Harbin city - China

Harbin (simplified Chinese: 哈尔滨; traditional Chinese: 哈爾濱; pinyin: Hāěrbīn; Wade-Giles: Ha-erh-pin; ), is a sub-provincial city and the capital of the Heilongjiang Province in Northeast China. It lies on the southern bank of the Songhua River. Harbin is the tenth largest city in China (pop. 9.87 million), serving as a key political, economic, scientific, cultural and communications hub in Northeastern China.
Harbin is originally a Manchu word meaning "a place for drying fishing nets". Harbin has very cold winters and is often called "Ice City". Harbin is well-known for its beautiful ice sculptures in winter and plays an important part in China's trade with Russia. In the 1920s, Harbin was considered China's fashion capital as new designs from Paris and Moscow reached there first before arriving in Shanghai.[1] Harbin is also a potential candidate for the 2022 Winter Olympics.
The Harbin local culture is based on Han culture, combined with Manchu culture and Russian culture. This combination of cultures influences the local architecture style, food, and customs. Harbin is famous for its standard Mandarin pronunciation, and is therefore considered a very good place to study Mandarin. As the saying goes, 'If you want to study Chinese, go to China. If you want to study Mandarin, go to Beijing. If you want to study standard Mandarin, go to Harbin.'
Russian influence
Main article: Harbin Russians
Harbin today is still very much influenced by its Russian past. A city once under Russian rule, it is now a center of trade with that country.
The influence of Russia came with the construction of the China Far East Railway, an extension of the Trans-Siberian Railway, and Harbin, known formerly as a fishing village began to prosper as the largest commercial, economic center of North Eastern Asia.
Tsarist Russia encouraged Russian settlement in their important Trans-Siberian-Railway outpost by waiving the then 25 year long military service. For Jews who settled there, the restrictions applying in Russia were also waived.
The local cuisine in Harbin is also Russian-influenced. Harbin's bakeries are famous for their bread (lie-ba in local dialect, derived from the Russian word khleb for "bread"). Harbin's sausages (qiu-lin hong-chang) are another notable product, in that they tend to be of a much more European flavour than other Chinese sausages.
Winter culture
Harbin is located in Northeast China under the direct influence of the cold winter wind from Siberia. The average temperature in summer is 21.2 degrees Celsius, −16.8 degrees Celsius in winter.
The annual Harbin International Ice and Snow Sculpture Festival has been held since 1985. Although the official start date is January 5 each year, in practice, many of the sculptures can be seen before. While there are ice sculptures throughout the city, there are two main exhibition areas: Enormous snow sculptures at Sun Island (a recreational area on the opposite side of the Songhua River from the city) and the separate "Ice and Snow World" that operates each night. Ice and Snow World features illuminated full size buildings made from blocks of ice. Winter activities in the festival include Yabuli Alpine Skiing, winter-swimming in Songhua River, and the ice-lantern exhibition in Zhaolin Garden. Snow carving and ice and snow recreations are world famous.
The "Harbin International Ice and Snow Festival" is one of the world's four largest ice and snow festivals, along with Japan's Sapporo Snow Festival, Canada's Quebec City Winter Carnival, and Norway's Ski Festival.
Every November, the city of Harbin sends teams of ice artisans to the United States to promote their unique art form. It takes more than 100 artisans to create ICE!, the annual display of indoor Christmas-themed ice carvings in Nashville, Tennessee; Kissimmee, Florida; and Grapevine, Texas.
Winter sports
The third Winter Asian Games took place in Harbin in 1996. The city of Harbin bid for hosting the 2010 Winter Olympics. The Alpine skiing events would have taken place in the Yabuli ski resort. In the frame of this campaign to assert its role on the world scene, Harbin was the host city of the 2009 Winter Universiade. Harbin planned to spend US$ 1.5 billion in construction and renovation of its sport infrastructure for this Universiade. Harbin also bid for the 2012 Winter Youth Olympics, but was passed over so still has its sights on the Olympics, perhaps in 2022.
Harbin has produced many world-class winter sports champions, including short track star and six-time Olympic medalist Wang Meng, 2006 pairs figure skating silver medalists Zhang Dan and Zhang Hao[14] and 2010 Vancouver Olympics figure skating gold medalists Shen Xue and Zhao Hongbo.
Harbin Summer Music Concert
Harbin Summer Music Concert ('Concert' for short) is a national concert festival, which is held on August 6 every two years for a period of 10~11 days. During the concert, multiple evenings, concert, race and activities are held. The artists come from all over the world. The 'Harbin Summer Music Month', which was then renamed as 'Harbin Summer Music Concert', was held in August 1958. The first formal Concert was held on August 5, 1961 in Harbin Youth Palace, and kept on every year until 1966 when the Cultural Revolution started in China. In 1979, the Concert was recovered and from 1994, it has been held every two years. In 2008, the 29th Harbin Summer Music Concert was held on August 6. HUNTING GAMES AT TAOSHAN
The hunting Ground at Taoshan (Peach Mountains) is China's first hunting ground opened to foreign tourists. Located at the western foot of the lesser Xing'an Mountains, it covers more than 49,410 acres of vast virgin forest, and is only a four-hour train ride north of Harbin.
Game includes bears, red deer, wild boar, lynx, otters, weasels, snow rabbits and squirrels.
ICE-CARVINGS SHOWS
These are held in Zhaolin Park in January and February every year. Ice-carvings of a great variety are displayed. In the evening, the whole park is lit with lanterns, and the glittering ice-sculptures turn it into a shining crystal palace.