Harbin Stories

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On a warm August afternoon, at the end of summer 2002, I landed at Harbin’s airport. From the window on the Air China plane, the city looked gray, dusty, and somewhat tired after trying to survive the heat of the fading summer. I did not mind it. I was exited to be here again and looked forward to a pleasant and enjoyable time in this northern city, capital of Heilongjiang Province, China. I think that it was then that I found you again, my darling China, my dear Harbin.

This story started, so I think, when I was a little boy - one that was blessed with high degree of imagination and curiosity. In a courtyard, adjacent to my parent’s house, I used to spend my childhood days playing inside a large cardboard box, transforming it to a small-imagined boat.

Like in my books and adventure movie heroes, I found myself sailing through high seas and blowing winds to far away lands that were at the far eastern end of the world. Those were innocent days of daydreaming, spent under a huge oak tree that was the sail of my boat.
I can remember clearly my childhood voyages that were full of stormy oceans, spicy smells and young maidens. It was then that I first imagined landing on your shores, passing muddy green rice fields, kissing hallo to a farmer’s daughter, touching your beautiful round face and slanted eyes.

Now, a grown man with gray curly hair and older eyes, too many years later, I was embarking excitedly from the plane, going through the gates and entering the reception hall. It was then that I saw you again my woman, China my love. We waved hallo, hugged and kissed bashfully. You told me your name was Yang Xue, and said “Ni hao…ni kuai le ma, wo de ai ren…”

It is my second time in Harbin, a foreign journalist in the Paris of the East. Or, maybe it is the third or forth or fifth time, I do not know. As the years pass I loose count of my childhood voyages and they all, so it seems, become one. Now I am here, deeply involved with you and getting ready to put some order in my new rearrange life.

My friends came to my apartment and took me out to dinner. There is not much I could say of it; no local television English news program I can watch and understand what's going on around me, no western films to enjoy and understand, a weekend evening in Harbin, just with friends, at the Shangri-La Hotel's restaurant.

I was very tired in the morning hours, probably not recovered yet from a long week of writing and teaching my university students - grown up man and women who call themselves boys and girls - so I thought it would be good to stroll first through the near-by streets. Some young street venders approached me, trying to sell their goods and thinking I was Russian. “No… No Russky. Me from America… Me from U.S., O.K.?” I told them off with simple English, thinking that these will do the trick, and it did. I thought of the many stories Harbin can tell.

Later, it was almost night-time in the small, dirty and almost forgotten side street off Xuefu Road at the Nangang District of Harbin. People have just finished their daily chores, and were coming out into the street, to walk back and forth through the shadows and the lights that have taken charge. Looking at them, I thought they were here, as they usually are on other nights, to enjoy their little lives that come with their modest accomplishments of the day.

Lu Taiyue sat alone in her little hair-saloon. It was a small shop. But not like many other shops such the one she has, hers was empty and she could not figure out why.
“Why it is empty?” I ask her. “Not really know.” She says bewilderedly. “Maybe gods did not come tonight. Maybe some girls come late. Maybe you foreign man like have hair cut?” There was sadness in the way she looked at me but I thought she was smart. If not God or girls, there is always a foreigner who may fill in.

Further, down the street you could hear a loud recording of a pleasant Chinese traditional song. It came out of a brightly lighted room that caters dumplings and rice-purge to hungry man who stop there before going home to their waiting wives.

Mr. Liao Qi, the owner, was happy. He has just turned 50 and felt as healthy as one can be. He was sitting on a small stained chair at the corner, looking through an old Western magazine with colored pictures, dreaming of far away streets with smartly dressed men and women and lavishly decorated restaurants. At his age he already had a teen-aged grandson who, so he hoped, will run a larger restaurant and achieve reaches in the "new city" part of Harbin.

What Mr. Liao Qi did not know was that at that time, the boy was staying with his friends at the music store on the other side of the street. They have been there since they returned from school. They wore American-styled blue jeans and tee shirts, covered with English words full of mistakes.

“Why you have such words on your tee shirts?” I ask the boys. “Ha…?” They look at me with surprise. “What is matter with you? You not like America music? Not like America stars? You not see television?”

I said “no” politely and walked out into the dark shadows that covered the street.
What a strange muddy street, I thought to myself. An empty saloon because of the Gods, an elderly business man dressed in a ‘Mao’ cottoned over-coat and a teen aged boy who watch TV and dreams with his friends of something else.

I thought it was a simple night story of Chinese men and women, some young and some very old, who may have left their hidden dreams for later hours, between the shadows of their street.

The weather was good. Not too warm. Too many cars made it almost impossible to cross the wide roads. I thought that there was no place for traffic lights in the streets of Harbin because everyone ignored them anyhow. An old beggar, showing off his crutches, hustled me for money. I gave him some, thinking it will be polite of me to do so. Later I saw him running to catch a bus. He was very fast.

Later, at the Shangri-La Hotel's restaurant, I painted for my friends the impressions of my earlier evening scenes. They told me it sounded like a television documentary. They didn't know it but what was said hit a sensitive nerve.

I told them it seemed I was one of the few people in the West who heard of Harbin and of Heilongjiang in China. I reminded them my earlier visit and of our trips around the northeastern beautiful Province three years ago. What a wonderful place it is, I said. Many exiting places and sites to see, to visit and to enjoy. But the only thing some Westerns know about Harbin is of the strange people who jump to the freezing waters of some river in the middle of an extremely cold winter. Very few heard of Heilongjiang. For most Westerns there is nothing… mayo… beyond Beijing, Shanghai, Gwilin or Xi'an.

"Sometimes you should watch programs on CCTV 9 from Beijing," One of my friends said. "There are many beautiful documentaries about China, our people and our culture. These programs are being watched around the world."

"Yes, I have watched many of the programs but I am not used to the way they present the news," I answered hesitantly, trying not to offend any of my friends. "They transmit the news to the West," I continued, but it seems they do not use the Western formats and styles. They are far behind."

I didn't want to sound critical. After all, I am a Western and foreign to their way of thinking. So I felt it was necessary to explain my meaning.

I thought there were several problems that could be easily corrected.

First, there should be "a local" English news and documentary programs that tell the West about Heilongjiang Province and Harbin. People should be introduced to these places. If they know, they'll come.

Second, you must understand that the audiences are Westerns who are used to a different forms and style. One should not transmit programs as if they were made for his own watching pleasure. If it is so, than what is the use?

Third, one should ask himself what his purposes are, who his viewers are, what do they like to watch, what their needs are, how can he make himself natural, realistic and believable?
I told my friends, some of whom were journalists that it will be great if Heilongjiang sent its stories and scenic views for the West to see. "There is so much here," I said, "Why you do not tell your story?"

"In fact, we are going to do it," one of my friends whispered to my ear. "In fact, the Heilongjiang Television Station number 1 will start an English news program at the end of June. They will broadcast news in English twice a day, six days a week. A 'live', 10 minutes program at 23:10 and a 'rerun' at 12:20 in the afternoon."

"Oh… That's great," I said. "Yes… Ye…," my friend whispered.

That moment an idea crossed my mind and I thought of a promotion to the program:

Heilongjiang Television - Number 1 In English News

It was late night when we left the restaurant, and it started raining. The meal was heavy but good; many dishes, a lot of local Harbin beer that was not bad at all, and some kind of burning white spirit that was swallowed by the locals as if it was water.

I was having a nagging headache and while riding a taxi, back to the apartment, I could not think but of my bed and of enjoying my life with you, China my darling.

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