When the year turned in China, I was sitting in my narrow living room with Jason, Becky and Sara, attempting to pop a huge bottle of champagne that essentially tastes like a drop of fruit juice mixed with bai jiu (Chinese liquor, or, the grossest thing ever deemed consumable.)
The four of us trolled through Billboard’s best of the decade lists, musing at the fact that this is the first turn of a decade we’ve been functionally conscious for, remembering who we were crushing on when “You Got it Bad” was big, considering the raunchy lyrics of R. Kelly’s “Remix to Ignition” that provided the background for some of high school’s greatest moments, applauding Justin Timberlake’s ability to stay afloat, nay improve, post N’Sync, and recalling which frat basement we were dancing in to “Gold Digger” this time four years ago. Also, noting that we haven’t even heard of some of the artists in the week’s top 40—we really have been gone awhile.
True, our New Year’s celebration was exceptionally tame. Our rowdy crew has dwindled in the past month, aided by an English buddy insinuating that some girls at a KTV were prostitutes and instigating a fight that landed a Chinese friend and a couple waiguoren at the police station, veritably guaranteeing that the rest of us won’t be permitted to remain in Chengde one second past the end of our teaching contract. We’re trying to keep a low profile.
In my first significant act of the decade, I went as close to Siberia as I ever hope to be. Sara, Becky and I ventured up to Harbin, where the current low is -23 F, and tomorrow’s forecasted low is -32 F, for their Ice and Snow Festival. I invested in some warm and amusing knock-off apparel for the occasion—I am the proud owner of a “Lumbia” coat, complete with the Columbia snowflake logo, and also a pair of rather legit-looking Ugg boots, which I really wish said “Gugg” like the ones I saw in Chengde last week.
The city of Harbin remains in a deep freeze until March, which entitles them to build an entire ice amusement park on an island, complete with a several-stories-tall bottle of Harbin beer, the local brew. In addition to ice buildings, snow sculptors create scaled replicas of monuments like the Egyptian Sphinx. I thought I was just going to freeze my tail off and get a few cool pictures, but the festival was more interactive than that—every other sculpture featured steps up and often-enormous ice slides to the bottom. The Hollywood Hill was sculpted in snow, and a line of children and adults waited to sled down it.
Harbin is unique in China because it has a history of Russian involvement, which is visible in some of its downtown architecture and restaurants. At a Russian café decorated like your grandmother’s living room—or a curious antiques museum, if your grandmother isn’t the type to pile old photos on the wall and keep curio cabinets full of old cameras or a cabinet devoted to delicious vodkas—I had borscht that I would almost accuse of being authentic, and some tiny Russian cookies that followed it perfectly. I assume the actual Russians dining there were paid for adding to the legitimacy of the place.
The park in the city center has a themed extension of the island festival. This year it was Disney themed—the On Ice variety, of course. All the princesses, and a row of villains, were sculpted in snow. When I get to India next week and am finally able to post pictures, I will throw up some Disney trivia, because I have a picture of a snow villain that I swear I’ve never seen before. Free postcard if you can tell me who it is. I have a picture in front of Ariel’s frozen ocean palace, which is enough for me to concede that it was worth wearing two layers of tights under my jeans for a couple days. I also experienced the pleasure of a sleeper train back from Harbin, which was tolerable except that I woke up in an absolute panic, thinking that I actually was heading to my freezing death in Siberia.
Perhaps it was a self-fulfilling prophecy, but at the beginning of November I thought to myself, “These next two months are going to be the hardest.” The daylight dwindled, and as the temperatures hung out below zero I spent as little time as possible outside the apartment. We all did our best to create ample holiday cheer while not thinking too hard about it being the holidays. Those months survived, I am incredibly excited for the next segment of my journey, which begins Thursday when Jason and I leave for six weeks in India. I’m excited about the whole trip but, notably for you, I’ll finally be able to post to my own blog and put up pictures from the last 5 months.
Happy New Year!
No comments:
Post a Comment