Life in Harbin

Hi Everyone!

Since I have been terrible about keeping up with regular blog posts this summer (sorry!), I am writing a series of "summary" posts to give you an idea of what CET-Harbin was like for any prospective Light Applicants. Overall, I do recommend this program, and over the next few posts, you'll see my reasons why.

First, I wanted to talk about life in Harbin. The number one thing to keep in mind about Harbin is that it is not Beijing or Shanghai. Harbin is a MUCH smaller city than those two, which has its own special culture and different attractions.


CULTURE
Harbin (哈尔滨) is the capital of Heilongjiang Province, the most northern province in China. This city is strongly influenced by the fact that it is neighbors with Russia. At various points in its history, Harbin was actually under Russian control. All over the city, you will find lots of Russian influences, from Gogol Street to St. Sophia's Cathedral to the Russian buildings in Old Harbin to Russian sausage to Russian bread and more. Many people, Westerners or Asians, will also speak Russian, and if you are of European ancestry, you will be mistaken for Russian at least once. I have stood on a bus with one of my good friends, Lilian, who attempted to hold a conversation in Chinese with an old man who spoke to her in Russian. He refused to believe she was anything BUT Russian. For this reason, Harbin's culture is different from any other Chinese city you will visit. There are still a lot of Russians in city--many of whom are students in the International Student Center you will be studying in at Harbin Institute of Technology (your host university for CET-Harbin). Be sure to visit the distinctly Russian landmarks while you're in Harbin, because some people like to call it the Moscow of the East.

In addition to the Russian influence, there is a strong Korean presence as well. There any many people of the Korean ethnic minority as well as North and South Korean nationals.

P.S. Harbin also has the world famous tiger park which is amazing. You ride in a little bus and there will be hundreds of tigers surrounding you (picture on left).

WEATHER
If you are in Harbin in the winter, then you will obviously visit the Ice and Snow Sculpture Festival, which is a must as they build entire cities out of snow. Because of this festival and because the city is so north, Harbin has a reputation of being incredibly cold. While true of the winter, this is nothing to fear for summer-term students. The weather is similar to New Haven and Connecticut in the summer. There are hot days where the temperature spikes to the upper nineties (Fahrenheit), but on most days, you'll be looking at temperatures in the eighties. The classrooms are furnished with air conditioning that they will turn on if the temperature is hot enough, and you dorm will have fans. I found the weather to be quite comfortable as long as I opened a window.

The other main thing about the weather is that there is an issue of air pollution. While this problem is no where near as serious as Beijing or Shanghai, this is still a developing Chinese city. There are a ton of cars on the road, and the air can get stuffy sometimes. Some of the students experienced allergies due to the pollution. It's not a huge issue and you are bound to experience it in almost every Chinese city.

TRAFFIC
Harbin is currently building a subway/metro system that should be completed approximately 2013-2014 (I get different estimates from different people). Because of this construction, traffic in Harbin is really messy right now. At high traffic times, you'll find it impossible to catch a cab, and the buses are so crowded you'll be completely squished in. Some cabs will even refuse to drive you places because they are not in the right direction. However, on the plus side, it's also CHEAPER to catch a cab and to get around Harbin than in other cities. Cabs start at 8 RMB, and you rarely spend more than 14 RMB to get across town. Buses are 1 RMB for all of the lines. I recommend riding buses during the day because they are more cost efficient and it's also a good chance to talk with the locals and practice your Chinese.

SHOPPING
If you are an avid shopper for clothes or anything, then there are definitely a few places to buy stuff. Check out Fashion City (服装城) and Zhong Yang Da Jie for some great chances to practice your haggling skills. Fashion City also has a whole area dedicated to custom-made anything. Many of the students, including me, had custom-made suits made for incredibly cheap. You can haggle your prices down on the fabric and materials, and there is generally a set labor cost of 150 RMB to make the suit. Or you can have everything taken care of by the tailor when you choose fabrics that he/she offers in the shop. They also will make curtains, bed sheets, pajamas, prom dresses, Mandarin dresses, and more. There are also high end real-brand shopping centers all over Zhongyang Da Jie, or you can check out shopping centers located under streets in street crossings at Hongbo (picture on right). The clothing is really cheap, cheaper than other major cities, and you'll find a lot of great styles--especially Korean styles.

Ask your roommates to take you around shopping places because they can also help you haggle down prices, and they probably know all the best places to check out. I was taken to a shopping mall that only sold shoes, a shopping mall that only sold school supplies, a shopping mall for toys, and more.

FOOD
Eating in Harbin is cheaper than any other Chinese city, but in my opinion, it is not as tasty. If you are used to going to Chinatown in America for dimsum, and that is what you thought authentic Chinese food was in the entire country, then you will be in for a surprise. Northeast Chinese food is drastically different from any other Chinese cuisine. For one, they don't like spicy or sweet/sour foods. They prefer a salty and savory cuisine that I had a hard time transitioning to. In fact, I lost 7 pounds in China (and for my 5'3" stature, that's a lot).

Some specialties of the region include cold vegetable salads, cold wood ear (a type of fungi) with wasabi, long snow peas-esque beans stir-fried with potatoes and pork, roasted pork shoulders, BaSiDiGua (caramelized sweet potatoes), and hot pot (a communal boiling pot you share with your friends in which you throw in raw vegetables and meat). I highly recommend trying out the various hot pot places because even though it is about 90 degrees out, it's still delicious, and the homemade sesame paste many of these restaurants provide as a dipping sauce is so great.

Other things to try out in Harbin include their Russian sausage (only buy from an authentic place such as Qiulin), Russian bread (tastes a bit like ciabatta bread), and a Russian soft drink made from their Russian bread (tastes like a mildly sweet beer). Harbin has a huge Russian influence, but it's a great idea to check out the Russian cuisine. They have a few Russian style restaurants, but beware they will be more on the expensive side. Your residential assistant will know about a lot of great restaurants in Harbin, and mine was great enough to take us to a bunch of them. The Chinese roommates also will take you out to eat a lot.

Japanese and Russian restaurants were the most expensive at about 100 RMB per person, but they are also the most high-class. The decor in Lucias Russian Cafe was reminiscent of Union League Cafe with beautiful carved hardwood walls (photo on left), and the Japanese restaurant (there's only 2 in the city) features private rooms for basically every guest. Western cuisine tends to just be more expensive; Hamamas near campus sold hamburgers, muffins, brownies, cakes, smoothies, shakes, etc. at about 40 RMB per person. A French cafe sells tuna sandwiches and grilled cheese melts as well as cheesecake for anyone feeling homesick at approximately 30 RMB a person (picture on right). There is a German all-you-can-eat restaurant where servers will come by your table to slice off meat from the skewers; they also brew their own beers.

Korean food will cost approximately 30-40 RMB per person, but it's still much cheaper than Korean food in the US. Just asa forewarning, Korean cuisine often involves dog meat, so beware of that when you are being taken out for a meal. When my teacher treated me to lunch once (she was of the Korean ethnic minority), she ordered dog meat stew. However, the non-dog meat dishes are quite amazing and bibimbip or chapchae is always less than 20 RMB (yum).

Then there are various Chinese restaurants (one Hong Kong style restaurant with pretty good Cantonese cuisine that satisfied my craving for Southern Chinese food). Hot pot restaurants can be buffet style or order by the plate, but they never come out to be more than 35 RMB per person. Perhaps some of my favorite meals were sitting out on the street side eating barbecued meat from stick (chuanr). They are not the most hygienic meals, and I've gotten milk food poisoning more than once in Harbin, but they are fun and delicious.

In fact, food poisoning is very common in China. If you have a sensitive stomach, bring some peptol bismal or other stomach medications. Most of the kids were sick at one point or another. Always eat your meat well-done, and I learned to avoid most cold salads because they had just been sitting out for most of the day while it's 95 degrees out. Never drink tap water, and always check seals on bottle water purchased from the street. As a personal rule of thumb, I also avoid milk in China, but that's only because milk in China tastes incredibly processed in my opinion, and it's rarely refrigerated because the processing gives it a longer shelf life. Also, I have gotten sick from milk in China before, so I have bad memories of it.



I will write more posts VERY SOON about nightlife, classes, trips, and campus life.

A view of two cultures through the lens of a public bath.

So I love going to get massages in China. Why? Because they are filthy cheap. You can get a two hour massage for 118 yuan (less than 18 US dollars), or an 80 minute foot massage for 50 yuan (less than 9 US dollars). The two hour massage also includes free dinner, a bathhouse, fire cupping, little ladies stepping on your back, and all sorts of other goodies. But the main thing I'm talking about today is the bathhouse.

In Northeast China, there is this service called 搓澡 (cuo1 zao3), which when put into Google Translate comes out to "get a rubdown with a damp towel." It's surprisingly a pretty accurate translation of the practice. Originally a Korean service, cuo1zao3 has become increasingly popular in Northeast China. Basically, after taking a shower, you hire a (usually middle aged) woman in black lingerie to rub your entire body down with a damp towel which will exfoliate your skin--removing dead skin cells and dirt from your body. She's very professional about it as you just lie on a plastic recliner in a row with 4-5 others (all butt-naked of course). But after the service, your skin will feel softer than it has ever felt before, and you can choose for the lady to rub you down with either fresh milk or honey for an additional cost. These same services are available in the men's side of the bathhouse with male employees rubbing you down. The cost is approximately 20 RMB for the rubdown and another 28-38 for the milk or honey treatments.

Does this sound strange to you? It probably does because our American culture has no real public bathhouses, no cuozao services, and a surprisingly conservative attitude towards nudity in the presence of others. In America, we value our personal bubble, and we are weirded out when others stare at us too closely or for too long. We feel shy when members of the same sex see our naked bodies, and we certainly would never allow someone to rub us down with a damp towel. No one uses those 1960's-esque giant communal showers anymore.

In China, the shower stalls in the bathhouses have no curtains or door, no one wears a towel as they walk around or go in the sauna, and you even lounge in the nude as you wait for stalls to open up and chat with others. (It's also a really interesting experience to brush your teeth naked surrounded by mostly 50-year-old women doing the same thing.) At times like these, I am glad that I am ethnically Chinese--I look the same as the masses. And I feel bad for my ethnically European friends as they get all the stares in the bathhouse. For a country that is so shy towards topics such as sex and dating culture, it is interesting how members of the same sex are so open with their bodies as long as there are no members of the other sex nearby.

I've been pondering this topic for a while now (as I marvel at the softness of my skin), but what do you think? Do we Americans value our personal bubbles too much? Would you ever allow a middle-aged man or woman to scrub your buttcheeks and breasts down for you as you lie in the middle of a bathhouse? Would you feel uncomfortable?

Two main reasons why Yale VPN is amazing...

So I have been in China for almost three months now, and I must say that one of the necessities of life in China is a VPN (also known as a Virtual Private Network). A VPN will make your computer seem as if it was surfing the internet from the US--allowing your computer to bypass China's Great Firewall. While paid subscriptions to VPN services can cost upwards of several hundred US dollars for six months, Yale is generous enough to provide active students and staff with a free VPN. It works as a program that runs in the background of your computer as you surf the web, and there are some really great reasons why you MUST get this VPN if you choose to go to China.

1) Facebook. (Or Wikipedia. Or Blogger. Or any other blocked site in China.) The Chinese government blocks many US websites for a multitude of politically charged reasons. If you don't have a VPN in China, you won't be able to access any of these sites. And what college student would be able to live without Facebook?

2) Faster loading. Because the VPN makes your computer pretend that it's in America, all American/US-based sites will load MUCH quicker when you have your VPN activated. From NYtimes to Wikipedia to Sephora, you'll notice a huge difference in load time when you turn your VPN on. American websites without the VPN can take almost 30 seconds to load a page. The flipside is that if you attempt to access Chinese websites (Xinhua News, RenRen, etc), it will take you forever to load when your VPN is on. So I have gotten into the habit of turning my VPN on and off depending on what I am doing online.

The VPN is so worth it, and for Yale students, it's free. So ABSOLUTELY get it for your laptop before you leave. While I hear some complaints from people about their VPN malfunctioning or whatever, I have never had any huge problems with it.

Lastly, here is a picture of me Eating With Chopsticks... Egg pancake burrito stuffed with green bean paste and fried tofu (Tianjin). Enjoy.

Chinese Style Chicken Tempura

Ma Laoshi has taught us another recipe in our Chinese cooking class.

Ingredients:
1 cup potato starch
1/2 cup flour
2 egg whites
cold water (you can even use use water with crushed ice)
2 chicken breasts
oil

Slice chicken breasts into slivers. You'll want to cut along the top of the chicken, shaving off slice by slice.

Then beat your egg whites until they are foamy white. Add in the potato starch, flour, and approximate 1/2-1 cup water. The mixture should be about as thick as cake batter, adjust starch, flour and water according to get to this thickness. Coat the chicken slices in the batter. You can let the chicken sit in the batter as you heat up oil in a wok or deep-sided frying pan. Heat up about 2-3 inches high worth of oil. When the oil starts crackling and popping, it is hot enough for you to carefully (using cooking chopsticks ideally) drop in coated chicken slices piece by piece. You want to be extremely careful during this step as you could get burned by stray cooking oil. Also use a spatula to scrape the chicken batter and pieces off the side of the wok so it doesn't stick. When the pieces fry to a LIGHT tan color, scoop them out and let them cool to a warm temperature--not burning hot anymore. Pour more oil into the cooking pan if it is no longer at 2-3 inches in height. Heat it up to a high heat until it begins to crackle and pop again. Carefully put the chicken pieces back into the oil to fry again until golden brown. Scoop them out and drain on paper towels or in a metal strainer. Serve. The absolute key to this recipe is to double fry, otherwise you won't get any of the crispiness you need, and the chicken might not even be fully cooked.

Ma Laoshi served our chicken tempura with a mixture of black pepper and salt on the side to dip it in. You can even sprinkle this mixture on top of the chicken if you think dipping is too much trouble, but sprinkle sparingly because it can easily become too salty. Also, I recommend serving this on a bed of green and red peppers or lettuce to add a sprinkle of color. If you really want to put in the extra work for a really tasty result, stir-fry the chicken with green and red pepper pieces, long dried pepper, and some chili oil for a spicy, tangy chicken dish. This recipe is a really good base for any coated chicken stir-fry, and you can even do this with other meats.

Best of luck to your eating with chopsticks adventures!

Mapo Tofu, Mild Northeast Chinese Version

Also known as "mala" tofu, this Sichuan dish has gained popularity all over China in its different variations. I learned a very mild 东北麻辣豆腐. I just wanted to post a quick recipe I learned from Ma Laoshi's northeast cuisine cooking class before I forget the ingredients. I have tried my best to find translations for all the Chinese names. Also, Ma Laoshi rarely gives us an accurate measurement of his ingredients, so I have guestimated based on what I saw. It could be wrong, but adjust according to your taste.

Ingredients:
1/4 cup Sichuan peppercorn (be careful, this stuff has the ability to make your tongue go numb)
1/4 cup star anise
1/2 package fermented black beans
Handful of dried heaven-facing pepper (指天辣椒), dried long and thin whole peppers you'll often find in Chinese cooking
Chili oil (I think the teacher actually used chili paste)
Chicken stock (powder, the Chinese brand with the orange/yellow can and a green cap)
Salt
Soysauce
Oil
2 large (5x3x3 inch) blocks of firm tofu, cut into small cubes (about 5 normal sized blocks should work)

In a wok or large-sized pan, heat up about 1 cup of oil. When the oil starts dancing, toss in the Sichuan peppercorn (I have been trying to find some kind of a replacement for Sichuan peppercorn, and the closest thing I can think of is dried fennel. However, try your best to find Sichuan peppercorn). Let the peppercorn fry in the oil for about 4-5 minutes before scooping out only the peppercorn and tossing it away. The oil should be nice and flavored with the "嘛" flavors of the peppercorn now. Next fry the star anise in the oil for about 2-3 minutes, but do not scoop it out.

Add in the tofu cubes with about 1.5 cups of water. Add in the chili peppers and chili oil/paste as well as the fermented black beans. Be careful when stirring tofu as it breaks easily. Always use the rounded back side of a spatula or a spoon to "push" the tofu around gently. Let the water boil in the mixture and allow the tofu to absorb the flavors. Gently stir to make sure the tofu doesn't burn at the bottom of the pan. At this time, you should test a small piece of tofu to see if it is cooked, also test out the flavors to see if it is spicy enough to your liking. Lower the heat to simmer and toss in 2 tablespoons or so of chicken stock and some salt. Also pour some soy sauce over the entire dish and "toss" everything. You might not be as amazing as my 82-year-old cooking teacher to flip a wok, but you can always give it a try if you don't mind sacrificing some tofu. Let it simmer for about 2-3 minutes as you prepare plates.

Since I love to cook, I have a few other suggestions to add more flavors to the dish. Try also tossing in the "head" of scallions (the light green part) in the oil when you first start, and then throwing in some chopped scallions into the dish. I also like some grated ginger. Also, you can add more things other than just tofu into the dish. Also try some green peas, thinly sliced pork, Wood Ear (木耳), thinly sliced carrots, green/red peppers, and anything else you can think of as long as it is suitable to cook in a short amount of time (don't want to overcook the tofu).

Ever ride a tandem bike?

I can safely cross that off my do-to list as my roommate and I rode through (太阳岛） Sun Island Park on a tandem bike creating the most picturesque scene of roommate bonding. CET took us to Sun Island on Saturday, and by Sun Island, they really mean SUN--it was about 100 degrees outside. We sipped on frozen bottles of water as we explored the park and rode on a water ride. The best part about the trip: it was my second time there in less than 12 hours. One of the guys in our program was invited to a huge beach party the night before and convinced about 15 of us to go with him. As we told the taxi driver Sun Island, he dropped us off in the middle of the park. We proceeded to wander around for over two hours trying to find this giant beach party. As we declined invitations from what seemed like Chinese fraternities, we walked in a huge circle around the island. When we finally found the party, it was so late that we left within half an hour. What a fail.

The next day after returning from biking in Sun Island and shopping in Zhongyang Da Jie, we decided to visit a Russian bar. And if you're looking for a Russian bar, why not go to a bar that is called the "Russian Bar." I thought it was a lovely name choice, as the guys grabbed beers, and we watched the Korea-Uruguay soccer match. A very boisterous Korean exchange student also joined us as he cheered for the ultimately unsuccessful Korea.

Another highlight of my week include fire cupping--a Chinese traditional massage/medicinal technique that basically involves setting a glass cup on fire, then putting it on your back. The hot air inside the cup creates a vacuum that suctions to your skin. The end result is a very dark and painful bruise on your back. According to Chinese traditional explanations, the dark coloration is from the violent expulsion of excess qi (air) from your body. Your body has a balance of hot and cold air, and when your body has too much of one or the other, you will feel very tired, restless, agitated, or even sick. Fire cupping will expel the imbalance in your body (排毒). I think an adequate western explanation for why people might like fire cupping is that it will stretch and move deep muscles that normally don't get stretched. Although the bruises may hurt, but a few days after fire cupping, you will feel like your back muscles are more relaxed (although this could also be the result of the 2 hour massage I got before the fire cupping).

See you next week!

Wuxi, Suzhou, Hangzhou, Shanghai Expo, Fuzhou, Harbin

Okay. It's been about two weeks since I last posted. Sorry about the lateness, but my internet was spotty in Fuzhou. To make up for it, I'll try to post an extra long post today before I start my Chinese homework.

To give you a quick rundown of the rest of my China tour first. I bought pearls in Wuxi and ate their famous marinated steamed pork. I bought a silk blanket from the silk capital of the world in Suzhou--a place that is also known for its beautiful women because all of the women stayed indoors making silk rather than going outside and farming (where they would get tan). Suzhou also offers great freshwater fish from the Great Tai Lake. Hangzhou offers its famous Dragon Well Green Tea--the best quality is always from the spring harvest, and we bought some of it. A woman who majored in Tea in college also provided a demonstration of the antioxidant effects of green tea. If you pour iodine onto rice, it will obviously turn the rice black, and you cannot rinse out the color with water. However, with a splash of green tea, the rice removed all traces of the iodine from the rice. It was amazing and convinced me even more of how awesome tea is. I also believe I went on three consecutive boat rides during this time visiting the beautiful lakes and canals of the three cities.

Our last major stop was in Shanghai for the Shanghai Expo 2010. For those unfamiliar with what a World Expo is, you may have heard of the St. Louis Expo around the turn of the 20th century when the US literally transplanted a Philippine village in the middle of St. Louis for people to gawk at. Basically the World Expo is a giant museum-fair where countries will sponsor a pavilion--many will build a building and house cultural marvels from their country (or in the US's case, a business fair with Microsoft, Johnson & Johnson, and other companies). Lines to get into some pavilions are literally hours. For Japan and Saudi Arabia, the estimated wait time is over 4 hours. For China's second floor exposition, it is well over 6 or 7 hours. But people will literally bring stools and sit in line just to experience these pavilions. Personally, I found the Expo way too crowded at over 400,000 visitors a DAY!!!

Next stop was my family's hometown in Fuzhou. Because it is monsoon season currently in Southeast China, I didn't do much but play 5 hours of mahjong everyday. I would win over 200 RMB on some days (my highest winning was 289 RMB), but on other days I would lose almost 200 (192 was my biggest loss). I think all in all, I came out of the mahjong marathon winning around 20 RMB (less than 4 US dollars).

I returned to Beijing to meet up with my Harbin program where we ate at a pretty fun pizza restaurant. It offered pizza of all different varieties from a 老北京 (Old Beijing--it was literally peking duck on pizza) to Meat Lovers. I also met some cool graduate students from NYU and their guide from the Chinese Foreign Affairs University. We took a night train to Harbin. The interesting thing was that it was a sleeper train that went through the night. We had four bunk-beds to a small cabin, and it was actually pretty comfortable with private TV's and reading lights.

Harbin is currently some of the strangest weather I have ever experienced. On some days, it is over 90 degrees and on other days it is down to 50 with thunderstorms. Mind you, I have only been here for 4 days, and everyone from Harbin I have spoken with have said similar things.

My roommate (同屋) is 王思霖， and she is one of the nicest girls ever. I had a minor cut on my foot, and she took m to buy band-aids. The store only sold non-waterproof ones, which I didn't care and bought some. Then a few hours later, I was preparing to go out and explore town with friends, and she came up to me with waterproof band-aids saying that it was going to rain. She also handed me an umbrella， which I was really grateful for because it started pouring about halfway through our exploring. I also come back to the dorm to find sliced watermelons, bubble tea, yogurt, and other goodies waiting for me on my desk from her. However, I don't know how to politely tell her that I really don't need all this stuff, and I've just been eating it all when it shows up.

I'll post more next week as classes continue. Today is only the first day, so I don't have much to say about classwork yet.