First time in Harbin, things to bring, what to do?

[johnk]

Hi Grawrt,

Sounds like your experiences matched mine. Harbin is a great city. 1to1 mandarin is a great school. I think the best part is that you can generally understand people speaking on the streets. Plus they are friendly and quite tolerant of a lost laowai with bad Chinese :-).

Right now, my passport is being renewed. As soon as I get it back, I will be planning my next trip. And I can't wait...

The only downer is I can only get a couple of weeks off work.

[Melanie1989]

Grawrt -Happy that you're enjoying Harbin! I'd love to go one day. Have you visited the Unit 731 remains? 

 

About the whiteners in the sun cream, apparently white skin in China, South Korea and Japan is seen as more beautiful like in the west a tan is deemed more beautiful. Not to me, but the general population. I heard that poor people, such as farmers, were always having to work out in the sun so having a tan meant that you were of a lower class, whereas if you were paler it meant that you didn't have to work so you were seen in higher regard. 

 

Hopefully you will be back soon with an update on how you're doing, i for one would love to hear more about Harbin!

[Vivi MENG]

 

They also have this fried dough thing that's twisted together that's really yummy

That is 麻花. I love to have it with yogurt, though it is strange even to the Chinese.

I miss 糖葫芦 so much!

[MoTzu]

The whiteners are in the sunscreen because a sun tan is considered a bad thing. The darker your skin the more time you have spent in the sun, the more time you have spent in the sun the more likely you have a labouring job, the more likely you are to have a labouring job the more likely you are to be poor.

[MPhillips]

There's no reason to expose oneself to the sun except to the extent necessary to synthesize sufficient Vitamin D--I bet Chinese ladies with their sunscreen lotion & parasols aren't too prone to skin cancer. Skin cancer, macular degeneration & cataracts are rife in the US.

[grawrt]

Sorry I forgot to update this in a while.

@ Melanie1989:
Yes I have, it's very sad and very well put together. They actually have a room that plays a part of a movie based on Unit 731 but its quite gruesome. I didn't know much about it before going so it was a very knowledgeable experience for me, albeit a little sad. They also have a section that I was surprised to find which contains cases and pictures of everyday people in present times who bumped into some of the left-behind chemical warfare and received devastating effects. It's scary to imagine that people to this day are still getting affected because so many of them were made in this time and left around.

@ Vivi MENG:
I don't think this is strange, I think my teacher or Ayi said she does this. I still have yet to try it, for some reason I never seem to have 麻花 and yogurt at the same time.

@ MPhillips:

I think there's a level of being careful and being overcautious when it comes to Chinese women. I don't think they're trying to protect themselves from cancer but rather just from trying to avoid looking like a labor worker. But for guys tans are supposedly handsome so you'll see some really crazy dark guys everywhere. You can see them at the park tanning on the benches. I think the girls take it a bit overboard when you see that everything is covered (sunglasses, kerchief pulled over their face that reaches down to their neck, plus a hat that swoops out wide). Also, noticed a lot of women wear face masks not because of pollution but to protect their face from windburn/sunburn.

Kind of. I dunno.. lol. But that's China for you. I would recommend people bring their own sunscreen from home though, it makes it much easier.

 

and just some extra stuff on things to do in Harbin:
There's 啤酒节 Beer Festival that starts and ends in June. After that the Music festival starts (I haven't gone yet so I'll let you know). Lots of beer, I don't drink but there were still lots of food to eat and things to see. VERY LOUD. lol.

 

I went on a hiking trip to 凤凰山 with a chinese tour group in this package deal that the school helped arranged. It was a nice trip, I went with another student at the school. The place was known for being a UFO sighting area, plus it was featured in 爸爸去哪儿.Very beautiful waterfalls/streams within the hiking area. Once you get to the very top you can slide down (but i was a bit skeptical so I didn't.. but I sooo regret it. if you go, take the slide down, it looked like tons of fun~!) We went on a different side on the next day which was more level-hiking. Lots of grasslands and not that many flowers. But I imagine in another season there'd be more. There was also the "UFO" sighting area, but I think the cutest thing about that area were the lovelocks placed a long there.

[MPhillips]

Of course you're right--when I lived in China I thought many of the ladies were taking precaution a little too far myself--it's just that I see so many people with skin cancer around here.

[grawrt]

yeah but I think the guys here are worse than anywhere I've seen. Maybe they just look extremely dark in contrast to their super-white companions?

[MoTzu]

Depends what they do for a living. The labourers here are very tanned, but all the white collar chinese I meet here are extremely pale and have extremely attractive wife/girlfriends

[bukhari]

hello
how was your experience with halal food? was it easily available?
did you visit harbin medical university??