Ice & Beer: The Frozen North

| published December 13, 2105 |

By Michael Bush, Thursday Review writer

Since this is my family's first tropical Christmas, we've found the Malaysian heat makes it hard to really get into the holiday spirit. You can hang tinsel from the tip of your nose if you want, but it won't make a difference when you step outside and burst into immediate humidity sweats. For us, hot does not equal Christmas. Now, I've got friends from South Africa and Australia that would beg to differ, stating that hot DOES make them think of Ol' St. Nick. But since I'm from Alabama, to me Christmas equals cold, or at least chilly. We may not have had many White Christmases when I was young; in fact, I only remember a slight dusting of snow during the holidays maybe once or twice as a kid, but I damn sure don't recall it being 95 degrees Fahrenheit on Christmas Eve.

Now, the article I plan to write next week deals with being an expat living abroad during the holiday season, and how it's up to you to make them extraordinary. So, in that vein, I've been trying to put myself in the Christmas mindset this week. I've been thinking cold. And it took me back to the coldest place I've ever visited; Harbin, China. Harbin is a city of confusing food, strange sights, and an odd mix of people. Because of its proximity to Russia, only 250 miles to the nearest border crossing, there is quite a large Russian population in this far northern Chinese city. Russians have been a part of the town since around 1898 when they were helping build the Chinese Eastern Railway. Many Russian refugees from WWI ended up in Harbin, as well. So the city has a kind of split personality, one part being Chinese and the other being Russian.

Two things brought my wife and me to this freezing cold city, a place that is said to have one of the harshest winters in China. First is the Harbin Ice and Snow Festival (哈尔滨国际冰雪节), which started in 1963 and is the primary source of income for the city, as it brings in a whopping 14 million visitors each year. It's a big, beautiful, dazzling fairground built completely out of ice and snow, with snow sculptures dotting the landscape. LED lights are placed in the ice to lend a magical glow at nighttime that looks like something out of a science-fiction fairy tale. The second reason Harbin drew us in was their special local beer. Harbin beer—world famous in some circles—is arguably the best in all of China. I recently wrote of my band's exploits in Qingdao, the home of Tsingtao beer, you may recall. Now, while the fresh beer found far to the south in the beach town of Qingdao is far superior to any other Chinese beer, the stuff you find in bottles and cans in China is always best with the words "HARBIN" printed on the side.

We left the kids in the care of some close friends back in Shanghai, and off we flew to the frigid northern reaches of China. With an odd assortment of many layers, we were bound and determined not to freeze our butts off. The advice our friends had all unanimously given us was that though it was cold outside, a vast array of underground pipes provided the city with unbelievable heating, and it was therefore always steaming hot indoors. "Layers are essential," they told us. To survive, you would shed some items inside while remaining clothed enough that if someone opened the door, you wouldn't immediately die from frostbite.

Merissa and I arrived at our hotel and fled into the night in search of fresh things to see and do. We stayed right in the middle of town, along what was claimed to be the world's longest pedestrian street. It was an odd thing because we felt as if we had been transported out of China and into a random European city. Nothing seemed Chinese on this road, except some of the ice sculptures that had Chinese themes.

After a long walk, and some excellent Korean food, we grew a thirst for this special drink they call beer. We continued to walk and walk and walk and walk… you get the picture. No one sold beer. There were no bars. It was a Disney-esque Main Street of horrors. "Where the hell is my Harbin beer?" I wanted to scream to the black sky. And then another soft glow, one similar to the many ice sculptures nearby, caught my eye.

The familiar Heineken sign and its softly glowing green worried me, as I was afraid that I would never find this Harbin beer they speak of. Never mind that I drank it all the time back in Shanghai; the point was to have this world-famous nectar at the source. But my fears were put to rest as we entered the bar. Harbin Beer was plentiful inside this artsy little pub, run by a semi-famous Chinese photographer. It was a pretty cool place, one that we returned to the next night for more.

The following morning, we wanted to get out and see some of the city before heading into the festival that evening. We strapped on our boots, layered our clothing in heaps, and set forth. In all honesty, we didn't find it to be that cold. I mean, yes it was cold, but we had our layers on and all was toasty within our soft armor of wool and cotton. We later found out that it was unseasonably warm during our visit. Either way, we soon discovered that unseasonably warm or not, being surrounded by thousands of square feet of ice…tons and tons and tons of massive ice blocks…but we'll get back to that.

We found some random structures built from ice blocks, as you do when wandering in China. Then we came upon the Saint Sophia Cathedral (聖索菲亞教堂), a Russian Orthodox Church built between 1907-1932. When I tell you it is confusing in Harbin, I mean it. Imagine being in Northern China, seeing people eat dog meat, spending all day speaking in Mandarin to set up your travel arrangements, and dealing with the typical tourist scams abundant in China, and then turning the corner and seeing this.

You'll just about hit the frozen ground, which is probably just as dirty as the Shanghai streets, except all the blood and boogers here will be frozen. Which might be better? Anyway, the cathedral is gorgeous inside and out. Such a stand out in that city, and one of my favorite sights in China, oddly enough, just because of how out of place it is.

Later, after lunch in a Russian restaurant where the food was decent (at best) despite the hype, we made plans to hit the festival. Now, many people have written about how to get to the festival. Steps to follow on how best to achieve that which you desire. That's great! But, no one ever said, "You HAVE to do it this way, or it's going to be frickin' awful." So, I just ignored all the blogs, and articles telling me how to git-r-done, and went rogue. I speak Chinese, after all! So I decided to set transport up for myself. It failed miserably. The scams running on this festival touch every single taxi in the city. You won't come out of this experience unscathed, I promise you. So, I went to the front desk in the hotel and asked their advice. Funnily enough, the scams on getting to the festival even go up the chain of command to desk clerks! It's all one big "let's make money off the tourists" game. And not just laowai tourists (the Mandarin word for foreigners) either; they were scamming even the Chinese tourists.

When I say scam, what I mean is that everything is just a way to put money in their own pocket instead of the proper channels. Everyone has “tickets” to the festival. But “ticket” turns out to be a pretty loose term. Taxi driver? He sells tickets. The desk clerk at the hotel? She has tickets for sale. The priest at the church (I cannot confirm this, it's just a guess)? He's probably got tickets for sale. The problem is, you buy the ticket and it supposedly includes transport to and from the festival, but to use the return trip you can only stay for a specified amount of time at the festival…yeah, it's a major pain in the butt.

I got our tickets from the clerk who said that the bus would be arriving soon to take us. It didn't. We waited for a long time. Eventually, a small van showed up, that stopped every two seconds to cram more and more and more people into the sweaty, acrid stink of the small vehicle. When we eventually arrived at the festival, all of the occupants of StinkVans-R-Us piled out, and we were herded liked cattle through the hundreds of thousands of people trying to gain entry into the Harbin Ice and Snow Festival.

We were led to the front, leaving behind the milling masses of shivering bodies waiting in line. "Hey," I thought, "maybe this isn't so bad after all!"

Ahem. It's China, y'all. Things are hardly ever easy in China.

They began by taking us through what looked like cattle cages, moving us towards the front. Suddenly a few people jumped the line…cut the line…however, you want to say it. Because we were at the back, and the man leading us in had a certain number of tickets, and they were counting heads as they entered…we were refused entry, along with a Chinese family. Too many people had snuck into our line, and we were pushed back. I began to calmly tell the man that we paid and we need to get in there now, or I'll lose my sanity and devour his entire body in one bite. You can't lose your cool in these situations while in China, or you'll make the other person lose face. That's a big no-no. Soon, they found replacement tickets for us, and we were pushed through. We had made it. The lights, the ice, and the snow…it was breathtaking and worth all the troubles we had gone through to get there. We took a horse and carriage ride through the grounds, gazing at the seemingly impossible ice structures. We walked along until our feet began to freeze in our boots. Like I said, in the fairgrounds it was intensely cold.

We had long ago, probably as soon as we arrived, decided not to take the StankVan back. We would just find a taxi and pay the exorbitant extortion rates he would undoubtedly charge us to return to the City. So, with that in mind, we had plenty of time to roam the grounds. Although, it was becoming uncomfortably cold and we were growing hungry. So we found a restaurant and warming station, slid into a booth, and ordered some grub. The food was fairly standard Chinese tourist attraction junk. Not great, but it gets the job done. But what waited for us in the cups, was something that I'll never recover from. It was a drink that to this day I still remember as horrid and vile even above shots of Chinese moonshine. It was hot Coca-Cola.


All over the city, and the festival, there are stalls set up with Coca-Cola signs emblazoned across the front. There was never a need to stop and find out more because I can read the sign. They sell Coke. So it wasn't until we sat in this little warming station/restaurant that we ordered our first Coca-Cola in Harbin. When they arrived, the cups were steaming. The soda within, hot to the touch; as hot as coffee. Upon sipping the horrendous sludge, I found the carbonation was long gone. It was just a dark and ominous cup of hot sugary syrup, and I hated it. Afterward, I noticed that at all the Coca-Cola stands they only had a large coffee pot, with heated Coke inside. Of course they didn't sell cold soda, what was I thinking. It was freezing outside. But that frozen wasteland would have to spread down to the Devil's territory before I ever sipped steaming soda again. Some things are meant to be served chilled, period.

Moving on, we came to a frozen house. It was probably my favorite part of the festival. There were massive frozen castles and big crazy sculptures all around us, but something about the familiarity of everyday objects being made out of ice blocks was really charming. I loved it! Ice bed, ice couch, ice chair, etc. Then, next to the frozen house we found my wife's favorite part of the festival; the ice slide!

Having had our fill of excitement and frozen water, we decided to return to our hotel. On our way out of the festival, both of us tired and ready to sit in a heated taxi for 30 minutes, I spotted a once in a lifetime opportunity. For a couple of bucks, I could hold an arctic fox. It was so cute that I was compelled to embrace the furry little guy. Merissa had gotten to hold the last wild animal at a Chinese tourist attraction (I'll write about the pandas another day), so this time, it was my turn.

After a few minutes of snuggles, I returned the fox to his handler and we strode off into the cold night. We found a taxi almost immediately upon exiting the fairgrounds, and I agreed to his ransom demands straight away. No haggling. It was too cold to give a damn. He showed us to his car, and then disappeared, saying he would be right back. The driver took his time coming back to the taxi, probably trying to find another person to ride with us and maximize his money. Eventually, he arrived and we left, returning to the supposedly longest pedestrian street in the world. We ambled back towards the hotel, our feet aching from the long day. Nothing, absolutely nothing, was going to stop me from stripping off all of these layers and roasting in the hot hotel room until I fell asleep.

Then I noticed a green glow from my left, and a smile spread across my face. There was one more ultimate Harbin experience I need to revisit before our flight the following morning that would return us to Shanghai and our kids. I felt like a king as I descended the familiar steps from the night before. And a king? He needs a crown. Preferably one full of Harbin Beer.

Related Thursday Review articles:

Bugging Out: The Value of Trying Creepy Things to Eat; Michael Bush; Thursday Review November 21, 2015.

Thank the Lord for Ice Cream!; Michael Bush; Thursday Review; October 23, 2015.