Getting to Know Harbin

The past few weeks have flown by.  I long for boredom.  My classes aren’t that difficult, but the work seems to be incessant.  The majority of my time recently has been spent doing homework and studying, procrastinating doing homework and studying, and trying to get online (which I finally figured out this past week).

In addition to my four academic classes, I’m also taking a badminton class and a cooking class at night.  The badminton is a lot of fun, and I enjoy  the exercise, even if our teacher does constantly criticize my technique.  Still, it’s a good replacement for racquetball, and helps me stay sane amidst so much work.

Our cooking teacher is an 86 year-old Harbin man with poor hearing, stubby fingers, and a passion for story-telling.  We met with him for the first time this past week to make introductions and discuss what we want to learn to make.  After evaluating all of our Chinese names (as Chinese people often seem to do), he proceeded to explain how cooking is more than just preparing food; rather, that our class will incorporate history, culture, art, and science.  He then told us all about the history of Harbin—how it went from being a simple Manzu (as in Manchurian) village to an international city.  Apparently, in helping the Chinese fight off the Japanese at the end of the 19th century, the Russians built railroads into China, coming in droves to Harbin as an outpost.  He said that by 1920, there were over 30 nationalities of people living in Harbin, including Romanians, Turks, French, and Russians.  While other Chinese cities had been strongly influenced by one nationality of people, ‘invaded’ as some sort of colonies (Qingdao had the Germans, Hong Kong had the British, Shanghai had the French, Macau had the Portuguese, and so on), Harbin was China’s first real international city.  This hodgepodge of influences is visible in the city’s architecture, strewn with hints of Baroque and Roman style, as well as in the city’s cuisine.

I should also mention that our teacher is a linguist, and apparently studied Russian at some point in his life.  Throughout our conversation he sporadically broke out of Chinese into Russian, as well as using Russian words like czar and army.  He told us about how Harbin was the first city in China to get taxis (Shanghai being the second), and how early in the 20th century 16 countries had established consulates here.  After this very long, but quite interesting and entertaining, description of Harbin’s history, we discussed what types of food we wanted to study, deciding on about 10 or 11 dishes, most of which are DongBei specialities (from China’s Northeast), including DiSanXian (made with eggplant, potatoes, and peppers) and BaSi DiGua (fried potatoes in a caramel sauce).

While Harbin does seem to be somewhat developmentally behind compared to cities like Beijing and Shanghai, it is still certainly an international city.  Since I’ve been here, I’ve encountered countless Russians and Koreans, as well as Australians, Ethiopians, Algerians, Pakistanis, Indians, Germans, and French.  Last weekend, in search of a change of scenery, my friends and I studied in a French café complete with wine, cheese, and real coffee.  Of course, the French proprietor and his wife looked a bit disconcerted when I asked them to make me an iced coffee, but I suppose that’s to be expected.

Last Saturday we took a day trip to a small mountain about an hour away to do some hiking.  The weather was nice, and despite the trails being made up of neverending steps (as Chinese hiking so often involves), it was nice to get out.  The air in Harbin isn’t nearly as bad as in Beijing, but you can still tell the difference between the city and the countryside.  I’m looking forward to my time in Yunnan, where I’m hoping I’ll get to do a bit more hiking.

Yesterday we went on a ‘field trip’ to old Harbin, to explore the Muslim area, centered around a large blue mosque.  The streets in the area are decked with aged buildings, interesting architecture, and alleys with fat, shirtless Chinese men playing MaJiang, Chinese poker, and Chinese chess.  Near the river we encountered an animal market with rabbits, birds, crickets, chickens, and fish.  It was an interesting day, and I got some cool photos.

I always forget how different life in China and life in the US can be.  For instance, in the US, you would never see a 6 or 7 year-old girl squat by the side of the road in a busy city to pee, or two little girls cheerfully pushing around a dead rat with a broom.  But, these things don’t seem to be so out of the ordinary here.

Well, that’s it for now.  I’ll try to write again next weekend, but hopefully I’ll be busy since its my birthday.  I’ve been putting photos up on facebook, and I’ll add them to this site as well, in addition to a few videos.  So, check back soon!