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China Harbin 中国哈尔滨
ICE & SNOW Sculptures! 请来光赏冰雕！
The temperature in Harbin reaches forty below zero, both Fahrenheit and
centigrade, and stays below freezing nearly half the year. The city is actually
further north than notoriously cold Vladivostok, Russia, just 300 miles away.
So what does one do here every winter? Hold an outdoor festival, of course!
Rather than suffer the cold, the residents of Harbin celebrate it, with an
annual festival of snow and ice sculptures and competitions. This is the
amazing sculpture made of snow greeting visitors to the snow festival in 2003.
Snow and ice sculpture in Harbin dates back to Manchu times, but the first
organized show was held in 1963, and the annual festival itself only started in
1985. Since then, the festival has grown into a massive event, bringing in over
a million tourists from all over the world every winter. The sculptures have
become more elaborate and artistic over time; this bear and cub are just one
small part of a fifty-meter-wide mural sculpture
Most of the sculptures appearing at the snow festival are competitive entries.
Each team starts with a cube of packed snow that appears to measure about three
meters on a side, and then starts carving away. Teams come in from all over the
world - Russia, Japan, Canada, France, even South Africa. Part of the fun is
guessing the nationality of the team, based on their sculpture's artistic style,
before reading the signs. I believe this was a Russian entry.
The sun begins to set behind the magnificent entryway sculpture. The snow
festival is actually separate from the ice festival; both take place on the wide
open spaces of Sun Island Park north of Harbin's river, Songhua Jiang. Harbin
is situated south of the river, so it's a chilly ride over to the sites. It
seems even chillier when crossing the bridge over the very wide and very frozen
Songhua Jiang.
I was surprised to discover this sculpture of a Native American sitting in the
frozen northeast of China; sure enough, I read on the sign that a Canadian team
sculpted this entry. Chinese teams had many sculptures at the festival as well,
off in another section, but a vast majority didn't measure up to these amazing
works.
Even the sunsets in Harbin look cold. Though only mid-afternoon, the sun was
setting over the snow festival and the temperature was falling even further
below freezing. But the coming darkness was actually good news, because it
meant that the ice festival was about to begin.
The ice festival, a few miles away from the snow festival, is anything but dull
and colorless. Crowds flocking to the entrance are greeted by dance music
booming in the distance, as if at an outdoor pop concert. And bright neon
colors shine everywhere, buried within huge blocks of ice forming structures as
high as thirty meters, such as this huge structure beyond the entryway. You can
just make out people standing atop its blue and red stairway.
A view from atop that structure, looking back on a Russian-styled building and a
mock Great Wall, both constructed out of ice. Making it to the top of this
structure is an accomplishment in itself - imagine walking up a stairway of
solid ice for two floors with no handrails. The yellow block wall on the right
and the balconywork on the lower left are all ice, with no internal support
structure - just lights.
The Great Wall doubles as a long ice slide; just sit and go. You can pick up
some serious speed and wipe out spectacularly at the bottom if you're wearing a
slick coat, but you won't go anywhere if you're wearing corduroy pants.
An overview of the ice festival from atop the Great Wall of ice. It's like a
Disney theme park, with multiple attractions and food hawkers and kids running
around and people lined up for bathrooms. The only differences are that the
temperature is about a hundred degrees colder than the typical Disney park, and
all the structures are made out of ice rather than plastic - and slipping and
falling here doesn't result in tremendous lawsuits.
One of the popular activities at the festival is climbing a wall of solid ice.
Amazingly, I didn't see a single person fall, and most everyone made it to the
top. All the ice comes from Songhua Jiang, the nearby river, which provides a
limitless supply; huge chainsaws are required to cut through the ice, which can
be meters thick.
The snow festival is mostly a display of art; the ice festival is mostly a
display of architecture. Nevertheless, a number of sculptures can be found at
the ice festival, such as this life-sized horse. Agile youngsters with good
balance climb atop the horses to have their pictures taken. Notice the layers
of ice in the horse; blocks of ice are fused together to form larger blocks so
that sculptures - or huge buildings - can be made.
An entire ship constructed of ice, with passengers onboard. Though it might not
be seaworthy, the ship would certainly float - after all, it's made of ice.
Hundreds of years ago during the Manchu days of ice lantern art, the sculptures
were lit only by candles.
A Thai temple of ice, complete with hallways and rooms inside. Long ago, Disney
made a Circle-Vision 360 film called "Wonders of China" - still showing at the
China pavilion in the World Showcase at EPCOT - which includes a brief section
on Harbin's ice festival. In the movie, the sculptures are quite low-key,
little more than blinking light bulbs inside small globes and ice carvings.
Things have changed a bit since those days.
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