Showing posts tagged as: Harbin
International Conference on the Great Manchurian Plague: A Pioneering Blueprint for Public Health Advances and Safeguards
Once the authorities in Manchuria had secured a firm handle on the plague outbreak in Heilongjiang, Kirin and Fengtian provinces by February 1911, little time was wasted calling for a conference of international medical specialists to enquire into all aspects of the epidemic and promote the advancement of future disease control. Scientists including disease specialists from many countries were invited to attend the location chosen for the conference, Mukden (Shenyang), which was one of the cities in North-East China hardest hit by the pneumonic epidemic.
Despite the pressingly urgent need to canvas expert international input into the dire health catastrophe, China must have had some reservations about what it was doing. Both Russia and Japan with undisguised Manchurian ambitions already held firm footholds in N.E. China (control over railway lines, ports, territorial concessions, etc), plus other Western powers controlled Chinese treaty ports further south. But with no politicians taking part in the conference and all attendees pledging that it’s focus was to be on scientific investigation and not about imposing any further external controls on China, the central government pushed on with it [‘In 1911, another epidemic swept through China. That time, the world came together’, (Paul French), CNN, 19-Apr-2020, www.cnn.com]. Dr Wu Lien-teh, the “plague fighter-general” of Harbin, was appointed conference chairperson. There were a few “nationalistic frictions” with the Japanese mainly resulting from some anti-Chinese remarks injudiciously made by the Japanese delegate, Professor Kitasato, before leaving Tokyo for the conference, but this did not impede the cohesion of the conference [Eli Chernin (1989). “Richard Pearson Strong and the Manchurian Epidemic of Pneumonic Plague, 1910—1911” (PDF). Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences. 44(3): 296–319. doi:101093/jhmas/44.3.296. PMID 2671146].
🔻 Safety precautions at Harbin plague site
A congress of international disease experts The International Plague Conference (IPC) was a ground-breaking series of ‘firsts’, the first international scientific symposium held in China, the first time in modern history of a multi-nation approach focusing on disease control. The conference also anticipated the purpose of later world bodies dedicated to international health maintenance, the League of Nations’ Health Organisation (LNHO), established in 1923, and it’s successor, the UN’s World Health Organisation (WHO), created after the Second World War.
Scientists from ten countries joined host China at the Plague Conference in the repurposed Shao Ho Yien palace – the US, UK, France, Russia, Japan, Italy, Germany, Austro-Hungary, Netherlands and Mexico, an indication of how seriously the international medical community took the Manchurian outbreak and its implications. The delegates were drawn from several relevant and related fields including epidemiologists, virologists, bacteriologists, tropical medicine specialists and illness consultants.
🔻 Contemporary coverage of the conference in ‘The Lancet’
The conference, getting into the “nitty-gritty’ High on the conference’s agenda was the question of aetiology, what were the Great Manchurian Plague’s causal factors? American delegate Richard P Strong, who arrived prior to the conference, undertook pathological experimentation which verified the infectious role played by tarbagan marmots in the plague (which he published in the Philippine Journal of Science, 1912). The experts had to sift through a raft of unhelpful faux-scientific beliefs and assumptions to get to “the scientific root of the bacteria”, again underlining the IPC’s emphasis on science and medicine. Containment was another key issue at the conference. The discussion was around what worked best in the plague? Measures like ‘blanket’ quarantines, travel bans, face masks and ad hoc plague hospitals (swiftly assembled to isolate the infected from the healthy), all got a big tick…an endorsement of Dr Wu Lien-teh’s positive measures in the war against the pneumonic epidemic, deemed by the conference delegates as essential tools in the fight against future outbreaks and waves of plague (French).
🔺 The admirable Dr Wu
Seeds of a nationwide public health service One of the conference’s finest and far-reaching achievements was to establish the Manchurian Plague Prevention Service (under the helm of Dr Wu). The MPPS and Wu identified medical education as the “holy grail”, the service’s role was to disseminate materials to the public, promote the efficacy of sanitary conditions and health in the community, and overall playing a leading role in adopting Western medicine (Xīyào) and methods of disease control in China. MPPS provided the model for a future Chinese national health service (French).
The follow-up to the three-and-a-half week International Plague Conference put Chinese medicine on the path to modernisation. Many of the country’s medical advances began here …. the IPC laid down a blueprint for handling future plagues which included the use of autopsies, instructional dissection and cremation, all of which became institutionalised practice afterwards (Chernin).
Medicine and health before politics
The Mukden IPC in April 1911, conducted in an atmosphere free of politicising, demonstrated the cooperative humanitarian efforts of a group of medical professionals…when left to it by the politicians, they showed single-minded unity of purpose, what could be achieved, collectively and internationally, to counter the danger of a disease with immediate and future global ramifications for public health. I need not emphasise the stark contrast with the management of the world’s current pandemic in which some of the major powers, distracted from the only really important priority, are happy to engage in a ”political blame game” over the coronavirus‘ origins, instead of co-operating with each other to meet a pernicious and deadly health risk to the planet head-on and in unison.
Endnote: Lessening future shock The gains in medicine and public health protection coming out of the conference were soon put to use in China. Disease re-emerged in the 1919 malaria epidemic and the 1921 plague (again in Harbin) which was to test China’s embryonic national quarantine system. Dr Wu again took charge to guide China through these medical crises. The improvements in public health since 1911, it is estimated, reduced casualties in the second outbreak of pneumatic plague by four-fifths [‘Portraits of a plague: the 19th-century pandemic that killed 12 million people’, History Extra, 21-Jul-2015, www.historyextra.com].
Manchuria 1910-1911: North-East China’s End of Empire Frontier Plague
In 1910 the 265 year-old Qing Dynasty in China was fasting approaching its denouement. The following year it would be deposed and replaced with a republic. Over the years leading up to this point, Imperial China had been in long drawn-out decline, suffering a series of reversals – a disastrous defeat in the (1st) Sino-Japanese War (1894-95) and ensuing loss of territorial sovereignty in Manchuria; the crushing of the Peking Boxer Rebellion in 1900. In 1907 China had been beset by the latest (and one of the worst) of a series of famines (“Third Plague Pandemic”), losing an estimated 25 million of it’s population. And in late 1910, Manchuria in the midst of a tense political situation—China having to share the region with competing Russian and Japanese aspirations—a plague broke out.
The plague was first noticed in the Inner Mongolian town of Manzhouli on the Chinese-Russian border, where Russian doctors began treating patients with fever and haemoptysis symptoms. Thus began the Great Manchurian Plague which eventually took up to 60,000 lives in less than six months – with a mortality rate very close to 100 per cent [William C Summers, The Great Manchurian Plague: The Geopolitics of an Epidemic Disease, (2012)].
Vector from the rodent family Because of a past pattern of bubonic plague in China, rats and fleas were initially suspected to be the source of human infection. 50,000 rats were examined but the results proved negative [CHERNIN, ELI. “Richard Pearson Strong and the Manchurian Epidemic of Pneumonic Plague, 1910–1911.” Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences, vol. 44, no. 3, 1989, pp. 296–319. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/24633015. Accessed 5 May 2020]. The disease was eventually traced to the Siberian marmot (Marmota sibirica) or tarbagan, found in Inner Mongolia, eastern Siberia and Heilongjiang. Later research by Dr Wu (see below) and others established that the plague, like the present coronavirus, was pneumonic, transmitted animal to human by respiratory droplets, and not bubonic.
A roaring trade in fake mink The European fashion for mink and ermine furs can be ‘fingered’ for being at the bottom of the preconditions leading to the 1910 plague. Mink’s popularity as one of the most prized materials for clothing accessories made it’s cost prohibitive to all but the richest Europeans. Things changed when it was discovered that the fur of the marmot when dyed passed very convincingly for mink fur. After the pelt price for marmot fur soared from 12 cents to 72 cents a hide, hordes of Chinese hunters from the central provinces swarmed into the region to join the lucrative hunt for the now in-demand creature. Mongol and Buryat hunters, long experienced in marmot-hunting knew how to select only tarbagan marmots which were not diseased for culling. The inexperienced Chinese trappers however didn’t practice safe hunting methods, failing to discern the difference, they hunted marmots indiscriminately. Thus, the infection was passed on to humans from the pelts of the disease-ridden rodents (Chernin; ‘Manchurian Plague 1910-11’, (Summers; Iain Meiklejohn), Disasterhistory.org, (April 2020), www.disasterhistory.org].
Spreading the plague by rail
Manchuria at the time was equipped with an extensive network of railroads, thanks to the vested interests of the Russians and the Japanese which the Qing Dynasty had, reluctantly, conceded. Russia controlled the Trans-Siberian Railway (TSR) and the China Eastern Railway (CER), Japan controlled the Southern Manchurian Railway (SMR)⌖. The time of the year was an important factor. From November/December, as the weather turned arctic-like, the Chinese hunters and agricultural migrant workers started to return to their home regions. The foremost consideration was to get back before the Chinese New Year. The hunters and the labourers, huddled together infecting each other in the bitter cold of the train carriages, carried the plague along the railway lines. In a short time the plague travelled from its origin point to large cities on the Dongbei line, Harbin, including the central district of Fuchiatien (Fujiandian), Changchun and Mukden (today Shenyang). Compare this to what happened with the coronavirus outbreak which spread from Wuhan to other Chinese cities by airplane.
In the disease’s wake mortality proceeded at an alarming rate, Harbin in the far north was the initial epicentre. In November 5,272 died in the city. It then spread along the tracks to cities further south, Mukden recorded a death toll of 2,571 by January 1911, and Changchun was losing over 200 a day to the plague (Meiklejohn). The plague was sustained and promoted by the prevailing conditions it encountered – dense population, high human mobility and poor hygiene environments (Cornelia Knab, cited in Meiklejohn). Eventually the plague reached Peking and as far as central China〲.
Enter Dr Wu The authorities, in desperation, turned to a migrant, Penang-born doctor working at the time in Tianjin, Wu Lien-Teh. Cambridge-educated Wu took immediate charge of the medical emergency in Harbin. Enforcing a strict quarantine in the city, Wu put in place a series of comprehensive measures to contain the disease, including:
● converting railway freight cars to makeshift quarantine centres and turning a bathing establishment into a plague hospital
● establishing “sanitary zones” in the city
● closing down the railways in Manchuria, impose blockades, border controls and so stop infected people from travelling (Wu needed to secure the co-operation of the Russian and Japanese rail companies to achieve this)
● burning the lodgings of those infected
● monitoring the population by checking households for new cases
● advocating the wearing of face masks (Wu had more effective masks with extra gauze padding made)
● carrying out mass cremations of the infected dead (considered a sacrilege in Chinese society, Wu had to petition the emperor for permission)✪
● undertaking post-mortem examinations of the victims (again, a Chinese taboo that Wu had to overcome objections to)✲
Temperature check, Fuchiatien ⟱ (www.Flickr.com)
With no vaccine for pneumatic plague available, Wu’s quarantine measures involved isolating people for a five to ten day period, if no symptoms present, they are released with a wire band attached to their wrist signifying they have been cleared of the disease [‘In 1911, another epidemic swept through China. That time, the world came together’, (Paul French), CNN, 19-Apr-2020, www.cnn.com; ‘The Chinese Doctor Who Beat the Plague’, (Jeremiah Jenne), China Channel, 20-Dec-2018, www.chinachannel.org].
⟱ Old plague hospital, Harbin. When the epidemic was suppressed, the hospital was burnt down to eliminate any residual risk of contamination
(Photo: www.avezink.livejournal.com)
Keeping the ports plague-free The concerted efforts of Japanese, Russian and Chinese managed to prevent the epidemic from reaching the eastern seaboard. Several towns close to the major port city Dalian reported cases, but Dalian itself (by this time under Japanese control, known as Dairen), initially undertook mass inspections of train and ship passengers, before closing the South Manchurian line altogether. With such strictures in place Dalian was wholly spared from the plague (French). The Russians were able to similarly stem the outbreak’s movement along the CER rail line and stop it from reaching Russia’s vital Pacific port, Vladivostok.
Racing against catastrophe What added even more pressure to Wu’s task in trying to control the plague was that he was working against a tight deadline. The plague needed to be contained before 30th January which was Chinese New Year’s Eve. Thousands of migrant workers would be returning home to their families for this most important annual celebrations in China via the Manchurian railway network, which Wu knew would make it almost impossible to rein in the outbreak. The conscientious and thorough measures implemented in northern China made it possible for Wu to be able to declare the epidemic virtually suppressed by the end of January. Decisive action in N.E. China also prevented the plague from spreading to near-by (Outer) Mongolia and Russian Siberia. By March all the region’s shops, factories and schools were reopened and the only lingering infection was confined within the specially established plague hospitals (Meiklejohn).
Endnote: Dr Wu Many Chinese medical personnel including epidemiologists and other physicians contributed to preventing the plague spreading throughout China, and to suppressing it all together within a short period. But if anyone should be called a hero of the Great Manchurian Plague of 1910-11, certainly that mantle should land on Dr Wu Lien-Teh, whose decisive leadership, organisation and enterprise saved China’s North-East provinces from a much higher casualty toll and from the regional plague developing into a nationwide epidemic.
꧙꧙꧙꧙꧙꧙꧙꧙꧙꧙꧙꧙꧙꧙꧙꧙꧙꧙꧙꧙꧙꧙꧙꧙
⌖ China for it’s part controlled the Imperial Railways of North China, which linked Peking with Mukden
〲 one case was recorded in Shanghai, 2,000 miles away
✪ thousands of bodies were still above ground in coffins because the relatives were waiting for the spring thaw to bury the dead…ideal incubators for the plague bacillus to magnify the contamination [‘Dr Wu Lien-Teh, plague fighter and father of the Chinese public health system’, (Zhongliang Ma & Yanli Li), www.ncbi.nim.nih.gov; Jenne)
✲ Wu performed the first autopsy in Harbin, identifying the disease as the bacterium Yersinia pestis of the pneumonic variant [‘Wu Lieh-Teh: Malaysia’s little-known plague virus fighter’, Star Online, 11-Feb-2020, www.msn.com]
Tài Yáng Dâo: A Verdant Green Island, a Russian Themed Park, a Disneyfied Castle and a Surplusage of Squirrels
Our ultimate day in Harbin, what to do? My own leaning, on surveying the options, nudged me towards a trip to Unit 731 (AKA Detachment 731), a museum established in a multi-building complex which was used by the Japanese military and scientists to carry out heinous biological experiments on the local population during the Thirties and Forties. My travelling companion’s inclination however was for spending a less sombre and more genteel day at Tai Yang Dao (Sun Island). In the end what swayed it for Sun Island was proximity, it being a short boat distance from Central (Z.Y.) Street, compared to Unit 731 which was located in the city’s back blocks, requiring a long train trip from the centre.
We decided crossing the river by boat would be the optimal way to get to Sun Island. The other but considerably more expensive way to get to Sun Island is by cable car, which certainly provides a bird’s-eye level vantage point during the crossing (you can also get there circuitously by taxi, crossing a series of bridges). There is no charge to visit Sun Island but access to amusements, rides, activities, etc attract a charge.
The water transport to Sun Island departs from the wharves at Sidalin Park✹. Boats run pretty much continuously all day✥ to the island, so popular is the venue. Although it’s just across the Songhua River we didn’t make straight for Sun Island. The three-quarter full charter boat took a left once out in the channel and headed down the river for a view of the city south skyline behind Stalin Park down to the bridges. We also got to see some of the nearby uninhabited islands overrun by the reeds and wild grasses of the wetlands. I say ‘uninhabited’ but this is only 99 per cent factual. As we make a bee-line for 太阳岛, coming up on your left is the local branch of the men’s nude bathers’ club (fortunately, some might say for sake of aesthetically considerations, the Harbin naturalists are a discreet distance away).
As the ageing journeyman ferry chugs across the water we take videos of the approaching island and the cable cars being pulled back and forth. I remind myself that in just a few months time this trip won’t be possible…the clear aqua-turquoise surface of the river will become solid frozen with the onset of Harbin’s winter. Amusingly, we pass a line of swimmers in single file. These, older men mainly, are slowly swimming, or more accurately half swimming, half dog-paddling, their way from an island to the mainland. Each of them is carrying a rucksack of belongings attached to them by rope like an umbilical cord✧.
As the boat approaches the island wharf, one or two landmarks catch the eye from the river. The first, from a distance looks like a light-hearted sculpture of a very large white swan or is it a goose? When we got to the wharf we realised it wasn’t a pop culture artwork, but the comical masthead on a pleasure vessel for visitors (and especially children) to ride on.
The second, much more visible landmark getting the attention of the boat passengers looks like a historic European castle rising up out the treetops, something you might find on the Danube – in Budapest for instance. Once ashore, on closer inspection, it’s historical pedigree is found wanting. It is of more origin and seems to be inspired by the logo figurehead castle you see at Disneyland! The ‘castle’ turns out to be the central administrative and amenities building for the island’s commercial operations.
Getting around the island by foot is possible but it covers a large expanse of land and the attractions are quite spread out. So from the wharf we decided to use the “people mover” or the mini-bus to get-about (¥20 each). This made logistical sense but our experience was that it proved a very poor service provider. I was expecting it to operate as a flexible “hop-on, hop-off” arrangement (a lá the Big Red Bus in capital cities globally), but we were not able to hail down one of the many vehicles continually circling the park (every though we had purchased tickets). Each time we tried the bus driver refused to stop for us even when the vehicle was virtually empty (great PR Sun Island!). Apparently our ticket permitted us to use certain passenger service vehicles only (not explained at point of sale).
That said, the island park did not lack for attractions and points of interest. The various, quaint bridges around the ponds makes for nice “eye-candy”. A Russian-style village garden added to the theme park feel of Sun Island. The section containing the waterfalls and accompanying rock caves were a real highlight for photography manic-obsessives❂ (tip: the pick of the pix is an angled one capturing both the rock-face waterfalls and the big balloon in the shot).
Many of the island fixtures are well worth a close-up inspection. The mega-scale, modernist monument (a combination of white ovals and arches) near the Greenway is an interesting feature in itself. Another white structure with two storey viewing towers of the water is similar appealing in its design. I was also taken by the supersized “organic sculpture” that we stumbled upon. This creation was another popular point for visitors to mill round and snap endless selfies. The mainly green and red bird (of paradise?)◙ is entirely a floral construction in the familiar style of Jeff Koons (the gigantic floral puppy that once graced Sydney’s Circular Quay, now in Bilbao, Spain).
And if nature encounters with fauna are your bag, then Sun Island will not disappoint. You can visit a section of the park with fenced off animals of the more gentle kind like deer and caribou. Here for a fee you can pat and feed members of the Cervidae family inside an enclosure. I noticed that with the deer, familiarity brings a singular expectation on their part. Far from being reticent and shy, the creatures can sniff out a food-toting human from 60 feet.
But the one member of the animal kingdom that seems most at home on Tai Yang Dao are small rodents from the Sciuridae clan. The island abounds with the common acorn-addicted squirrel, plentiful on the ground and in the trees. So numerous they are, they have been designated their own section, “Squirrel Lake”, but you don’t need to go here to find them, they inhabit the entire wooded area of Sun Island. While walking around the island, at the back of the Russian model gardens, I spotted a ginger cat in hot pursuit of a squirrel, desperately but hopelessly trying to diminish the fleet-footed Sciuridae population by one.
〣〣〣〣〣〣〣〣〣〣〣〣〣〣〣〣〣〣
✹ the return boat trip to and from Taiyangdao wharf costs 35 RMB per person and includes a “grand tour” of the riverfront
✥ well to late-ish afternoon anyway, the Pingfang attraction closes about five o’clock
✧ I don’t think they were heading for the nude men’s beach (carrying too much baggage for a start!)
❂ ie, mostly everybody on an overseas junket!
◙ it looked like a chicken to me but I’m going with the Chinese bird of paradise which would be more emblematic
Zhaolin Park, Bridges and Canal: Harbin’s Green Chill-out Zone
From Harbin’s tourism centro, Zhongyang Jie, you can find your way to Zhaolin Park by heading north one block. This succulently lush green park with its verdant plant life is a great place to retreat to, getting away from all the people, all the hustle and bustle of Zhongyang Street. And it’s very reachable via a short walk down Shangyou Street from Z.Y. Street.
Zhaolin Park, attractively set on a large block of public land (more than 8 hectares), is roomy yet it is also compact…it fits quite a lot of things into its space while still allowing you the freedom to roam around. What defines the essence of the park is the canal that snakes it’s way through the park and gardens. It is the thread that connects the various parts of green Zhaolin. By walking in concentric circles around the park you can acquaint yourself with the various quaint and charming bridges which cross the canal at different points.
Zhaolin Park is well resourced, little wonder then that families tend to flock there. It especially caters for the juvenile visitor. Exotic birds in large cages in one part. Several different amusements for children are contained within the park perimeter, plenty of gentle rides for the younger child. For the family as a whole, the most popular element are the paddle boats. You can hire a colourful boat and paddle a course up and down the canal.
Being on the lookout for traces of the Russian presence that once pervaded Harbin, I particularly noticed the old entrance gates and buildings on my way in and out (in Senlin and in Shangzhi streets). The structures project a distinctly Russian dome character in the design. It is refreshingly and perhap surprising to report that Zhaolin Park is adequately equipped with toilets, but if I had one quibble it is the same one I have with most many public parks. Given the constant and steady stream of visitors Zhaolin receives, it could do with a lot more seats for the punters distributed right across the park.
FN: at the peak freeze-point of the northern hemisphere (January-February each year), Zhaolin Park transforms from green to ice and snow white. It is one of the places you can take in the spectacle of ever-more imaginative ice sculptures that Harbin is internationally famous for (home of the winter Ice Festival and Ice Lantern Show)
PostScript: Name derivation
Zhaolin Park was originally called Lam Kam Road Park✽. It was renamed in the late 1940s in honour of a Chinese communist guerrilla leader and Dongbei political organiser. Li Zhaolin organised and led the Northeast Anti-Japanese United Army in its resistance to the Japanese invaders in the Second Sino-Japanese War. In 1946 Li was assassinated in Harbin by Kuomintang agents. Zhaolin Park can be entered from Shangzhi Street, which is named after another Northeast communist commander in the war against the Japanese, Zhao Shangzhi.
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✽ or Daoli Park
Zhongyang Street: A Little Night Music, A Bit of an Arty Cosmopolitan Vibe, Residual Russianness and a Smokin’ Hutong
Zhongyang✽ Street (to insiders Z.Y. Street for short) proclaims itself in the elaborate, neon-lit arch that spans the start of the street. A small plaque hanging from the arch announces: 中央大街建筑艺术博物馆 -Architectural Arts Museum of Central Avenue, a tag that is a bit pretentious for what is Harbin’s high tourism pedestrian street.
The commercial hub of the street comprises restaurants, eateries, souvenir shops and hotels. The further you go down the street towards the river, the grander the buildings become. This is where many of the city centre’s older and grander Russian buildings are, including several palatial structures in the Baroque style (alas, some of these grand old mega-buildings have suffered the ignominy of being sub-divided to accommodate KFC and other fast food operators). 
Although Z.Y’s Russianness can be glimpsed everywhere. Place names, shop and restaurant names for the most part are present in both Russian and Chinese. But he Russian imprint on Zhongyang is more profound than this. At many of the street’s corners you can see the Russian architectural influences in the onion domes, minarets and spires sitting atop many buildings. 
With Zhongyang’s cornucopia of niteries and gift shops, the street flows with people ever-so slowly ambling up and down the old cobblestone pavements. They are present from first thing in the morning through to and beyond nightfall. But it is at night that Z.Y. Street really comes alive. The street is a thriving heartbeat, and the night beat is a musical one! The melodic sounds of old-fashioned small bands and trios can be heard all along the central thoroughfare. This recurring feature gives Harbin its nickname of Music City (although Harbinites tend to render it in English as ‘Muisic’ City). The musical highlight for me was a solo guitarist playing with great gusto from an upstairs Z.Y. balcony. This ‘muso’ who wasn’t Chinese (possibly he was Russian) was really going off, strutting his stuff for the gathering of visitors below with Jimi Hendrix-like zeal and vigour! 
The evening is also the right time to explore Zhongyang Jie’s artists’ nook at the river end of the street. Around dusk every night a contingent of bohemian-looking❇ artists set up their chairs, boards, frames and utensils to drum up some passing business. The crayon-fingered artists, predominantly badly dressed males with straggly long-hair and unkempt beards, invite curious passers-by to have their portrait drawn during a short sitting. The street artists seem to do solid, steady business although there’s always a lot more watchers than there are models willing to fork out the 60-80 CH¥ plus 20 CH¥ for the plastic cylindrical container to keep it safe in. While my partner was having her likeness recreated in pencil and crayon, I checked out the ‘live’ handiwork of the other artists…some were of course better than others (although this might be a matter of taste) but I thought that the quality of drawing along the strip was consistently fairly good.
A discus throw’s distance from the artists’ niche was another, not to be missed attraction, again best visited at night. In a side lane off Z.Y., lit up like Christmas, is one of the busiest, noisiest food hutongs you are likely to experience. Stretching 100 plus metres down the lane are a long line of street food stalls (mostly selling much the same stuff, kebabs it seemed to me). The hutong produced a spectacular light show of colour and a throbbing vibe of noise from competing soundtracks and the din of the stall-holders hawking their fast food ‘delicacies’. But it was the first food stall on the corner bearing the name “Food Supermarket of Quidelia” that attracted the most attention. It was more boisterous than the others, and this was down to the antics of one particular vendor. Taking centre stage was this zany, hyperactive dude in sunglasses and conspicuously large colourful wrist beads (a bit of a fashion trend for young Chinese males). His ‘routine’ consisted of a sudden launch into corybantic dancing❅ to the pulsating street music while twirling a fan (or several fans) in a 360° arc…then seamlessly he would swap the fan for some food tongs, flip a couple of kebabs and then resume his over-the-top, campish dance performance with an undiminished degree of furibund intensity. Quite mesmerising in a WTF way!
Heading westerly up Z.Y. towards the river you will come to a heavy traffic cross-street. The town planners’ solution to this impediment to pedestrian progress was to build an underground pathway which allows those on foot to by-pass the dense vehicular traffic overhead. Known as the “Pedestrian Tunnel under Zhongyang Street”, the tunnel has the additional function of being a secure space for the city’s youth to congregate. Here, the local kids hang-out, skate-board or play ti jianzi (the popular game of foot shuttlecock that many Chinese especially in Beijing are obsessed with). A couple of passageways funnelling off from the tunnel lead to a small U-shaped shopping arcade which caters mainly for tourists. 
Footnote: If you get past all of the shops and other vibrantly alive distractions that Zhongyang Street throws at you, there’s a very pleasant riverine park awaiting you at the end. The path cutting through the park provides an enjoyable stroll for those in no rush to go anywhere fast. Neat garden edge-boxes, strategically positioned trees of the Weeping Willow variant and several tasteful marble works of sculpture add to the aesthetic appeal of the park. The other feature of the park worthy of comment is the monument to those Harbinites whose lives were profoundly impacted by the 1957 flood catastrophe in Harbin (honouring both the victims and the heroes of the disaster). The monument, the Flood Memorial Tower, is augmented by a more modern structure, a large semi-circular, columned arch which, in the way popular with contemporary Chinese town planners, produces a nightly kaleidoscope of alternating colours intended to dazzle onlookers.
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✽‘Central’ in Chinese
❇ looking the part with a full ration of “starving artist” street cred
❅ for ‘dancing’ read gyrating wildly in a frenetic manner
Daoli and Lao DaoWai: Heading Northeast in Harbin
If ever you find yourself in Harbin, China, and can manage to tear yourself away from the great northern city’s tourist Mecca Zhongyang Pedestrian Street (AKA Central Street), you should head northeast in the direction of the old town district. Our destination, Lao Daowai (literally “Outside the old road”) on the occasion we visited Harbin, was a sprawling area on the northeastern side of Harbin, although its hard to pin down exactly where the district begins (at least it is for a Wàiguó rén passing through).
We started out in Daoli District at St Sophia Square, a pleasant open plaza about three blocks east of X.Y. Street. At one end of the square is the St Sophia monument, a large black arch and skeletal structure mimicking the shape of the church. In the shadow of the arch is an improvised amusement park where pre-school kids can be shunted round the square in a giant robotic “Star Wars clone” of a moving contraption or via some other similarly ‘cool’ vehicular means.
The landmark arch also provides a popular modern visual backdrop in good weather for newlyweds regularly seen there with photographer in tow… invariably you will find at least happy couple all decked out in the full matrimonial outfit taking advantage of the setting to pad out their wedding videos.
The Russians are long gone from here of course but they left a host of architectural calling cards around the square. Pride of place in the plaza lies with the historic Russian cathedral (собор) Saint Sofiya. Some of the older (Russian-era) buildings in Harbin are also close to the square. Daoli’s grand buildings (such as the dome edifice in picture 1 above) share the area with working class markets and what looks like the city’s theatre district.
Go further north and further east and you will reach Lao DaoWai. Here you will find pockets of urban decay, where grand houses and apartments in the Russian era once stood, the remnants have fallen on straitened times. In one particular street I observed rows of such old faded buildings with the distinctive Russian-style roof peaks in very dismal, unloved condition. You could say, taking the glass half-full line, that it conveys character to the ‘ancient’ city-scape, but truly some of DaoWai’s residential blocks are barely habitable, and to be perhaps a bit uncharitable, little better than crumbling wrecks on the outside. 
Away from the depressed, rundown part of the district, we travelled through an old warehouse sub-district which also didn’t lack for character. One factory-shop we stopped in front of didn’t appear to be open (lights off inside, no sign of life). But hovering around the doorway for a few minutes attracted the attention of the hitherto-unseen septuagenarian owner who quickly invited us in. The interior was all a bit old and dusty, but we had a glance around at the merchandise and even bought several pairs of colourful sox. The socks were extremely cheap, unfortunately after wearing them for a short time we discovered why (the quality of fabric was stretched very thin indeed).
From here we made for the Lao DaoWai riverfront. This turned out to be the most lively and fun part of the district. First up, the road leading to the water (ie, to the Songhua River) was a mishmash of different businesses in (at best) ordinary looking premises, interwoven with a number of interesting buildings and structures which make good use of traditional Chinese architectural motifs and features. 
The river offered up a most pleasant diversion from the grit and grim of downtown Lao DaoWai. There is a long waterfront promenade which winds it’s way back southwest to the popular Zhongyang Jie area and beyond. A leisurely walk along the riverfront allowed us to take in many attractive and interesting sights. As we arrived, fishing boats were returning with what seemed quite modest and even disappointing catches. Following the lead of the locals, we went aboard one of the working vessels to investigate. All the sea seemed to yield up to these fishermen were tiny shrimp, shrimp and more shrimp, a quite miserly haul I thought for an afternoon’s net work. 
Continuing our saunter down the river, what caught my eye was the pattern of wall decorations on display. At set points all the way along the Daowai waterside promenade, the local people’s council had installed a series of artworks with Chinese themes and traits. These were small murals of bas-relief metal panels painted red and depicting different aspects of Chinese culture, work and life. Much needed I thought, as they certainly brightened and enlivened what was otherwise a drab, beige, nondescript wall. 
One of the high points for me was the panoramic views across Songhua River to the large forested island and the high-rise city in the distance. It was also fun to sit back observing the locals indulging in their afternoon leisure activities. Some were fishing from the shore or swimming (or maybe some of these lathering up were just washing themselves). There were plenty of Harbinites walking their dogs (French poodles seemed to be the preferred Harbin canine pet of choice). Others were just sunning themselves on the bank, unwinding and generally chilling out.
Nearly halfway back to “tourism central” (Z.Y. Street), the Lao DaoWai promenade abruptly ends at a set of short, steepish steps. The riverfront path however continues eastwards through Daoli and the central area via other walkways which take you past (among other things) a landmark, upmarket riverfront hotel with a very unusual six-seater vehicle out the front and the Songhua River Bridge (below).
FN: Songhua River Bridge
This pedestrian–only bridge (although there is also a separate bicycle lane) is worth deviating off the scenic river pathway for a stroll across it. It lights up at night when its popularity reaches its zenith. The bridge is of the cable truss type, originally built by the Russians around the end of the 19th century.
