Oh, the heat, the oppressive heat of Beijing, how I missed you so; it was almost nine years ago exactly that I was thrust into the heart of China, where I learned how to haggle and almost enjoy it, where I learned how fun it was to be drenched like a wet stinking sock in the foul humidity of the capital in summer.
Indeed, the city looked nothing like I had remembered it: the quaint streets and armadas of bicycles flooding the roads had all but disappeared, and a massive freeway from a shining new piece of airport architecture faded in the distance as I barrelled along into the city centre. It just seemed….. quieter. There were no aggressive third world throngs, no shady taxi drivers, just a somewhat orderly queue and flashing digital billboards. It seemed more like Tokyo – a Tokyo with rude people, perhaps.
I would move on from Beijing the next day, however, determined to learn more about this country, though due to its size I never seem to grasp it entirely. With an associate beside me we decided to opt for perhaps a more pleasant area, way up in the northeast, not so often visited, and perhaps a little cooler in mid-summer. We had booked tickets to Harbin, cultural capital of far northern China, the part between Mongolia and Russia. Just a hop away from Vladivostok, and it would be tempting to reach there – but the visas, of course the visas, would prove to be too difficult. Two hours of flying later we arrived at another, smaller, shining new terminal out in the hinterlands of Harbin, and blazed by rows of billboards into the city. It's small, by Chinese standards – at only three million, that is. Still a massive place for a poor old Canadian.
Back in the day, Harbin was a cultural crossroads between Russia and China. It was also a major city in the former state of Manchuria, which ceased to exist sometime before the second world war. A major tourist attraction is a secret Japanese camp where experiments were performed on prisoners as they tried to perfect chemical warfare in anticipation of a larger offensive against China – only a few prisoners escaped, and as Japenese positions fell when the tide of war turned against them, they destroyed most of the compound. What is left is a mish-mash of old buildings, and the decidedly biased story of what the Chinese endured under Japanese occupation.
But, there is more than a simple Japanese influence. There is a heavy Russian presence, and indeed half of the signs are in Russian. The Wal-Mart of central Harbin happily sports Mandarin script as well as Russian Cyrillic. Those little wooden dolls and fur hats better known from Moscow souvenir stores are ubiquitous across Harbin, as well as some large and old doddering white couples speaking the Russian language. A Russian tourist spot? Well, I guess residents of Vladivostok are entitled to vacation time along with the rest of us.
Harbin's architecture is not all nouveau-China shiny, either, as it has a very scenic city centre filled with old colonial buildings, as well as an orthodox church that has been turned into a museum. Also, the city has a wonderful shopping thoroughfare that is overloaded with goods that most Chinese shouldn't be able to afford – the affluence of the nation is transforming it quickly. Thousand dollar suits, hundred dollar shoes, where are these people getting this money? Perhaps it is a prestige game, the old practice of investing and simply losing money for extended periods of time, but the sparkling shopping malls of central Harbin were certainly not for your average janes and joes. Large beer gardens dotted the thoroughfare, along with beauty contestants who proudly paraded themselves in front of ogling crowds as they presented the latest bottle of “Snow” beer, or “Harbin” beer. Both a little too watery for my liking. Mascots of Korean cartoon characters patrolled the streets, along with teenagers handing out flyers. Capitalist China indeed, and one must wonder what aspects of the country still retain the so-called “communist” country's roots. We bided our time in Harbin, playing “spot the ugly Chinese person”, a game that can only fill one's heart with sorrow, as that's the couple's only chance – remember the one child policy, and remember that that one ugly kid is the only hope of the family. The little emperors would be out en masse on a Saturday afternoon, along with a few empresses, though statistics would dictate otherwise towards the gender divide.
No matter. We hopped a train to the southeast, to the town of Mudanjiang, which was definitely more eastern bloc. In its centre was a massive stately hotel, huge with a central garden that was not lit at all in the night. Stout cedar trees cluttered a wooded area around the building, blackened Mercedes with tinted windows drifted in and out of the parking lot, large dimmed hallways lined with wood and a dark coloured carpet. We agreed to hire a taxi to visit nearby Jingpo Lake and some kind of “underground forest”, and did so the next day.
I have to say, it was disappointing. Not only the underground forest, which is a kind of wooded area in an old volcanic crater, reinforced with concrete stairs and overloaded with busloads of Chinese tourists, but the famous lake, which we were treated to a “secret” view of, as I ducked out of a rip-off scam – some restauranteur tried to get us to pay $45 for a fish, and I refused, and managed to get the taxi driver to pay the guy for half of it. Ah, my bargaining skills have improved over the years. But we would not part on amicable terms, him cheating us until the end, and I would be reminded why I'm not the biggest fan of China – too many ripoff artists. Pity the poor folk who want to do business here.
We hightailed it back to Harbin, though Russia was only a few hours away – one of these days, Siberia. The city itself was a relaxing place, a good spot for one dollar beers and department store shopping, and sooner than later we flew back to Beijing. In the afternoon, I visited some very old haunts I had not seen in nine years – Tianamen square, now with very little going for it, aside from an ice cream van firmly planted in the middle and a looming Olympic clock across the way. The city seems quieter, the traffic jams more ubiquitous. Newfound wealth has led too many in Beijing to abandon their bicycles, and now they sit in air-conditioned traffic jams for most of the day. Perhaps in a few years after the fad of owning a car has gone away, and their bike lanes are still around, many will realize that they could get where they wanted in ten minutes on a bike rather than sitting for thirty minutes in traffic. But it's also a prestige thing, I wager, and some may be forever trapped in their vehicles.
Nine years later, China is continuing on a capitalist trajectory, though the single-party state persists in its underlying workings in the background. Next year should be interesting for a group of athletes who need to compete in this foul heat, this drenching humidity, with possible rainstorms and visibility of only a few hundred metres. I sure hope a few of them are practicing in a sauna to get familiar with the temperature.
