Note: The following article was sent to me by ‘Comy Chi’, profile name (Ocean). Since the idea of writing about this town came from him, let me retain it as a first person narrative even though I have made many changes in the text.
Navneet Ji:
I want to tell you about my hometown, although now I am not living there.(I am working at Taizhou, where you used to live.)
Harbin is the largest city and the Capital of Heilongjiang Province in the North East region of China. It is the tenth most populous city of China. Recently my town has expanded a new zone, just like New Delhi has Gurgaon. This is a picture of the new district. Almost every tower you see is an apartment complex.
Harbin is a unique place in China. The name of my city has many meanings because unlike other Chinese cities it is not Chinese. It doesn't sound Chinese either.The word is probably Russian or Mongolian or Manchu or whatever but definitely not Chinese. (Harbin in ‘Manchu’ means a place for drying fishing nets as per Wikipedia). It has many meanings, but most people believe it means “the Swan”. The shape of the map of HeilongJiang province looks like a swan and Harbin got a nickname “ Pearl on the Swan’s neck” as on the map that’s how it looks. The most famous hotel in my hometown is “The Swan Hotel”.
This is an old picture of Swan hotel because the new building is under construction and is yet unfinished.
To know about my city you will have to learn some keywords first. For example like Russian, Industry, Urbanization and black land. This town was once a base of the 'Manchus'. Unlike as was the tradition with other Chinese communities of building stone walls around the town, they only built an earthen wall. So the cities they would build could not last very long. After they moved to other places, their towns would get ravaged down by nature in a short period. So, Harbin could not be a town until the modern era. She would be a settlement or a military base or one post on trade route for a while , but never a real city in the ancient time.
The modern day Harbin was founded by a Polish person named Adam Szydlowski in 1898 during construction of Trans Manchurian Railway now known as Chinese Eastern Railway. The city first prospered as a region inhabited by the Jewish immigrants. During the Russio-Japanese War of 1904-5 Russia used Harbin as a military base. After the defeat of Russia, Russian influence declined and thousands of nationals from as more than thirty countries moved to Harbin and established their consulates to serve their nationals who started industrial and commercial businesses here.
Japanese invaded Manchuria in 1931 and established a puppet state of Manchukuo. Soviet Army took the control of the city post Second World War and the city’s administration was transferred by the departing army to People’s Liberation in April 1946.
The SongHua river on the banks of which Harbin is situated, offers very good waterways for transportation and trade and is an inexhaustible source of freshwater too. So when Russian merchant came here they fell in love with it and decided to settle down here and develop one modern city just like Moscow or St Petersburg. That’s why you can see a lot of Russian architecture here. Just like this one below.
St Sofia Church, one the famous Orthodox Churches in China. Now it is an architectural museum. Orthodox as a religion had a pretty small influence on China but it’s incredible architectural art and aesthetical ideas have left indelible stamp on China.
This is Madier Hotel. It was founded by a Russian merchant. Later it became one of the best clubs and reigned as the topmost hotel in whole of East Asia between 1910 and 1930.Now it is still in operation and you can get a feel of its hospitality and luxury if you can afford that high price. Madier word comes from Russian and it means ‘popular’. I recommend its frozen candy bars to you when you come to visit my city. This hotel has its own ice cream factory. People here in Harbin eat ice cream every day, even in winter. Isn’t it amazing?
Harbin Brewery set up in 1990 by a Russian of Polish origin is the oldest brewery in China. People in Harbin love to drink (So if you cannot drink too much, you are going to miss a lot of fun when you visit Harbin). Harbin beer is mostly popular in Northeast China and in my home town, it is one important element of our culture. Every summer we have a beer festival. And every festival starts with celebration of joy, followed by frenzied cheering to the participants guzzling beer and countless cases of beer are consumed. Finally it all ends up with a lot of people drunk and lying flat on the roads and dozens of car involved in accidents. Almost every year my hometown has such crazy situations like we see in Hindi films people drunk on Holi( Indian festival of colour) festival.
Errr... Where is my beer? I need to take more.
This picture is of Central Boulevard or Central Street (I like to use the word 'Boulevard'). This is one of the oldest boulevards in China. It is designed by the Russians and built by the Chinese. Now it is a pedestrian street. Notice the ornamental work on stool around the trees, typically European style or of Russian style to be exact. Because of such unique features my home town also earned a name “Oriental Moscow”. This picture must have been taken at 4 or 5 O’clock in the morning because only a few people can be seen on the street. Central Boulevard in reality is full of visitors and residents until midnight.
Both sides of this street have Malls、small shop and restaurants. Many shops on this street sell Russian stuff or so they say it is. And those sales people will say whatever you can imagine and even something beyond your imagination to persuade you to buy their stuff. You might even come across some swearing that the bottle of Vodka with them was Stalin’s favourite and they may convince you in to buying it or trying it but remember, DO not buy anything Russian there unless you know somebody because all the stuff that is sold there is fake. It is not a hard thing to buy a real Russian stuff in my hometown, but generally speaking the real stuff is not traded in those shops. However, other big malls still have good and genuine articles and you can find something excellent there if you are ready to pay the price.
This street is very long and is criss-crossed by many other streets. In these side streets you can find many restaurants. Once Indian newspaper reported of a restaurant using a robot to cook and deliver food to the customers. That restaurant also is located in one of those cross streets but it doesn’t face the boulevard. I once went there and saw how they used the robot to cook. Originally the restaurant was a small place operating out of a basement. The robot was there alright but it was mainly to attract the people because it couldn’t cook many dishes at the same time as a professional chef would. The plate in which the food was served was big and as is generally the case with fancy restaurants, the food wasn’t enough but was mercifully, palatable. I am still alive after eating it.
After Russia’s great October Socialist Revolution in 1918 more than 10000 Russian White Guards and the refugees retreated to Harbin which became a major centre for White Russian émigrés. The restaurant shown in the picture above, was also built by a Russian merchant. It used to be a club for White Russian Guards who fled to China. Some White Russian Guards had served in Tsar’s court and they knew what Tsar’s palace looked like. The vestibule of this restaurant has a nickname “Little Kremlin” because its design is like the dinner chamber of Kremlin.
This is the flood control monument. The memorial commemorates those who lost their lives in the floods that ravaged Harbin from time to time. In 1950s Harbin suffered a huge flood like we suffer so often even today but we are better equipped to fight floods now with all the advancement in technology. At that time we did not have a stone dam to hold the flood waters but an earthen dam which gave way, so half of the city got marooned. The authorities acted to protect Harbin, the waters were diverted, many cities along the river were flooded and many people lost their lives. The flood was finally controlled by wisdom, courage and power. So the city built this monument to commemorate their great victory and fearless courage to confront the natural disasters. Whenever there is a flood now, I just leave my hometown and go to another place but the water level in the river is always high. However, if my city can conquer the flood two times, she will conquer them again. Man cannot do anything against the might and fury of the nature but learn to live with it and contain the losses to minmum. The statue itself is not very exciting but the view of the river is marvellous. In winter the river freezes and becomes a large expanse of sheet of ice and it’s a great fun being there, riding horse drawn coaches, snow mobiling, dog sleds and skating.
This monument was also designed by a Russian. In 1949 when communist rule was established in our country, Mao decided to join Eastern Bloc and in return he asked Soviet Union to aid China, to which Soviet Union agreed. Harbin played a very important part in execution of the aid plan. Even today, the town boasts of the best translators, fluent in Russian. The Russian aid gradually changed Harbin to an industrial and technical center. Many factories and research institutes, including military institute were set up here.
The design of this building is like university of Moscow. Now it is the main building of Harbin Institute of Technology (HIT).Stalinstic in style like the Seven sisters in Moscow, it was established by the Russians. Many important researches like aerospace, aviation and optics is being and has been done here.
The Soviet aid helped Harbin to build many industries, like medicine and aviation. Our helicopters, Electronic equipment and medicines are famous in China. Many electronic equipment which your country (India) orders is produced in my hometown. I am aware of one big equipment order from a ‘Pradesh’ ( Indian word for a provincial state) located in Northern India. Such industrial concerns that cater to the huge orders from abroad are very big, so Harbin administration set up an administrative district for them. Now one major street in this district is named as the “The energy street”.
Soviet aid to China is one extremely rare example of assistance in history. It is not same as with other type of aids given to other countries. Soviets aid other countries too like India or African countries but personally I think those aids cannot compare with the aid given to China. Soviets Union gave African countries weapons, helped India build steel plants, provided Arabian countries aid to build dams but to China they provided the whole systems, complete in every respect. They taught us the secrets of industry. In the very beginning the technology which the soviets gave us was not their best technology but for us it was very useful because we didn’t have any. We only received their second hand machines and lathes but they give us the whole systems. Having all the machines and the technology is not enough. Something more important than this is the inter-relationship of different industries and different industrial ideas. If we know the inter-relationship of the industry, then we will know the real secret behind it . This is the power of the system. A single factory or a dam cannot bring a change in a nation.
Due to such huge change brought by the Russians, my city was one of earliest Chinese cities to start urbanization. Most people in Harbin had already got used to a modern city life style when people in other cities were still living in traditional ways. So when the government planned to urbanize other Chinese cities, they took Harbin as a model for development. The building in the picture above is the first departmental store of Harbin. Founded in 1947,it is even older than People’s Republic of China(1949).And when major cities started developing gradually, they all had “first departmental stores” just like the one above.
Urbanization changed my city and the lifestyle of her inhabitants, for example drinks, we love to drink different kinds of alcohols, beers, wines, tea and everything modern and traditional. The people of Harbin have long history of heavy drinking. You know, it is kind of necessary for the people living in very cold climates to have drinks to keep warm. For us, alcohol is not something to make us happy but necessary to keep us mobile, active and alive. It’s like a medicine for us to survive the temperatures that dip to thirty and even forty degrees below freezing. The winter here is cold and dry. In not so distant past copious amount of snow would fall and cover everything in thick blanket but now due to global warming the snowfall at Harbin has remarkably shrunk. It is a sad thing for us Harbinians because snow brings a lot of visitors here and livelihood of many people here depends on it. Every winter Harbin has a snow festival. The snow sculptors and craftsmen and women from all over the world vie for excellence, acclaim and attention. It is one important local festival for it means a lot of tourism and money for the locals.
Look at a fine piece of artistry. Even those steps are made from snow (like ghats on the banks of your Ganges). Notice, even the women shown in the sculpture is reaching for a drink, in keeping with the trend and the tradition. That is one difference between the Chinese female statue and Hindi female statue. (Yes indeed it is. I haven’t seen any Chinese movies but I think traditionally even the Chinese women don’t drink openly)
Every winter whenever the snow falls, all inhabitants participate in clearing the snow after fall. I remember when I was a kid in primary school, the school principal organized us to clean the snow and ice on the street and school ground. The school would provide us the shovels, scoops, brooms and baskets to clear the ice and snow. The idea behind this was to develop in us the community feeling. After the snow was piled in to heaps, the trucks would come at night to take those away for dumping. I think that snow and ice was transferred to the sites for the artists or maybe it was just dumped in the river.
The whole castle is made of ice. And you can enter inside. Every year on snow festival we build such huge ice castles in the park. Now the government has opened a new special park to save all those ice artwork. Personally, I think the ice art in this new park is poor in comparison with the art work we would get to see in the olden days. I think the quality is becoming inferior every year.
This picture is of winter swimming. In winter some people like to jump into cold water and swim. And it is called winter swimming. Winter swimming is extremely good exercise for those who can dare to do it. A man who frequently does winter swimming will hardly ever catch cold or get any other respiratory diseases. Winter swimming has its own regimen. Before you go to swim, you need to walk or run or do some warming up, then you jump into water and swim. The first time you always feel bad, but if you keep swimming, you will get over your fears and get used to it quickly. After the swim, you need to take a hot bath quickly and wipe yourself dry. Then you will feel like you got a rebirth. Of course, I am not telling it from my own experience but relating what a winter swimmer told me.
I have never tried winter swimming but I have taken sauna bath many times. Sauna too is very popular in Harbin. Everybody in Harbin believes that if you take a bath without Sauna, you haven’t taken real bath.
Look at this great plain of my hometown. It is all black soil, the best soil for agriculture. No other type of soil can compare with it. Nature spent thousands of years to form this, and give it to my people as gift to show how generous she is. You just need to plant some seed in it in the spring and do nothing more and you will get a great harvest in autumn year after year. My province is a poor province as compared to other provinces in China, so agriculture forms a big part of its revenue. A large part of grain consumed in China comes from my province just like Punjab contributes maximum towards total Indian food grain production. However, it seems that those bureaucrats in my hometown do not have much expertise of good governance and still worse it is that they lack will to learn. My hometown lacks behind other towns in development because those fools do not know what the key factors of economics and trade are. Governance is a science, or maybe an art with many components that cannot be ignored or thought to be of little importance. A bureaucrat or a politician who has little or no learning of it can bring no peace, prosperity and development to the people, but only dejection, grouse and chaos. My hometown also has chaos. People here like to use their fists instead of wits.
This is all I have to say about Harbin, my hometown. Even though the mother nature gave it a bounty of gifts yet it’s far from being a perfect place. Every day we have some new problem to deal with. You may find someone dead drunk, lying prone in the street, or find somebody get in to a brawl with another, or someone involved in a car accident, or worse someone going on a binge, and ending up in a hospital after over running a few while driving under and influence of liquor. However, this city is my hometown and although it has many such incidents every day, still she is special to me like those childhood friends I used to play with. Where ever I be, I cannot forget her like I can’t forget the giggles of my young childhood mates. I am happy to let others know about her.
No comments:
Post a Comment