Shenyang: Colorful Culture

Shenyang is one of heavy industrial cities in Northeast China. As a historical and cultural city, it has a long history of over 2000 years. In the Western Han Dynasty (206BC-8AD), Shenyang grew to be a town called Houchen County. During the Liao (907AD-1125AD) and Jin (1115AD-1234AD) dynasties, it was called Shenzhou. In the year 1297, it was renamed Shenyang. In 1625 the Manchus established Shenyang as their capital and called it Shengjing. With the Manchu conquest of Beijing in 1644, Shengjing became a secondary capital under the name of Fengtian. In 1928 the c0ity was called Shenyang again. Shenyang became a colony in 1931 and liberated on November 1948.

The major historic relics are the Imperial Palace, the North Tomb (Zhaoling), and the East Tomb (Fuling).

Traditional artifacts and specialties include feather pictures, shell pictures, jade sculptures, ginseng, martens, and pilose antlers.

Local food specialties are Qi noodles (Hongshao Qimian), Laobian dumplings (Laobian Jiaozi), Li liangui pancakes with smoked meat inside (Liliangui Xunroubing).

Shenyang has 5 professional art performance groups, more than 40 spare-time art performance groups and their performances include Peking Opera, Appraisal Opera, Drama, Acrobatics, Singing and Dancing, Chinese Folk and so on. Han Shaoyun, Hua Shulan, You Junting, Chi Xiaoqiu, LXiaohe and Sun Haiying are the players well-known at home and abroad. They have produced many well-known arts such as Midnight Crescent, Tian Huan and so on, which have got big awards at home and abroad. Tian Huan by Shenyang Acrobatics Group has won the favors of the audience from South America, Europe, Southeast Asia and so on, and is called as "art from other celestial body¡". This group has got many awards at "Tomorrow" Acrobat Festival of France.

Altogether, Shenyang has 22 big cultural plazas, 300 medium and small cultural plazas. It holds at least 1,200 activities of singing, dancing and etc each year. Qing Culture Festival and Lunar New Year Light Festival have become the popular traditional activities. The folk arts with local features and wide population base, such as the Sowing Song of Northeast China, "Two People Turning" of folk performance are booming. The Qing Culture Festival such as Royal Etiquette Parade, Qing Verve are attractive to all tourists at home and abroad every year. Shenyang has 20 public libraries, 15 mass cultural houses, more than 20 theaters and over 600 cinemas, which become the major places for the mass to have culture activities and culture consumption.

Shenyang is having more and more cultural exchanges with other countries and regions. In the recent years, many art groups successively from US, Austria, Japan, Russia, Yugoslavia, UK, South Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan and so on have come to Shenyang for performances and shows.

Shenyang has 3 publishing houses, producing over 1,000 kinds of books most of which are loved by the readers at home and abroad. Shenyang has more than 1,100 book and magazine wholesaler and retailers, about 300 electronic publishing and operating units. There are more than 100,000 kinds of books shown on "Shenyang Book Market" each July, which has wide inf1uence in society. There are more than 2,300 printing enterprises and operation shops in Shenyang.

Shenyang has about 20 media with more than 3,000 employees and millions of readers and audience. Shenyang Daily Group has 6 newspapers, 2 magazines and 1 website. Shenyang Daily, Shenyang Evening and Shenyang Today are loved by the readers in Shenyang.

Shenyang Radio has news, economy, communications, arts and sports broadcasts, owning broad audience. Shenyang TV has news, comprehensive, movie, sports and life channels, which have big influence in Shenyang.