Go to Qiqihar

This is the first time I have walked into this outdoor store, which is located in the parking lot of a shopping mall in Wuhan. I love these slogans: "Terry fabric makes wearing more comfortable." "Occasionally. This warm and waterproof hiking shoe is suitable for daily winter activities."

The fifth day of the first lunar month is the time to set off. A few days ago, Wuhan showed a spring scene. I was nervous about this trip, besides the cold, and having to wake up early. I prefer to be alone, but I definitely feel uncomfortable being around a group of people for that long. I once hoped that the magazine editor would tell me that this business trip was temporarily canceled.

However, I watched the plane land at Harbin Airport. Outside the window, I could see the runway outside, covered with thin snow, which was very dazzling when illuminated by the sun. People listened to the radio with special attention. That day was the fifth day of the lunar calendar. Most people returned home from vacation in Hainan, and their luggage racks were filled with seafood and tropical fruits. A gentle reminder sounded: The temperature outside the machine at this time was minus seventeen degrees. Fortunately, when I first entered the airport, just like in Guangzhou, there was a row of changing rooms.

I'm meeting a group of people. We will stay together for more than twenty days. Qiqihar, the first stop, was the coldest, and then we headed south from Harbin to Shenyang. After Shenyang, we drove all the way to Balinzuo Banner in Inner Mongolia, looking for ancient pagodas from the Liao Dynasty along the way.

Soon, I got in the car. This is a very long journey. This tour group is like the kind of minibuses that drive to towns and villages. Every time I go to a new city, there are always new friends joining or leaving. (Usually Wang Hanyang’s friends) We shared the Northeast seen through different eyes, and Wang Hanyang told an interesting story. For a while, he was curious about some Northeasterners who did not seal their balconies. With the long winters here, it's not a wise choice. He came to the conclusion that it was those romantic people who, despite the short summer, still wanted to enjoy the breeze on the balcony.

In the car that day, Wang Keda and I, who we met for the first time, started a long conversation about the shape of Harbin Airport. He talked a lot about how to evaluate beauty and ugliness and what the details of the facade represent. He was admitted to the Department of Archeology of Peking University at the age of sixteen and is now an architecture student at a university in the United States. He is the central figure of this tour group and the star of the new video program. A few days later, I hesitated about how to describe Wang Keda in the article, so I asked him directly at the dinner table. He said that if he were in the United States, he would have a standard body shape, but in Asia, such as the China Airlines flight he took back home, he couldn't even fasten his seat belt.

Not long after the car has driven out of the airport, you can see the pine forest and soon the farmhouse. In the darkening sky, there are reassuring smokes one after another. This evening, we will arrive in Qiqihar and have a local barbecue and eat a lot of meat. Finally, after the long discussion about the airport, we felt tired.

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The morning in Qiqihar is very cold. Outside the hotel is Buque Street, and our trip that day and the history of the entire city seemed to revolve around this street. At around five o'clock in the morning, a 55-year-old female sanitation worker was sweeping snow along this street. There was frozen snow on her eyelashes, brought by the heat of her breath. Two hours later, the sun came out, but the temperature was still minus thirty degrees below zero.

Bukui is the old name of Qiqihar. This is the name of a Daur leader. I don’t know why, but it became a place name. Qiqihar does not have a long history. Before Kangxi of the Qing Dynasty, it was a nomadic land for many tribes. In order to prevent the Russian Empire from continuing to invade the south, in the 31st year of Kangxi (1692), a city was built in Bukuitun and named Qiqihar. Seven years later, the Heilongjiang generals moved here and it became an important border town.

We came to the Bukui Mosque, a temple that appeared at the same time as Qiqihar. Before the city was built, many Hui people who moved from Shandong, Hebei, and Shanxi to guard the border gathered here. They built a mosque in 1684. Over the past 100 years, many Hui people have migrated and been exiled to Heilongjiang, including the "Zhehe Linyu" sect who came here in the second year of Xianfeng (1852). Because of different sects, they built the Western Temple. Today, Bukui Mosque is the largest Islamic architectural complex in Heilongjiang Province.

That day, no one came to worship, and there were no other tourists. At this time, an imam appeared. His name was Bai Xiwu, and he received us very kindly. Sixty-nine-year-old Bai Xiwu specifically said, "I can't tell you how old I am. I belong to young and middle-aged people." In the past three years, Bai Xiwu felt very lonely. Without tourists, he could only read newspapers in the office. In the past, the mosque received tens of thousands of tourists every year. Bai Xiwu especially liked to communicate with college students.

In 1978, Bai Xiwu worked in a sugar and wine factory. The mosque has also just passed through the worst decade of damage and is in the process of restoration. In 1983, Bai Xiwu was transferred to the mosque and has stayed there until now. He led us to see the main hall, which can accommodate hundreds of people for worship, and introduced the Zhezi Gate from the Qing Dynasty, as well as the flower carvings, paintings, and Arabic brick carvings on the building, as well as the drum-shaped stone at the entrance of the temple.

Bai Xiwu likes the kiln hall the most. At the highest point of the temple, it is a quadrangular tower-like building with three floors. There is a lotus seat at the top, inlaid with a 1.9-meter-high gold gourd, with a 40-centimeter inlay on the top of the gourd. golden crescent moon. This symbolizes the good things of Buddhism, Taoism and Iraq. For Bai Xiwu, the kiln hall was not only beautiful, but also practical, with four windows on it. When I was a child, every day of worship, the imams would shout out the window to invite the residents to come over. After the 1980s, radio was used instead.

Today, the kiln hall has lost its practicality and has become surrounded by unit buildings, high-rise communities, and shopping malls. In the past, there was a dense Hui residential area around the Kui Mosque. Before the demolition more than ten years ago, the community had many brick and tile houses from the Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China, as well as courtyard houses where wealthy families lived. The disappearing buildings also make the immigrant stories forgotten. In the past, people could guess through the style and style of the house whether the Hui family came from Henan, Shandong, or northwest regions like Gansu.

Bai Xiwu said calmly: "In the past, only Huihui lived here, but not anymore. Everyone uses the WeChat group to communicate."

Not far away, the Heilongjiang General's Mansion disappeared from its original location. Over the past three hundred years, a total of 71 generals from the Heilongjiang General Mansion have come here to handle military and political affairs. In 1695, Sabusu, the first Heilongjiang general, built this official residence. He was born in Ningguta. In 1664, when fighting against the invasion of Tsarist Russia, he eliminated the invading troops in the middle and lower reaches of Heilongjiang and made military exploits. In 1686, he went all the way north and once again attacked the city of Yaksa occupied by Tsarist Russia. Until the Tsar sent envoys to China to negotiate with the Qing court. Three years later, in the 28th year of Kangxi's reign, Sabusu led the navy to escort the Qing envoy to Nerchinsk. The Treaty of Nerchinsk established the eastern boundary between China and Russia.

The last general was Shoushan. He made military exploits in Liaodong during the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1894. In 1900, the Eight-Power Allied Forces invaded China, and Tsarist Russia invaded Northeast China at the same time. The Qing troops and Boxers mobilized by Shoushan were unable to resist the numerous Tsarist Russian troops. When Tsarist Russia was about to attack the city of Qiqihar, the forty-year-old General Shoushan chose to commit suicide and die for his country.

In 2000, the entire Heilongjiang General Mansion was vacated and moved to Mingyue Island in the Nen River. The Jianhua District Government Office Building was built on the original site, including the "Veteran Service Center". Only a miniature architectural model of the General's Mansion remains here. Wang Keda regrets that the General's Mansion has disappeared from its original location. He believes that although history is not solidified, even if the river changes its course in nature, it will leave its old path.

The next day, we went to Mingyue Island. The car first crossed the pontoon bridge on the Nen River. This island in the river looked very deserted, with some footprints left in the snow. We saw a pheasant walking and then flying to far away. When we arrived, as we expected, the General's Mansion was closed, and the public toilet next to it was also locked.

Not far away, there is a seemingly abandoned ski resort, with tricycles scattered on the snow, most of them broken. In the past, the General's Mansion, located in the center of power in Heilongjiang, was moved to an unpopular tourist island. The whole Qiqihar also gives me this feeling to some extent.

Especially when I step into a winter night, there seems to be a jet lag here. The streets at eight o'clock in the evening seem to be late at night. Before the sun went down, I went to Longsha Park. It looked empty and quiet, with a few people using fitness equipment and surrounded by layers of thick snow. In the park, there are rich historical buildings: the Guandi Temple built in the fourth year of Qianlong's reign, and next to it is the Shoushan General Temple built in 1926. At the other end, there are two yellow single-story Russian-style buildings. These were the Russian consulates established in Qiqihar in 1907 and closed in 1920.

The buildings themselves are like a silent dialogue. In 1930, the Nationalist Government found German engineers and built the Heilongjiang Provincial Library in the park. Some people think that its appearance imitates the Yanchun Pavilion of the Forbidden City in Beijing, but its interior is European style. On the east side of the library, there is also the Martyrs' Shrine to commemorate the generals and soldiers who died fighting the Soviet Red Army in the 1929 China Eastern Railway Incident. But in 1945, when the Soviet Red Army entered Northeast China, it destroyed the Martyrs' Shrine. Today, only the empty old site remains...

As the sun set, I walked on the frozen lake and reached the other end of the park. I accidentally walked into the Xianhe Hotel. There are many single-family luxury villas inside, and there is an aisle directly accessible by cars at the entrance. But most of the houses have locked doors, and they seem to be summer vacation spots.

The Cultural Avenue in front of Songhe Hotel is also a desolate scene. There are no shops on the road and few taxis pass by. I suddenly felt that it must be very lonely for a single person without a car to live in a northern city with no subway in winter. In the afternoon with nothing to do, I would rather stay at home. Afterwards, an online ride-hailing driver told me, “It’s hard to make an appointment at this time (six o’clock in the afternoon), when people go out to eat. After seven o’clock, it’s also difficult to make an appointment, because people have to hand over the car and go home. Wait until the evening At ten o'clock, most drivers also stop working."

During an unexpected walk, I finally found a ramen shop. It was less than 5:30, and a man in his thirties drank more than ten bottles of beer and barely ate the beef bones and side dishes on the table. He was a little drunk and made a long phone call to his lover: "Daughter-in-law, I love you sincerely and from the bottom of my heart. Your son is not my biological son, but your son is my son, and I will take good care of it. I can only Let me tell you, the wedding house I bought is second-hand, and my parents only have that much ability. It depends on whether you agree or not." "If you are trying to trick me behind my back, I meet someone else, or I hear someone else say that there is another man. I'm sorry, I won't forgive you, not for the rest of my life. Anyway, I will love you for the rest of my life..."

I waited for half an hour before the online taxi arrived. On the way back, I shared this conversation over the wine table with a friend who had lived in Qiqihar. He told me that this scene was very Qiqihar and very much like it happened in a movie.