Soft seat, hard seat

soft seat is first class, hard seat is 2nd class, these expressions come from the olden days of communism where there apparently were no classes.
for longer trips it is a lot more relaxing to take soft seats!

You do realise that, even the fast G trains between Shenyang and Shanghai take over 10 hours? In this case, it's not hard and soft seat but Yi Deng (First) and Er Deng (Second) classes. Both are "soft", they're like airline seats. Yi Deng (First class) is wider and gives you a bit more room; similar to business class

Hard seat and soft seat on slower trains are basically what they say they are. Hard seat is a bench-type thing. It is padded, like your wooden dining room chair may be padded, but not very much. Soft seat is akin to the kind of seat that you might find in a European or American train.

A slow train between Shenyang and Shanghai takes 26 hours. You won't be using a seat. I actually did Beijing to Fushun direct in hard seat (A mere 9 hours or so) during my first year here. I could hardly walk by the time I got there..

Enjoy Fushun (If you can).