Chinese Language Blog

Thanks to its freezing temperatures, Harbin can play host to an annual Snow Sculpture Expo. Artists from all over the world come to show off their talents, carving very detailed snow sculptures. Enjoy a short video tour from the comfort of your home instead of freezing your butt off there in person!

松花江 – sōng huā jiāng
Songhua River

太阳岛 – tài yáng dǎo
Sun Island

雪博会 – xuě bó huì
Snow Sculpture Expo

长城 – cháng chéng
the Great Wall

天坛 – tiān tán
Temple of Heaven

狮身人面像 – shī shēn rén miàn xiàng
Great Sphinx of Giza

复活节岛 – fù huó jié dǎo
Easter Island

七个小矮人 – qī gè xiǎo ǎi rén
the 7 dwarves

史努比 – shǐ nǔ bǐ
Snoopy

中国地图 – zhōng guó dì tú
map of China

奥运火炬 – Ào yùn huǒ jù
Olympic torch

雪城堡 – xuě chéng bǎo
snow castle

休息 – xiū xi
have a rest

That wraps it up for our mini-series about Harbin. In case you missed any of the past posts, here’s an easy to follow guide:

• Written Guide to the Ice and Snow Festival:  Get all of the details on the winter wonderland with this post, including ticket prices and opening times.
• Harbin – China’s Ice City Videos – Part One: Explore Harbin in the daytime and enjoy some winter activities on the frozen Songhua River. Part Two: Take a stroll along the Central Avenue of Harbin at night and take in some Russian architecture along with plenty of pretty lights and ice sculptures.
• 2013 Ice and Snow Festival Video: A video tour of the incredible Ice and Snow World of Harbin, which features an entire castle made of ice and full of neon lights. Not to be missed!

Enjoy the holiday, if you can!

Tomorrow is a national holiday here in China – Labor Day (劳动节 – láo dòng jié). Known more colloquially as “May Day” (五一节 – wǔ yī jié), this holiday always falls on May 1st. Actually, May 1st is International Labor Day, as it is an official holiday in over 80 countries. Until 2008, this was once one of three “Golden Weeks” (黄金周 – huáng jīn zhōu) in China, along with the Spring Festival and National Holiday. At that time, the government thought it would be a good idea to have three week-long holidays to encourage domestic travel and spending. However, the policy did not achieve the desired results, and they actually found the long holidays to be more of an economic drain than anything. As a result, the Labor Day was reduced to a one-day holiday, and three additional national holidays were added – the Tomb Sweeping, Dragon Boat, and Mid-Autumn Festivals. This new calendar was adopted in hopes of restoring some ancient Chinese traditions while preventing overcrowding during the long holidays.

Check out a detailed description of China’s public holidays!

Actually, the entire holiday system of China is quite befuddling to an outsider, and I (along with every other foreigner I know who lives and works here) get frustrated and confused around the holidays. Let me try to explain it to you in a simplistic way by using this year’s Labor Day as an example:

• The actual national holiday is Wednesday, May 1st, and most people are off on that day.
• To make it a 3-day weekend instead of a one-day holiday in the middle of the week, most people were also off yesterday on the 29th and today on the 30th.
• In order to get Monday and Tuesday off this week, most people worked this past Saturday and Sunday.

If that sounds a bit stupid to you, that’s because it is. People just finished a 7-day workweek, and then they get three days off in a row before going back to work for two and then having a normal weekend. There’s no such thing as a normal three or four-day weekend here in the Middle Kingdom. That has taken some getting used to here as an American who grew up accustomed to such weekends for Memorial Day, the 4th of July, Labor Day, and Thanksgiving. After working for seven days in a row, you’d think that a lot of people would be stoked about the chance to get three days off, relax, and possibly get out of town. Think again. Traveling during May Day is still complete chaos, as I can attest to from my hotel room in Dalian (大连 – dà lián), a coastal city in the Northeast region of China (东北 – dōng běi). Plane, train, and bus tickets are all hard to come by this time of year, hotels jack up their prices, and tourist destinations are packed to the brim with people. So much for a relaxing holiday!

A CCTV news bit from today about the holiday.

Luckily for me, I work in a foreign owned company that does not abide by the Chinese holiday standards. As such, I was able to finagle four consecutive days off without having to work for a week straight to make up for it. I know, I have it too easy here. Actually, in all my years of living in China, this is the first time I’ve actually gone on a trip over May Day. As I am most likely leaving Beijing and heading way down to Yunnan province at the end of this year, I figured now was as good a time as any to finally check this city out and cross Liaoning province (辽宁省 – liáo níng shěng) off my list. I’d love to someday be able to say that I’ve visited every province in China, and I don’t want to get to the point where I’ve been everywhere but Liaoning and I live on the complete opposite end of the country, because let’s face it, I probably wouldn’t come back up this way. Plus, it’s Labor Day, and dammit I’ve worked (somewhat) hard over the past year. Too bad I’m going to need a vacation from this vacation when it’s all said and done…

Want to read my hilarious story from 2010′s May Day? It involves me sleeping in a KTV in the middle of nowhere…

Stay tuned to the blog next month as I regale you with tales and videos from this trip, including my horror story of a Chinese tour group I was suckered into joining yesterday. I hope that sharing my painful experience with all of you will at least help some people avoid a similar travel disaster in the future. In the meantime, you can read an interesting opinion article from an actual Chinese person about why the Labor Day Golden Week should be restored. Or, to really practice your Chinese, you can check out this entry on nciku which is written in both English and Chinese.

While Datong itself is an interesting city with a long history, the main reasons for traveling there lie outside of the city. Most tourists travel here to visit the Yungang Grottoes (云冈石窟 – yún gāng shí kū), one of the three major Buddhist sculptural sites in China. Way back in the day, the Northern Wei Dynasty established their capital at Pingcheng, which is now known as Datong. Buddhism was adopted as the official religion, having made its way there via the Silk Road. The statues were completed between the years 460 and 525, and in total there are 252 grottoes with over 51,000 Buddha statues. Through the years, the statues have been exposed to heavy weathering; thus, many efforts have been made to repair and refurbish them. For example, wooden temples were built outside some of the caves during the Liao Dynasty, but they were destroyed in a fire some years later. Despite all of that, many of the statues are in fine condition, and walking through the many caves here really is an incredible experience.

Transport: Take bus #3 out of Datong city and ride it until the last stop. The fare is only 1 RMB/person.

Ticket: 150 RMB/person

Ling Yan Temple on the way into the grottoes.

Panorama of the temple.

Some of the many caves on site.

Just a few of the thousands of Buddha statues.

Structures built to protect the caves and statues.

The biggest statue at the Yungang Grottoes.

A nice quiet temple outside of the grottoes.

Time machine? Nope, it's part of the museum there.

Another place of interest in Datong is the Hanging Monastery (悬空寺 – xuán kōng sì), a temple built right into a cliff. Built in 491, this temple includes elements of three religions – Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism. Of course, it has been repaired on multiple occasions, but it is still an architectural wonder that it even exists in the first place! The monastery was built into the cliff side for a few reasons – to protect it from floods, rain, snow, and sunshine, and also to ensure a quiet environment for worshipping. Be prepared for a little bit of vertigo while walking around in the temple, and if you’re scared of heights, you might not want to look down!

Transport: It’s possible to get out here by switching buses a few times, but you’re better off just hiring a driver for the day. On our visit, we paid 70 RMB/person for a comfortable van to the temple, the mountain, and back.

Ticket: 130 RMB/person

Walking up to the Hanging Monastery.

What an incredible sight!

Buddhist statues in the temple.

It's just a little freaky up there...

From the Hanging Monastery, you might as well go visit Mt. Heng (恒山 – héng shān), one of the Five Great Mountains of China (五岳 – wǔ yuè). Don’t get it mixed up with the one in Hunan province, though, as they are both named Mt. Heng (the pronunciation is the same but a different Chinese character is used). To avoid confusion, people call this one Northern Heng. It’s also one of the five tallest mountains in the country, with its peak all the way up at 2,017 meters. Due to its northerly location, Mt. Heng isn’t regarded as highly as some of the other mountains. Actually, this makes for a very enjoyable visit, as you won’t be fighting hordes of tourists (like I did when I climbed Mt. Tai). A hike up the mountain isn’t too difficult, and there are plenty of temples to visit on the way up. For a more relaxing way down, you can take the cable car.

Transport: It’s just up the road from the Hanging Monastery, so have your driver take you there after visiting the temple.

Ticket: An entrance ticket is 55 RMB/person, and the cable car will set you back 25 RMB for a one-way ride or 45 round-trip.

A guy riding backwards on a donkey - it's part of the folklore of this mountain.

A view of Mt. Heng.

One of the many temples on the way up.

Taking the lazy way down.

Although all of this is doable in one very busy day, it’s much better to spread it out over two days – visit the Yungang Grottoes on your first day, explore the city a little bit, and then head out to the Hanging Monastery and Mt. Heng on the second day. Trains ride from Beijing station to Datong overnight, making this trip very feasible for a long weekend.