In my four and a half years abroad I have come to understand how different the United States is to the rest of the world. You forget that other nations do not operate in the American way and sometimes the results are fabulous, others are hilarious, and unfortunately, some time disastrous. In Qatar, Honduras, and now China I have been blown away by the fact that "American" logic hasn't transfered over to these other countries.
For example, the day I drove past a man in a Land Rover in Qatar with an adolescent cheetah as his passenger. A cheetah. Why would anyone think it is okay to drive around with a cat that could rip your face off? The driver was also quite annoyed when our bus full of teachers wanted to take photos at a red light. Like this was something you see every day. Oh, Qatar.
 |
| Move along here, nothing to see! |
Another example: We had a rain day in Honduras. School was canceled about 30 minutes after lessons were meant to begin. Many students and staff had already arrived to a flooding school. Honduras in located in Central America where they have a "rainy season." An entire season aptly named because it rains. A lot. Yet the school and the roads were not prepared for the rain so school had to be canceled. Only in Honduras, right?
But China seems to be on an entirely new level. I know I am still adjusting but I do not understand how people think their behaviour is acceptable. It is completely normal for Chinese people to let their children go to the bathroom on the side of the road, in a trash can at a shopping centre, or even in an apartment complex elevator (yes, that has happened in my building). I hear people hock loogies in public constantly. People push, shove, and block passage ways because THEY need to get someone. People scream into their phones or to each other because they can't be bothered to walk a few steps to hold a conversation in a normal voice. People throw trash on the ground right in front of garbage cans. This behaviour is so bad that the Chinese government has planned to publicly shame Chinese tourists if they act this way while abroad. Check out what the Washington Post has to say.**
This made for a very interesting weekend away in Harbin, one of China's biggest tourist attractions.
 |
| Thanks Google Images! |
Harbin is a city in northern China. It has a a colourful history because of its location. It was part of Russia, then was occupied by the Japanese, and now officially part of China. I'd really like to read more about the boarder changing hands because you can see a ton of Russian and Mongolian influence all throughout the city. It almost seemed like a China town set up in Eastern Europe. A lot of the architecture seemed Russian, but Chinese writing and red lanterns filled the building fronts.
We went to Harbin for the annual Snow and Ice Festival. Every year artists get together to create amazing sculptures in the ice and snow and then thousands (actually, more likely millions) of tourists flood to the city to come gawk at how impressive they are. And the sculptures are impressive. But the combination of frigid temperatures and Chinese tourists definitely got the best of me at different points in our trip.
Our group started with the snow sculptures. We wandered around for a few hours and took in all of the amazing carvings. There were sculptures related to Disney, Despicable Me, Charles Darwin, and Isaac Newton. All of them were amazing and we had a lot of fun taking pictures and wandering around the park. After all the walking, we devoured a Harbin beer (how could we not?!) and about a million dumplings.
The next stop on our tour was the frozen lake and pedestrian street. It was just starting to get dark so we decided to take a trip in a horse drawn carriage where we promptly got ripped off, but had a wonderful photo shoot courtesy of our driver. This is where our luck started to turn for the work.
After our little ride and a few more drinks we decided it was time to head to the Ice Lantern Festival where all of the sculptures were lit up. We hopped in a cab and with our broken Chinese asked to be taken to the festival. Unfortunately this isn't want happened. Our driver took us to a travel agent where no one spoke English and through gestures and google translate we realised that if we paid 300RMB they would give us a ticket. They ushered us on to a bus where we waited for more people (although at the time we had no idea what was going on) and then were eventually taken to the festival.
Once we "arrived" we had to walk in what looked like cattle pens in strict lines of two while our "tour guide" barked at us in Chinese. Eventually we got through and could explore the ice sculptures. Score!
All was going well until our heat packs stopped working and we got cold. I mean, it was -19 Celcius. It felt like our toes were going to fall off and we were not happy about it. To make matters worse, the crowds, with all of these pushing and shoving, were out of control.
 |
| No traffic pattern here. Just shove your way around the castle! Thanks for the photo, Danielle |
So we left a little grumpy. To make matters worse, we had to stand in line for a public push for what seemed like forever, only to have people try to push on right in front of us. Needless to say we did NOT let that happen. Once we got off the bus we shuffled to the nearest open bar to find food and drinks. After a very Chinese exchange (money first, bringing the wrong drinks, forgotten order, etc), we finally had food (although we're not really sure exactly what it was) and drinks to lift our spirits. After a handful of beers and a good night's sleep we were in better spirits just in time to head back to Shanghai.
 |
| Almost Human Again |
My overall take away from Harbin was that it was an interesting experience. Would I do it again? Absolutely. It was nice to get out of the city and those sculptures were pretty damn amazing. Am I planning on going back next year? Absolutely not. It was way too cold for me and one experience of being pushed around and having no idea what was going on was definitely enough. I still recommend it to anyone who hasn't lost their patience for China yet.
With that, I'll leave you with a wonderful picture of me trying to get warm. The bathrooms were too crowded so I was forced to put on my extra heat packs in the middle of the festival. Judge me all you like but it was freezing and I needed warmth!
 |
| Thanks Danielle for this beautiful picture of me. |
**Even though these habits are revolting to me, I understand that I am in their country. I am trying my best to be patient and learn to accept that I have chosen to live in a country where this is acceptable. I have met so many wonderful Chinese people and am completely aware that they find certain "American" habits weird/disgusting as well!
