大宝 - Da Bao

People are going to stop believing me soon... I swear there are bad times out here and I could write a thousand miserable blog entries. That said, Harbin has been absolutely phenomenal. So much so that getting it all down in a blog doesn't even play on my mind... just remembering it all for myself and how it all came about is enough of a chore! The photos which I'll put up soon will give some idea.

Right now just waiting for my car to come and pick me up to take me to the airport before I head back to QD. That would be the same driver who on the way from the airport drove me through a forest just to save me 20RMB at the toll gates. I now know why theme park rides don't do so well out here, who needs them?!

Harbin's top five attractions:

1) My snot freezing
2) The highly illegal cab ride - if you make it here his cell number is 13845078526
3) The ice - but one does get 'ice-sculptured-out' after the first 200'
4) The incredibly 'standard' Mandarin they speak - it's a dream for practicing
5) 大宝 - Da Bao (and Nolie)... that would be my new Harbin mate(and Irish one), who stole the title line and saved you all from something cliched like 'The Big Freeze'.

However Harbin's biggest drawback was certainly the fact that everyone thought I was Russian and as a result seemed to ignore or avoid me until I forced them to talk to me. That is not meant to sound like it did. Basically for historic and geographical reasons Harbin has a lot of Russians, but it seems to me that the two groups stay fairly segregated, apart from the rather large prostitution industry. So in one look the locals clock me as having white skin, and therefore Russian. It also means that while there is still curiosity re westerners, it is not to the same extent as elsewhere.

For once I have no idea where to start. As if the rushed ticket purchase to come here wasn't enough, while in QD I then had to arrange for some other tickets I had ordered to be delivered to me at my Harbin hotel once I had arrived, for fear of the price going up if I waited until I got back to QD. That left me waiting in the hotel lobby for an hour, during which I asked every Chinese person who walked in if they had my ticket. It eventually arrived. As this was going on I overheard a guy speaking a nice Irish dialect of Mandarin, so I asked him if he had been to the tiger park. He'd never heard of it, so within 2mins I had dumped my stuff in my room, changed my timetable and was in a mini-van (probably Da Bao's work borrowed work unit van) with Rolie (the Irishman) and Da Bao himself, a local he'd met in a bar the night before who spoke no English. Da Bao had also been one of the randoms I had accused of having my ticket. Rolie thought I already knew Da Bao, Da Bao thought I already knew Rolie, and I was just thanking my stars for getting a free lift to see Tigers eat live animals. Needless to say everyone got on famously. After two decapitated chickens, two churches, and a big roast up Rolie was heading back to Shanghai and Da Bao had agreed to hang out with me on Sunday night.

It seems he not only to have borrowed his work unit van, but also given up a huge amount of his holiday time, and embarrassingly at times shelled out for a number of beers and slabs of meat. He also told me exactly what sights to waste time on and those not to, and gave me a list of bars for Saturday night. He cleverly saved the best club for last night - Number One Club - which between the variety show at the start and the dancing later was brilliant.

As for the name behind the man: Da Bao literally means Big and Treasure, and that is what this guy is - an absolute star. The hospitality shown to me by an absolute stranger was overwhelming. And unlike many of the cynical stories one can have out here, there's no conn or payback involved. Just a sincere interest, curiosity, and a hope of maintaining contact. Rolie took some local food to the Shanghai area for DB's brother (a DJ in WenZhou), and I spoke to a daughter of his friend about learning English, but for us that's no effort. DB also wants a CD of Scottish pipe music, 'like in Braveheart', so I'll work on that when I get back.

One of the funniest thing about DB is probably his mobile. He has a collection of photos, mainly porn, but also a large section of them are of atomic explosions. He has named this specific collection 日本升云 Japan Rising Cloud. This didn't as I though just mean Hiroshima, or Japan's atom bomb, it had a more figurative and gruesome meaning of Japan literally rising up in a cloud. It seems DB is not a fan.

Right, I have to put my stuff away and check-out. My now 'regular' driver in QD plans to pick me up from the airport and get me to class by 3:30! Now lets see if I can stay put for a few days.

And on that note DB has just given me a call to say he's coming to say bye in 5mins...

D. x