Intersection of China, Russia, and North Korea

Saturday February 11, 2012

In an earlier blog post I ranted on about how cosmopolitan Harbin was. But I now regret that description.

While Harbin is genuinely proud of its multicultural roots, it is exactly that - a legacy. Current day Harbin is dominated by the Chinese Han population, and there are literally no Russian or Jewish people living there. The buildings and museums are all that remains of their contribution.

Then this week I discovered Hunchun.

Hunchun is the major city in the narrow wedge of China squeezed in between Russia and North Korea. As I type this I'm just 20km from the former and 10km from the latter. We're about 100km as the crow flies from Vladivostok, the remote Siberian port city made famous in Australia by a Tim Tam advertisement.

Hunchun: Trilingual signs illuminate an avenue of karaoke joints.

Being in such a strategic location Hunchun is cosmopolitan right here right now. While it lacks the obvious architectural icons of Harbin there are actual European Russian people living here, alongside ethnic Koreans, and the Han Chinese. There are old Babushka ladies eating toffee fruit on sticks! All the shop signs are trilingual - Cyrillic, Korean, Chinese.

The hotel that I'm staying at seems to be especially popular with Russians - at breakfast I was the only oriental customer in the dining room. On the streets there are Eastern European ladies strutting around, and burly Russian blokes being all burly.

South of the city is a village named Fangchuan, which is where China stops (!). The place is set on a hill and on a clear day from the same spot you can face west and see North Korea then swivel to the east to see Russian territory. On a very good day one can even enjoy a vista of the Sea Of Japan off the Russian coast.

Terrific, I'd love to visit! In fact that's what most tourists come to Hunchun for. My guide Mr Urm and I made the drive towards this geopolitical wonder.

Checkpoint near Hunchun on the road leading
out to Russia.

We reached an ominous looking military checkpoint about 20km short of Fangchuan. Mr Urm had to show his identification but the trouble began when they asked for my papers. When they saw from my Australian passport that I was a foreigner, my guide and the soldier began a vigorous debate.

We were denied entry. Or specifically I was denied entry.

The story is that when Kim Jong Il passed away in December, South Korean television news vans camped in Fangchuan to point their cameras into North Korea to record the reaction.

Who knew the North Korean authorities would be sensitive about that sort of thing?! They immediately requested Fangchuan be closed to foreigners and the Chinese authorities duly obliged.

Far from Kim Jong Un's warm palace

Note: An edited version of this blog post was published in the newspaper The Periscope Post.

Thursday February 9, 2012

"I remember as a kid regularly seeing dead bodies float down the river here." my guide Mr Urm quipped casually. On the banks of the River Tumen near Hunchun I had just asked whether many North Korean asylum seekers try to cross into China in this area. "They were all swollen - you know how corpses bloat after a little while?"

No, I didn't know. I'll take his word for it.

The Tumen River - which acts as the border between China, North Korea, and Russia further downstream - used to have more water and was a deadly hurdle for any North Korean wanting to escape their desperate situation. The strong current claimed bad and proficient swimmers alike, and those drowning victims are the ones a young Mr Urm and his mates saw.

Tumen River - North Korea on the left, China to the right (just outside Hunchun, China).

These days the depth of water is much lower in the Tumen, but fleeing from North Korea is no less dangerous. Even if you're fortunate enough to conquer the river without being detected by border patrol soldiers, China does not recognise North Korean escapees as refugees. If you're caught here then repatriation is immediate, and a long and painful "reprogramming" prison term back "home" is a certainty.

Like many countries China encourages the prosecution of "illegal" aliens with a RMB500 (AU$75) public reward. That's a week's wage for the average Chinese townsfolk.

"There are stories of refugees setting up a new life here in China for years - getting married, having kids - then some neighbour dobs them in and they're sent back." my guide told me. He then proceeded to gesture what sorts of torture they could expect.

In Tumen (the city) there is a detention centre on the Chinese side to hold asylum seekers before repatriation. However I couldn't pluck up enough courage to ask a local for directions, lest they thought I was a weirdo or a spy. Apparently even I have limits in seeking morbid "tourist" sites.

Being interested in North Korean affairs for many years I had decent prior knowledge of what a typical escapee endures. But seeing the sites where it all happens, in windy -10C degree weather, aroused a new level of consciousness of the oppressed folk across the river. I'm not reading about their plight from a book anymore, I'm on the banks of the freezing river where the perilous journey for refuge actually begins.

The North Korean asylum seeker demographic is different to other refugee streams in the world in that the majority are women. Once in China they're vulnerable to exploitation - many have been sold to Chinese farmers (as wives), bound as "hostesses" in seedy karaoke bars or even forced to concede their dignity for webcast on South Korean adult Internet sites. Yet like so many of the voiceless around the world they're forgotten.

A broken bridge over the Tumen River.
The guide commented the corn on the
Chinese side must be a cruel tease to the hungry.

There are those who have tried to publicise the awful situation faced by female North Korean asylum seekers. The two American journalists who were imprisoned by North Korea in 2009, pardoned only after a rescue mission from former President Bill Clinton, were inspecting this very same river, in the same area of China. They were working for a progressive television channel led by Al Gore, and were compiling reports on the exploitation of female asylum seekers. They also had a guide, and there is speculation the guide collaborated with the North Korean soldiers to setup the journalists as a diplomatic "prize". My contact who arranged the guide did ask me whether I was a writer or a reporter.

I mentioned the book Nothing To Envy in my North Korean trip blog in 2010. I have, and still do, recommend all to read it - Barbara Demick has written a wonderful account of the personal stories of six North Korean refugees. I have three copies floating around the world - let me know if you would like to borrow one!

Let's get nuts

Tuesday February 7, 2012

Owing to lunar new year this is the peak holiday period in China. Thus when I mentioned to people that I wanted to travel by train I was warned more than once that the experience would be stressful.

I was saying goodbye to Harbin for a ride to Yanji, 530km away. It would be a 12 hour overnight trip so naturally I wanted a sleeper ticket. But at this time of the year, forget it! I was told in no uncertain terms that I was lucky enough to even get a "hard seat" (economy). The ticket was just $6 so I thought "What choice have I got, I'll enjoy rubbing shoulders with the masses."

I walked to Harbin train station two-and-a-half hours early. I'll give myself plenty of time, sit back in the waiting room and read my Kindle - so I thought. The first omen for the night to come was the railway station itself. The station is massive like an airport, but there were so many people there was barely standing room. No seat in the waiting room was left vacant for more than a few milliseconds. There was a mad scramble as soon as an incumbent stood - I hadn't seen such feral behaviour since witnessing British passengers boarding my RyanAir flight to Barcelona. Yikes.

All aboard. No really, ALL! (Harbin station)

After standing around awkwardly for over two hours unable to even open the Kindle, the boarding announcement for my train came. The best way to describe the boarding "queue" is a 2000-person rugby union scrum. There were just three ticket inspectors at the turnstiles but thousands people rushed. The melee lasted a good forty minutes in the concourse before we actually saw the platform.

Once I took my economy bench seat I could tell the next twelve hours would be a physical and mental test. Every seat occupied shoulder-to-shoulder, benches that recline at a fixed 90-degree angle, standing ticket passengers in the aisle, unheated carriage with inch-thick frost on the inside window frame (see picture), stench of cigarette smoke... The cobblestone streets and the sophisticated shopping centres of Harbin already seemed another world away. Things were about to get REAL.

Frost inside the train.

The locals found comfort in cup noodles (hot water is provided on board) and Harbin sausages, while I finally opened my Kindle to occupy the time.

China has many comfortable modern "bullet" style locomotives running these days, but as this was not a major route our train was in the old rickety socialist style - plus we stopped at every tiny station with no signage. The destination also meant I was likely the only tourist on the train, and this was to be the modus operandi for the next few weeks as I travel off the beaten track.

Yanji station - I arrived a shell of a man. But I arrived.

As people alighted along the way a lucky minority were able to find themselves space to lie down and get some sleep. Unfortunately I was wedged between people the entire trip - in fact I wrote a lot of the notes for this blog post while stuck between two women sleeping with their heads on the table.

My shoulder was sore from carrying my pack, my legs were cramping from being in the same contorted position for hours, I was exhausted from lack of sleep, and I was shivering even with all my layers on. But after a week of touristy Harbin the real China was beginning NOW and I was full of glee.

Cosmopolitan Harbin

Saturday February 4, 2012

Street sign, Harbin.

Big fur hats, cobblestone streets, 19th century street lamps, Cyrillic signs, grand Art Nouveau buildings, and a city park named after Stalin. One would think we're in the Soviet Union, but we're sixty years and six thousand kilometres from Stalinist Moscow. I'm in Harbin, in the region of China historically known as Manchuria.

Harbin was a small village until the Russians built a railway through here in 1898 for a shorter route to Vladivostok. After the socialist revolution in Russia this city absorbed a large group of White Russian refugees, and became the biggest populace of Russians outside the Soviet Union. People from other eastern European countries also migrated here in the early 20th century - the 1913 census showed over fifty nationalities being represented. The city became the gateway through which western goods and trends arrived in China.

With such a cosmopolitan background the architecture is fascinating. And unusually for a Chinese city Harbin is very proud of its foreign heritage, with the local authorities very protective of the old buildings and streetscape against the pressures of modern development.

At the old part of Harbin - also the main tourist/shopping strip - one cannot turn anywhere without seeing gorgeous Russian-era buildings. Art nouveau and art deco are both well represented, along with pseudo-Baroque frontages.

A business must diversify to thrive.

The street itself is a charming sight with cobblestone, Victorian street lamps, signage in Cyrillic and is pedestrian only, in the purest sense - the one part of China without bicycles or cars to mow you down! There is an endless number of Russian souvenir shops selling not just the predictable Matryoshka dolls and tea sets, but bizarre items like massive busts of Lenin and menacing knives you could never hop on a plane with in this day and age.

At the northern end of the main street overlooking the Songhua River is Stalin Park. Russians stopped naming things after Stalin fifty years ago! And the White Russians came to Harbin to escape the Communists! One would guess the park was named by the Chinese Harbinites.

Harbin: A Jewish wedding, 1930s.

There was a significant Jewish community in this city - initially amongst the Russian immigrants, and later from Germans fleeing Nazi persecution. The New Synagogue now hosts a very good museum depicting their life in Harbin, where the Chinese proudly declare their role in providing the "wandering peoples" a safe home. The Old Synagogue has also been preserved, currently used as a hostel. A large Jewish cemetery still exists in the suburbs, and has regularly hosted Israeli dignitaries and visitors.

Many of the Orthodox churches have disappeared but the impressive St Sofia in the centre of the city is still standing as Harbin's premier tourist attraction. Fittingly the building now houses an architecture museum/gallery. St Sofia is now accompanied by a large European style square, the site and church having been renovated in the 1990s.

Harbin: St Sofia Orthodox Church

A couple of mosques remain in Harbin - I visited the Turkish one in the middle of old town which has been long abandoned.

At the end of World War II the USSR took back Harbin from the occupying Japanese, and briefly administered it before handing over to Communist China. Under Soviet administration many Russian Harbinites were forcibly repatriated (to labour camps). Some, along with the other Europeans, fled to countries like Australia and the United States. I was told back in Australia that almost all people of Harbin heritage you'd meet in Sydney are Caucasian.

After my lukewarm impression of Beijing in 2010 the rich mix of cultures in Harbin has charmed and restored my faith in Chinese cities.