can. The Daliao River empties west into the Bohai Sea right here, which means the sunset actually falls into the water instead of behind some hill or skyline. Sounds like a small thing. It isn't, really — most coastal...
Fuxin is not a city that tries to flatter you. Coal built it, coal thinned it out, and the cost of that long dependence is still visible in the streets. In official language, it was China’s first national resource-exhausted city economic transformation pilot.
阜新不是那种一上来就想讨好人的城。煤把它养大，也把它掏空了一部分，街面上还能看出那笔账。按官方说法，它还是全国第一个资源枯竭型城市经济转型试点市。
The Haizhou...
Cities where the old names still matter; Liaoyang is one of them. Baita District, Guangyou Temple, the White Pagoda, the Taizi River, and the Han-Wei mural tombs all sit close enough together that you can get a real first impression in a single day.
辽阳是那种老名字还很管用的城市。白塔区、广佑寺、白塔、太子河、汉魏壁画墓群，这几处挨得不远，足够你用一天先摸到这座城的底子。
The...
Tieling sits on flat ground in northern Liaoning, and the flatness is part of the city’s shape. Streets run long, the views open out, and the railway line goes straight through the place instead of skirting around it.
铁岭在辽宁北部，地势平平，而这恰好就是它的样子。街道拉得很长，视线也开阔，铁路线直接穿城而过，不是绕着走。
Murong Street still holds the old centre...
Get out to the reed edge and Panjin makes more sense. The city lies flat in the Liaohe Delta, so wind has room to move. Wind has room here, which is a small thing but the right one.
盘锦最好是到了芦苇边上再看。它平平地铺在辽河三角洲上，风能一路过去，几乎没有什么东西挡着。风在这里真的有地方可去，这一点不大，但很对。
If you arrive too early, the colour...
Chaoyang is easier to understand if you start on foot. Murong Street still runs through the old centre, the towers sit where they should, and the city keeps a lot of space between its older pieces. That spacing matters here.
朝阳最好还是先从走路开始理解。慕容街还穿过老城中心，塔就在该在的地方，城市在老东西之间留了很多空地。这里的“空”，其实很重要。
At the north end of...
Huludao sits where Liaoning turns toward the Bohai Sea, and the city is easiest to read as a day that keeps widening: old wall, sea air, a ferry, a hot spring, and a late dinner in that order. The seafood lovers will be more...
