HARDY SOULS IN HARBIN, CHINA

After we finished our finals early in the week, we flew with other BYU teachers to Harbin in the upper northeast portion of China; a “small” populated metro area of 10 million people!!  While waiting in the Jinan airport for our Shandong Airline flight, Stan saw a pilot crew seated near us and decided to ask one if he spoke English and where he got his training.  The pilot, who spoke very good English, said “Oregon” and was shocked to find out we were from Hillsboro.  He was also surprised to learn that we knew one of his flight instructors, Mike Bamberg.  Before leaving for China, Stan had often seen Chinese young men on bikes near the Hillsboro airport.  He had talked with Mike, a friend in Hillsboro, about the agreements made between Hillsboro Aviation and Chinese airlines.   On occasion, Mike was sent to China by the flight school to help select candidates for the flight training program in Hillsboro.  A number of those pilot candidates are employed by Shandong Airlines.  You never know what connections you will find in China!!

Nancy in the modern Jinan airport.

Some musicians were performing in the Jinan airport.  The gentleman who was singing was a passenger.  One of the numbers was Jingle Bells!

Harbin is 46 degrees latitude, similar to Portland, Oregon, but has a harsh winter climate.  While the area only gets about 18 inches of snow, the night temperatures can reach -40 degrees F.  So, the river freezes from about November until March.  Harbin caters to thousands of tourists in winter (World Famous Ice Festival) with enormous displays of lighted snow and ice sculptures.   As you can see from the pictures, they have created a city made from ice blocks from the river.  In the summer the moderate temperatures attract visitors to various festivals. 

 This picture of the slide was taken from the internet, but you get the idea!
 

In this close-up you can see more clearly the blocks of ice

 used to create the ice structures.

We didn’t feel like we were in China as the city has many modern buildings of Russian and European architecture.   In the early 1900’s there was actually a large Russian population due to railroad construction connecting the city to locations to the North.  We toured St. Sophia, a Russian Orthodox Church, which currently houses a photo gallery of early Harbin.  Many buildings and freeway “decorative” entrances were lit at night.  Plus we walked along Central Street, a pedestrian-only zone of European shops, malls and restaurants dotted with ice sculptures.  There were even some benches made of ice, but we chose not to relax on one! We did purchase some Russian chocolate but it wasn’t as good as the Swiss, French, German and Belgium varieties.  It still tasted great!

 A portion of Central Street in Harbin with European influence.

The Russian shop were we purchased chocolate.

 

Nancy in a high end mall in Harbin with no customers!  You would never guess you were in China!  Underground in the mall is a grocery store that reminds us of  New Seasons in Hillsboro.

 

 This picture is from the internet and shows Harbin at another season other than winter! 

The river is frozen now.

 Saint Sophia Church in Harbin 

The church could use restoration, but we could see some remnants of paintings on the ceiling. 

We also enjoyed a diversion from Chinese food and had a “comfort meal” at a very nice restaurant near Central Street.  It featured carved wooden walls, linen napkins, white-shirted waiters with black slacks and a pianist/singer.  The menu was quite varied with some Russian dishes, pizza, seafood, steaks, ribs, salads, pickles and $2 sodas!  Stan and I had borsch, fruit salad with ice cream, cabbage rolls, bread, steak and sodas for a total of $25!!

Our group took a large table in the middle of the restaurant.

The first night we bundled up with 4-5 layers of clothing and visited the Ice and Lantern show.   (It was about -11 degrees F).  Unfortunately the pictures do not always clearly illustrate the magical display of all the lights and workmanship of the ice sculptures.   And, there were Toboggan slides that were available.   We didn’t want to get any colder, but some BYU teachers found out that jeans do not slide well on ice!!  Our tour guide suggested getting warm indoors by attending a show of Russian dancers.  We took advantage, but found it was a Las Vegas style performance by Russians, not Russian folk dancers!  There were a few acrobatic dances that were quite amazing, including a gentleman who spun several times on his head.

Another Harbin highlight was going to Snow World.  We saw some snow sculptures that were still being finished.   One of the teams was “Poland”, so there must be some competitions for the winter festival which was to begin shortly after we left Harbin.   Those snow designs that were completed were very interesting.  It is amazing how much intricate carving can be done with snow! 

This snow sculpture is at the entrance. 

There were many snow displays of various sizes.

  

In addition to the ice and snow features, we toured a Siberian tiger preserve. The preserve was located in the middle of an industrial part of the city.  We drove in a bus with some caged windows and passed through several gates.  One tiger thought it was his chance to get freedom, so he and his companion followed the bus out of the gate.  The driver turned the bus around and the tiger obediently returned back through the gate which promptly closed behind him!! (Was this a planned circus act??)  Housed there were several quite rare white Siberian tigers and Liger.  We learned there are only 10 ligers (a cross between a lion and tiger) in the world.

  

 This is the liger.

 

These lions were right outside the bus.

 

After we returned from “magical” Harbin we also returned to reality.  (1) Our refrigerator stopped working. A repairman came and carted the refrigerator away.  He told us it would be 3 or 4 days before we would get another one.   However, Nancy called the international office and insisted we get a replacement or new refrigerator and it is supposed to be delivered tomorrow at noon.  At least we don’t have a large amount of food, but our small freezer was full and we had just been to the grocery store.  We are fortunate that we have a few friends who speak English and Mandarin because when you call the campus housing maintenance office no one speaks English!  (2)  The internet is totally not working.  We thought we had resolved that problem after the first few weeks in China.   Stan has been able to retrieve email by “borrowing” some other wifi connection two flights down the stairs! We finally learned that the housing manager forgot to pay the internet fee for 2014 so that is why we did not have service! (3)  All of the BYU teachers lost water service for a period of time this past week.  We empathized with the students in the dorms because the water was off with no notice for 18 hours.  And, (4) we still can’t get an answer as to what classes we will be teaching next semester.  The students seem to know their schedules, but we are told, “Well, we don’t have it yet, but we don’t think there will be many changes.”  We wanted to use our two month break to get a head start on lessons!!

New refrigerator 24 hours after the repairman left with the old one.  This one has a larger freezer!!  The university paid $250 (US) for the refrigerator.  They gave us the receipt to give to the store delivery man.

We generally have been glad to have this adventure in China and appreciate a new culture.  We had been told at BYU training, to practice the phrase, “This is China” since there will be times when you just can’t understand the eastern way of thinking.  We pray every day that we will be safe crossing the street.  Even though you may have the pedestrian light, cars do not have to stop before making a right turn on a red light, scooters and bikes go all directions on the street and pedestrians do not have the right of way at any time!!  Yesterday we had crossed the street and on the sidewalk a vendor was backing up her three wheeled “bike cart”.   She literally expected everyone to get out of her way and actually bumped her cart into the back of a bystander who was purchasing an item from another vendor.  The crowd was shouting at her for her rudeness.

All of the BYU teachers and some guests met for dinner at the faculty restaurant on SDU Central Campus Saturday night.  The Clarke’s invited four of their medical students and we invited Lily.  We receive credit for one meal every day we teach, but we don’t often eat at our university cafeteria since we don’t really know how to order an individual dish and the buffet line lacks food by the time we are out of class.  We have many credits that we have not used and we will lose them at the end of the semester.  It was another opportunity to spend some time together and, at the same time, show our appreciation to some of the young people with whom we get to associate.  We had a very nice time.  The food is actually quite good and the company, GREAT!