Dalian

Our hotel room in Dalian was beautiful and made our last hotel look like a dump. In the morning I woke to a view that reminded me of Pittsburgh, imaginary Russia, and imaginary Scandinavia.

The breakfast buffet also made the last hotel look like a joke. There was a sushi section, an Italian section, a British section, an American section and of course an extensive Asian section. After breakfast I went for a long run and then set out independently to explore the city. I had the hotel write down in Chinese several locations I wanted to visit: Russian street, the train station and a museum. I also obtained a Chinese/English map compliments of the Hilton.

Places to go

I hopped in a cab and headed to "Russian street". Geographically Dalian is in Northern China, close to North Korea, and not terribly far from Russia or Japan for that matter. Russian street was cold, windy, and very Russian looking though I’ve never been to Russia. There were tea shops and vendors selling Russian nesting dolls, candy, and of course bags of dried Chinese fish. While I walked about a young man asked to have his picture taken with me. He spoke English and was from Malaysia. I had heard of this, people wanting to take pictures with white people and I guess I was somewhat of a commodity as I was the only Caucasian I saw for the whole day. The Malaysian man would be the only other English speaker I saw on the streets on this day.

Note the handmade broom. These became a theme.

Russian street tourist wares

I would notice more of these guard deer as the trip progressed.

One of the only "authentic" Russian building on Russian street according to locals. 

Russian Street

One more of Russian street

I then walked to the train station to try and obtain more information about trains to Beijing however for a later portion of our trip. The internet kept going out and the train station website was meh so I figured I would just pop on in and grab a timetable. My plan was foiled as I found that no one spoke any English. NONE. I tried to mime a schedule by making a book with my hands but the train station employees were unwilling to play charades so I left the train station and aborted this portion of my mission.

I caught another cab to take me to a Japanese section of town. It was pretty, but I was feeling tired and a little under the weather so I caught a cab back to the hotel and ordered French fries to my room to recover.

You might be wondering by now why Dalian China has Russian and Japanese themed streets. I found out from our hosts and the internet that because of its northeast location Dalian had been fought over as a territory by Russians and Japanese. According to the internet Dalian was actually founded by the Russians in 1898. There is even a museum in Dalian dedicated to showcasing the atrocities committed upon the Chinese by the Japanese during an occupation. 

In present day, Dalian is a big manufacturing town with a population approaching seven million people. This is where the stuff gets made. It didn’t feel smoky or oppressive. I imagined it would be like London in the industrial revolution but it wasn’t. It felt like a modern city with historical charm.  

Joseph got back to the hotel and presented me with a gift of more tea from Mrs. Jang who I had not yet met. Dalian is the hometown of our friend Mr. Jang and I guess Mrs. Jang wanted us to have a positive first impression of Dalian. A dinner date had been arranged and we were picked up in yet another Mercedes and shuttled through rush hour traffic to dinner. The driver of this car was also our Dalian based interpreter, a man who went by the name of Carter. On the ride over Carter was complaining about some of the guys at a factory he and Joseph had toured that day. He was annoyed because they were Japanese and maintained the Japanese custom of bowing. His attitude was when in Rome.. or rather, when in China, don't bow. It was then that we got some insight on the prior Chinese/Japanese conflict. We found out that Carter's grandfather was murdered by the Japanese which explained some of his obvious animosity for the Japanese. Is it racist or reasonable to dislike a culture because their people murdered your grandfather? I'm still trying to figure that one out.

Found in the bathroom of where we ate dinner. I only took one piece.

The restaurant was multi story building and glammed out. We were ushered to a private room with a giant round table and the ever present lazy susan. Then the food train started. As established earlier in the trip that I was a vegetarian there were a plethora of vegetarian dishes to choose from. Dalian is a port town known for it’s seafood and there were a variety of familiar and not so familiar fish dishes as well. Mr. Jang had an immense amount of hometown pride and was excited to tell us all about the local specialties. Mushrooms were strongly represented and I was educated on the different mushrooms only available in Northern China. I ate as many of these mushrooms as humanly possible.  At the end of dinner Joseph, having consumed a great amount of Chinese liquor and Tsingtao beers, whispered to me that we were going to "teach these people about hugs".

I'm still a little unclear on the peace sign trend but we went with it.

In the lobby of the restaurant, because baller Chinese restaurants have lobbies, there was a decent sized aquarium of death which we noticed as we exited. Mr. Jang wanted us to tour it and it was interesting to look at the fish, frogs, and salamanders, but depressing. Worsening the experience was the presence of a sole goose and chicken standing solitary in cages. They were depressed. They showed no sign of fight. They would soon be eaten. I tried to contain myself. We exited the lobby and made way through the cool night to our car. Our hosts walked us to our car and we hugged the whole crew. Back at the hotel I treated the depression of discovering the aquarium of death by talking with Joseph and visiting the sauna.

Without a doubt the lives I witnessed at the aquarium of death were sad and represent in a very visual manner many of the reasons I am a vegetarian. And at this point you could point a finger and say that there was something barbaric about what we saw. But is it really more barbaric than ordering a chicken sandwich at your local McDonalds or any old restaurant? In the American scenario you don't get to lay eyes on the miserable life before it makes its way to your mouth. What I saw in China was more honest. And perhaps if everyone had to stare down their dinner down before they ate it there would be more vegetarians. As a result of the aquarium experience Joseph promised he would return to vegetarian ways when we returned home. He also consoled me  by pointing out that as a result of my choice to not eat meat our whole group ate less meat than they would have by virtue of at least 50% of our meals being meatless to please me. So in a very small way I made a difference.

Next time: High speed trains and a real smog factory town. And buddhists.