DongBei

This is the name that is given to North-East China (literally Dong means East and Bei means North – think Beijing). Some of you might know it as Manchuria. It was also called Manchukou when the Japanese government set up a puppet government there between 1932 and 1945. Those of you old enough might remember from Bertolucci’s superb film “The Last Emperor” that Pu Yi – that unfortunate soul – was puppet emperor at the time.

A rather unlikely destination for a spot of travelling in February because the area is cold – damn cold. The last day (February 17th) was the warmest when the temperature reached about minus 5. The coldest thermometer reading we saw was minus 24 and that was just after noon at the bottom of the climb that we had just been up. Yes, it was a distinctly nippy trip.

So why go? Not been there, not done that - so...

I went with some friends who had been at university in the area and hadn’t been back for 14 years.

First place Changchun. This is the capital of Jilin province and a rather nondescript sort of place. However we arrived quite late in the evening of Lunar New Year’s Eve. As you know the Chinese are rather good at these fireworks things and they don’t hold back. In Guangzhou they are banned (although, unusually, I had heard a few in January - rather like you start hearing them from the end of September in Britain) but in most cities and towns all hell lets lose. It is great fun and reaches its peak at midnight before Spring Festival. (I threw in the other name to confuse you.) Then every street has lots of large loud, colourful fireworks going off in a completely disorganised mass. Some people will line up a row of hundreds of “bangers” as we used to call them when I was a kid. Each one is connected so you light the proverbial blue touch paper (it is actually red but who wants to spoil a memory) and retire some distance before these start going off at the rate of 3 or 4 a second. These are loud and designed to give people a shock. They often succeed. However, for some bright sparks this is not enough. The most I saw was 5 rows all set up next to each other and all light at the same time. It was noisy.

The whole effect is like a combination of November 5th in Britain and New Year’s Eve in The Netherlands. The difference is that it goes on – and on – and on. Some people’s idea of fun is to let a few loud fireworks off at 6.30 or 7 a.m. outside somebody’s window. (I am sure that I was deliberately chosen a few years ago as the only foreigner in this cheap hotel. They succeeded; I woke up rapidly.) I took a photograph a couple of days ago (about the 16th) where there are still stalls selling lots of fuck-off big fireworks ten days into the New Year. It should all end in a couple of days (the 21st) at Lantern Festival – the equivalent of 12th Night if you like. Back in Guangzhou, I will not know of course.

Rather ironic really that we spent about half an hour at 12.30 in the morning watching the fire brigade tackle a fire 12 storeys up in a block of flats that probably had nothing to do with fireworks.

Changchun also claims to be the home of the world’s second largest square (after Tiananmen, of course). This was to be the site of Pu Yi’s palace but it never got built. The modest little place of about 8 buildings in a park where he lived is quite interesting. It is a collection of non-descript brick buildings that was the theoretical centre of government. However, inside the buildings are quite modern, colourful and airy. The colours are varied with yellow very prominent – this contrasts with the rather drab green and reddish-brown that are the dominant colours of the Qing dynasty and make the Forbidden City a rather uninspiring place. There are some interesting photographs and a few mannequins in various rooms including Pu Yi’s ignored Empress at the opium pipe and the man himself in consultation (taking orders) from the Japanese general who really ran the place. Pu Yi had a swimming pool built but never used it because the emperor could not expose his body to be seen – this is the 1940s remember. My friends liked the image of my corpulent self climbing out of the small emergency exit from the air raid shelter.

Went to a Chinese show that is typical of the region. Each act starts with a man coming on telling stories about his wife. She, at some point, appears and starts telling stories about him. All the men, at least, also do some acrobatics and singing in their acts. As you can imagine this was all Chinese to me and not so wonderful but mixed in were three acrobatic acts that were as fantastic as Chinese acrobats always are.

On to Jilin, that is the city that is the same name as the province. Qin Gang and Jennifer had been at university in this small city so had quite an interest. It is pleasant enough, but nothing special. I was by then getting used to the Korean influence. I liked some of the Korean food and many shops had signs in that language and there were a fair number of Koreans in the restaurants.

Two things of note. There is a power station just up river from the city, which pours some surplus hot water in to the river Songhua. (Interestingly, in Changchun, they use a lot of the surplus hot water from the power stations for heating homes and businesses – must be a good insulation system.) This means that the river is not frozen even though the temperatures are certainly low enough normally. Still awake or have you died of boredom wondering where this is going?

Well it is going to the Shugua. This is the local effect of warm water evaporating at night and freezing on the trees. Oh, I hear you say “hoar frost”. Well you are right. I had to go out on a bleeding freezing cold morning before dawn dressed up in just about everything I had with me to see a bit of this stuff on a few straggly trees - boring. Then it started to get more frost on the trees as the mist swirled round. The sun came up at first enough to illuminate the scene but it took a while to burn off the fog. At this point it was beautiful – even worth a Philistine like me getting out of bed for. Not many photos though; my hands were frozen even with my big mits on, I couldn’t believe Qin Gang’s ability to ignore (or maybe withstand) the cold on his hands.

The other thing of note was skiing; it was one of the main reasons for going to the area. A week earlier I had had a brilliant week skiing in the Three Valleys – the largest skiing are in the world with 220 lifts. The cost there for a 6 day lift pass and ski hire was 280 Euros – quite steep but it was superb. We went to China’s no. 2 ski resort for the day. The other three people were all complete beginners (Zhuzhu, their 10 year old son, was also with us and easily the best of the three), I am a reasonably experienced if incompetent skier. It was absolute peak season and the resort has all of ten lifts, but only 4 were open! These served 2 beginners runs and one intermediate run. The grades were completely wrong – one part was graded Black (the hardest grade for the non-skiers) but even the Italians would be embarrassed to grade it red. The other part was graded red but was really green (beginners). For half a days skiing I paid 360RMB. The RMB is, roughly, 10 to the Euro so you work it out. I had brought my ski boots from Europe for that!

China is a wonderful country and there are many reasons for visiting but skiing is definitely not one of them.

In the park in the city I also tried Ice Skating. This was my second experience; the last one was 25 years ago. My friends enjoyed watching me. The others also played on some nursery skiing slopes for 50 RMB for a couple of hours. You will be reassured to know that they had an excellent teacher.

On to Chang Bai Shan. This is a National Park that is miles from anywhere. It took an overnight train journey and a 4 hour bus ride to get there and we had only crossed half the province. We had the obligatory argument with people trying to rip us off. We had agreed cheap accommodation and they had said that they would drive us to the park for a fee considerably larger than the price of the beds for 4 of us for 2 nights. I say beds. These were actually sleeping places on Kangs. I was looking forward to trying it but a squabble ensued when we found that we could get to the park for half the price. We left and went to a hotel. Typically Qin Gang paid for a night’s accommodation. I would not have given them a cent but this seems to be a common characteristic in China.

Last year I was out with a couple of other friends in some mountains. We had arrived at 2,300 metres 36 hours after leaving sea level so Bill insisted that we take horses for the 1000 metre climb. I reluctantly agreed but the horse renting people objected to the size of my paunch and said I should pay 50% per cent more than the other two. They weighed 2 and 7 kilos less than me respectively and the heavier one had a bag full of camera equipment with him. I thought I had negotiated my way out of the premium but walked all the steep sections anyway (about 40% in total) arriving ten minutes before the horse and guide arrived. The other two rode all the way. When the guide (Ho Ho Ho) got stroppy Bill still paid the premium fee. Strange people sometimes the Chinese.

I was rather relieved that Qin Gang had paid for a night when I realised the following morning that I had left two books there!

Anyway we found a nice warm hotel and a good restaurant so we were pretty happy. The hotel staff would go and get my beer for me. This cost 2 RMB per 630 ml bottle. Not great beer but I have had worse and never such good value since beer was 2 shillings a pint - and even that is close.

We picked a rather cold day to go to the Park. That was the day that we saw the thermometer at minus 24. It is 100 RMB to get in the park but then another 68 for the bus. This runs up and down the road and you can get on and off at several points. This may seem OK to you but bus journeys in the cities are normally 1 or 2 RMB for any distance and this total run was only ten kilometres or so each way – just too far to walk, even if we had known. When they told us that it was an extra 130 to go to the top of the mountain by bus I was getting pretty pissed off. However, you can walk but conditions that day were not good. We walked. Then by the aforementioned thermometer they wanted another 25 RMB. You can imagine my temper. However, it was well worth it – the money I mean, not my temper. There were steps all the way up. Normally I would hate that but a path covered with ice and snow at those temperatures is no joke. Better still, most of the steps were cut inside the mountain so it was a bit warmer and out of the wind. Steep though and badly illuminated.

Coming out at the top you walk to a frozen lake, which is surrounded by mountains. It was pretty foggy though and you could not see too much. However the sun showed it’s face a bit dimly and I could stand the cold whilst I walked on the lake. The surface is surprisingly uneven with the snow blown in different directions. The way back to the underground route (it was only one kilometre) was into a reasonably sharp breeze so if you add the wind chill to a temperature of approaching minus 30 you can realise that sunbathing was not an option.

A wander through some parts of the forest and the odd small waterfall were Ok but it was not as good as some other places I have been to in China. One of the attractions of the park is that it is home to a few Siberian Tigers. This is the world’s largest cat and is about the same size as a male Polar Bear as the world’s largest land carnivore. However, Chinese parks are all organised along closely defined paths that the Chinese NEVER venture off. Conversation also tends to be pretty continual even outside a tour group. My group are also pretty loud. When I had warned them that the sign for avalanche risk was not a prompt to start shouting they looked at me like I am a white idiot who knows nothing.

Tour groups consist of masses of people getting off a bus, dutifully following a guide with a flag whilst constantly talking. When they get to a place of interest they hand their camera to someone else to take a photograph of them at the spot. They never walk round and never stop talking. Then back on the bus for a sleep before the next spot. The only free time they get is in shops where the guide gets a commission. And they do this as a holiday. Strange people some of these Chinese.

Anyway I digress. The effect of this organization and chatter are that the chances of seeing a Siberian Tiger in Chang Bai Shan are substantially less than seeing a crowd of 50 Dutchmen singing Deutchland Deutchland Uber Alles.

Onwards to Snow Town. This is a typical piece of Chinese marketing. To attract tourists you give a place a new, interesting name. (I have, for instance, flown to Shangrila airport.) Entry fee to get in the area is 60 RMB. There are a few places in China that actually charge to get into a place. One I have been to is Dongba in Sichuan province. The reason that they charge is that it is a lovely town where you wander round taking photographs of all the Tibetan houses. It is a much better area to visit than Tibet if you want to get a good idea of Tibetan culture. Snow town is a bit different. The money goes to the government and not the village. To stay there you rent spaces on a kang. A kang is a raised platform about 80 centimetres off the ground made of brick with tiles on the outside and a fire on the inside. On top of this is a thin mattress on which you sleep with a duvet over the top. Very warm and cosy all night. The houses have extra heating by having fires in the spaces between the internal walls. We stayed there for 100 RMB per night each including three meals. We had previously experienced a kang in a restaurant at Chang Bai Shan. They are used for everything including watching TV, playing majong etc. because they are the best place to be.

It was OK but not as pretty as many Alpine villages. However, it was rip-off town. There was a little bit of the iced up river where you could skate and use different things for sliding around on the ice. Cost 80 RMB. In the park in Jilin a much bigger area cost 20. 2 hours skiing cost 200 RMB on a nursery slope. The same in Jilin with better slopes cost 50. A ride on a skidoo or 4-wheel vehicle with seat belts and roll bars cost 100 RMB. OK if you can go up some ski slopes and mountain paths but all you could do was drive on the flat for 6 kilometres around the village at the rate of $2 per kilometre.

If our host is to be believed custom, is down on last year. It appears that the local party boss is squeezing out the locals and bringing in his relatives and outsiders to charge such high prices. Clearly you never come back. The Chinese have a saying that the sky is high and the emperor is a long way away. In other words the boss can do what he likes. Although the place we stayed was good and the owner a nice guy it is probably best avoided.

There were some nice walks round the area but if you wanted to walk down some roads they wanted 30 RMB. A bit odd when the second six-hour bus journey of the previous day to get to this place had cost 28. Fun watching the army doing cross-country skiing training though.

A little walk on the last morning was excellent. I was climbing a steep snow-field to see and photograph the village below. This was hard going and I was short of time and I got level with what looked like a path across to a vantage point to take a photo. It wasn’t a path; it was a place where the snow had loosened ready for an avalanche. Last year some people were killed in an avalanche in a place where we had been exactly 24 hours earlier so I am a bit sensitive about these things – cowardice if you like. I was glad that the Qin family were not with me to shout and set it off. I left – rather quickly.

On to Harbin. A joy. This is a city that is heavily influenced by Russia – notably the architecture, the food and things to buy. It is well worth a visit and full of the usual Chinese idiosyncrasies. I have a photograph of an ice sculpture with a shop behind it selling Russian goods and chopsticks. It was here I went into the only bar on the whole trip – shocking or what? It was an Ice bar where I bought a large measure of vodka at a reasonable price and drank it out of a glass made of ice.

The main reason for going to this city is because of the Ice Festival. Wonderful. If it is not in your list of 50 things to do before you die your list is wrong. The theme is, of course this being 2008, the Olympics. So there were bits of Greece, Tower Bridge, Westminster Abbey and a terrible Stonehenge because of 2012 as well as lots of places in China. Everything is ice including the paths. It is all light up at night with a 53-metre ice tower in the middle that had a multi-coloured light show.

There was spare ice everywhere in the city, even on the river there were ice walls for reasons that eluded me.

It is rather an odd commentary on my many travels that it is the first time I have walked on a big frozen lake or across a large frozen river.