The Winter festival in Harbin - piks of this year's ice constructions.
by fulltimestudent 8 Replies latest social current
-
-
prologos
wow, must be nice to live among millions of industrious people if you have the leisure to enjoy it -
Xanthippe
Beautiful pictures thank you FTS. These sculptures amaze me every year. Harbin is a bitterly cold place to live though, brrrr! -
BluesBrother
Ii saw film of this on a foreign news station....mindblowing ! -
fulltimestudent
prologos : wow, must be nice to live among millions of industrious people if you have the leisure to enjoy it.
Internal travel/tourism is being promoted by the government among other things, as a means to achieve an economy not focused on low-cost production. This year service industries reached a point of being about 50% of GDP. My guess is that the number of people in China who enjoy a life style equivalent to upper middle in the west is now about 400 million, with about another 300 million in lower middle. But there's another class of people, the well-off peasant-farmers, and (just be personal observation) I think that a lot of internal travel is undertaken by people in that group.
But even the so-called 'migrant-workers' travel. During this year's 'spring festival,' (Chinese New Year) next month, China Rail is planning for 380 million rail journeys of which about 60% will be on the new high speed trains (around 300 km/hr) I think all seats are already booked. Millions more journeys will be made by bus and personal cars and planes.
And I havn't even mentioned external travel. In 2015, there were 62 million outbound tourists from China. Japan was in first place as a destination, and South Korea in second place. Australia is aiming to win 2,000,000 annual visits by Chinese tourists by 2020. The World Tourism Organisation predicts that by 2020 there will be 100 million Chinese tourists travelling the world.
Warning: do NOT visit China during national holidays, as a westerner unused to big crowds, you will not enjoy the visit.
-
flipper
Thank you, fulltimestudent, for posting this.
My 22 year old niece is living in Jilin and she loves it. She works as a teacher and has made good friends there. The ice sculptures are beautiful there, too.
Mrs. Flipper
-
fulltimestudent
flipper :
Thank you, fulltimestudent, for posting this.
My 22 year old niece is living in Jilin and she loves it. She works as a teacher and has made good friends there. The ice sculptures are beautiful there, too.
Mrs. FlipperSounds like your nice is enjoying herself. Seems lots of younger people report that the love living in China.
Jilin province, in particular is interesting, being so close to the Russian and North Korean borders and also having its own unique blending of peoples and cultures, down in the South east of the province there is the third Korea, the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture, which is mainly Korean people (albeit Chinese citizens). The majority native peoples of Jilin (and some other adjacent provinces) are Manchus, who captured China in the seventeenth century and formed the Qing dynasty (the last Imperial dynasty). There are Japanese influences also, as the Japanese wrested it off China during the long (150 years) of Qing/China weakness. Pu Yi, the last Qing Emperor became the Japanese puppet emperor of Manchukuo (the Japanese name for Manchuria) until 1945. And also up in the north Jilin adjoins Inner Mongolia (another Chinese province), with a somewhat different culture. The Manchus are a Mongolian sub-group, and the Mongolians (of course) have been one of the most influential peoples in the world. Their influence stretches from France (as the Huns) to Korea and Japan and across the Bering sea to form the ancestry of the north and south American native peoples.
Here's a couple of images of Mongolian 'fun' in winter:
The Winter Camel Culture Festival held in January.
Mongolian herding horses in Winter. Each winter there are also horseback events.
-
OrphanCrow
fts: Seems lots of younger people report that the love living in China.
Yes, my son lives in China. He loves it.
"Mom, China is supposed to be one of the countries with the least freedom, yet I feel more free here than anywhere else I have been."
-
fulltimestudent
No reason to post this image, except I liked it and wanted to share it. It was photographed in China's far northern province of Heilongjiang and is part of a series on Yilehuli Mountain of the Olunchun people.