Cloudy in Beijing Blogging about my time in China

So long Harbin

The taxi driver laughed when we told him it was cold.

"What are you talking about? It's warm," he said. "The weather has been much better these last several days."

True. Relatively speaking Harbin's weather has been warmer than the -2 Fahrenheit temperatures it usually sees in January.

"It just takes a few days and then you get used to it," the taxi driver told me.

I looked at myself. Two sweaters I had on, which were then covered below a thick winter jacket. I then wore a double layer of pants, as well as double layers of socks and gloves. A long gray scarf wrapped around my neck, with a red winter cap topping things off. And still my bloated body of warmth could feel the bitter cold seep in whenever I stepped outside.

My ass you get used to it.

Harbin is a very exotic place. The city has a whole industry devoted to the building of ice sculptures. The ice itself is created at the nearby lake, and chopped into blocks by a machine. Our taxi driver said the ice festival gets bigger and better every year. "During this winter, the ice was especially thick," he added.

When you look back into the history of a city in China, you often find buildings constructed in the style of Chinese traditional architecture. But in Harbin, that's not the case.

Harbin is located so far north that the city once had a large Russian population during the early 20th century. This is a picture of St. Sophia Cathedral, a former Russian Orthodox Church.

Many of the buildings in the city have a certain Russian/European flair to them. This is a picture inside a Russian restaurant. Russian souvenirs are also very popular in the stores here. I bought some vodka.

Just outside of the city is a Siberian Tiger park. For some extra money you can watch the keepers feed the tigers a live chicken, lamb, or other animal. I decided to forgo the tiger feasting so kept my wallet closed.

They call this the "Kill Pig Dish" or 杀猪菜, an unnecessarily violent name when said in English. Popular in Northeastern China, the dish originated as a way for farmers to celebrate the coming new year. They would kill a pig and then boil it with some pickled Chinese cabbage. Nothing too fancy, but hearty.

Harbin also possesses some very sad and horrifying history. About 12 miles south of the city are the remains of what could be perhaps called China's version of Auschwitz.

The site was where a Japanese military division called Unit 731 researched and developed germ warfare during World War II. They did so by performing experiments on captured test subjects, many of who were Chinese.

According to the museum based at the site, at least 3,000 people were cruelly terminated in the unit's laboratories. Prisoners were often infected with a disease and then had their internal organs removed for study. At least 300,000 people were also maimed or slaughtered by the germ warfare the unit produced.

One of the signs at the museum reads below:

"Early in the 20th century, the Japanese militarists flagrantly flouted the international conventions, and clandestinely plotted biological and chemical warfare in an attempt to realize the political ambition of dominating Asia and ruling the world. Very quickly such weapons were used in the battlefield, making the Japanese militarists the most vicious Fascist war criminals in human history."

This is a picture of bombs Unit 731 created. The designers made sure to make the casing ceramic, perhaps so that the bomb would shatter and thus spread out the the germs encased inside.

These were hangers used to hold up dissected remains of test subjects.

The original site of where Unit 731 worked once covered a vast campus of buildings. But at the end of the war, the Japanese soldiers abandoned the facility and destroyed many of the buildings. Now only a few remain. Real estate developers have already built on parts of the original site.

Still, the museum is quite intent on preserving the past. As one sign reads below:

"Forgetting about the history means betrayal. By exposing the criminal past of unit 731, we want to preserve the facts in order to warn future generations. Let history usher in a peaceful, civilized and progressive human society, and prevent a recurrence of historical tragedy."

I can only imagine how awkward it would be for a Japanese person to visit this museum.

I left Harbin last night, saying a goodbye and perhaps a tiny bit of a  good riddance to this ultra-cold city.  But indeed, this place is quite special.

Now I've returned to Beijing, where temperatures are at 45 degrees Fahrenheit. Feels like winter is ending.