Northeast China 中国东北

Northeast China (东北; Dōng​běi​) was historically known as Manchuria. In ancient times, this was an area of steppes and fierce nomadic tribes, outside the Great Wall built to protect China from those tribes. In 1644, the Manchus from this region crossed the wall, conquered China, and founded the Qing Dynasty which lasted until 1911.

The Northeast brings some bitter-sweet memories to us. My first visit was to Heilongjiang back in 1985 when I visited Harbin to visit my dearest friends and mentor, Tom & Diane Lawrence. I was there during Christmas and we celebrated the occasion. The second visit was in 1987 for our honeymoon. We visited Harbin to see the Ice Festival. Then we visited Jilin to see one of the most beautiful phenomenon that occurs there:Rime (when the water droplets in fog freeze onto objects they touch). In this instance, it was the trees along the river. We were not disappointed. However as we were making our way through a park later in the morning, we were mugged and beaten up. We ended up spending Chinese New Year in the hospital and the rest of our honeymoon got canceled. But the most devastating part was that during the struggle with the attacker, the camera opened and all the photos I had taken in our honeymoon were destroyed. Our third visit was in 2014 when we took Victor to see the Ice Festival in Harbin. Our fourth visit in 2018, we wanted to retrace our original honeymoon trip with additional sights.

Explore Northeast China 探索东北