At the the beginning of our trip Craig and I had planned on visiting every single province in China, excluding those we had already been to during study abroad. Perhaps this wasn't the best goal, considering China is an extremely large country and traveling there can be very tiring (not to mention hard on the lungs). As you shall see, this plan was thrown by the wayside fairly quickly, though hopefully it explains why we ended up in Manzhouli.
Craig and I couldn't figure out if we had actually been to Inner Mongolia before. It is not a positive quality for a traveler to be this clueless when it comes to his or her geographical bearing. However, as with many such organizations our study abroad program tended not to keep us particularly informed. Thus, when on the bus for hours crossing China headed for its western border with Kazakhstan we very rarely updated on our position in the cosmos. This long-winded explanation is most likely unnecessary, but originally we headed to Manzhouli just to check another province of the list.
I am very thankful that this was our thought pattern at the time, because however demented our thought process
may have been it proved to be a very interesting place. Manzhouli (population 150,000 give or take a few) is located in the Hulunbuir grasslands and supposedly is China's busiest land border crossing. The town was packed with Russians. Felicia, our friend we met in the train station, told us they all came across the border to do their shopping, which seemed to be true.
The Russian border is roughly 20 kilometers away, and the Mongolian border isn't terribly far either. It took us an overnight train journey of perhaps 12 hours to reach the town. While waiting in the Harbin train station we struck up a conversation with "Felicia" (the English name she had chosen for herself). Felicia was studying to be an English teacher at the university in Harbin, but was originally from Manzhouli and happened to be going home for the holidays. We parted ways boarding the train-she was riding in 3rd class which meant spending the entire night sitting in a chair-but promised to meet up again at our destination.
The next morning we arrived checked into a hotel (about US $10). Felicia showed us around town for the rest of the day.
We ate hot pot, walked around, and went shopping for Russian border appropriate memorabilia (I ended up with a fake flask emblazoned with a huge red Communist star...classic). It was extremely cold, about -15 F during the day. We stopped to buy ice cream from some ladies selling on the street and laughed because the ice cream bars were simply set out in boxes...no refrigerator required!
Most people addressed us in Russian, which was confusing for all parties. Maybe it was my thick hat with the earflaps (I was wearing about 8 layers).
The next day Felicia invited us to spend the afternoon with her family. They lived in a small apartment near the train station where her father worked. Sadly, he had suffered a stroke the year before, and his medication caused him a great deal of trouble. His pension didn't allow him to retire, so he continued to work part time for the railroad. Felicia's mother was a seamstress.
We made dumplings, of which mine were lumpy and ugly. Then everyone squeezed into the kitchen for a meal. Our train wasn't departing until much later, so we spent the remainder of the afternoon watching music
videos with Felicia. When I say music videos I mean long musical montages filled with the laughing, happy, minority people of China. Most featured the Mongolians, dancing happily across the grasslands and throwing scarves across the uniformed soldiers of the Liberation Army. That coupled with the stuffy air of the apartment and the dumplings churning in my stomach made me feel less than spectacular.
Felicia saw us off at the train station. Once again I have been very thankful to encounter the generosity of a stranger and greatly appreciate the time Felicia took to show us around her hometown. Manzhouli is a fascinating place. It would be interesting to return someday, preferably in the summer, when I could see these famous grasslands when not covered in a solid sheet of ice.
China's Flag
Map of China