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Sign up with Google Sign up with FacebookQ: Non Han dominated regions of China
I just got back from a short trip to Yanji, a city of about 400,000 of which was quite a remarkable place for a city of its size in China. It was full of coffee shops, interesting looking bars and awesome restaurants. A large percentage of the population is Korean ( not from the south) and it is apparently where a lot of refugees from NK end up. I've been to Han dominated cities more than twice that size that are dreary, desolate awful places with little to do except heckle the foreigner. In Yanji I got no attitude or annoying attention for being Caucasian. Now I would think a place with so much North Korean influence would be pretty dire but quite the opposite was true. How about other places in China that are not overwhelmingly Han? Are they also more lively and interesting?
I do have to say...the most incredible part of Chengdu, my favorite place in the entire city, was the Tibetan Quarter. The people there are friendly (except the ones who are there to harrass tourists or crazy Kampas on a rampage).
You're implying pretty hard that cities that "Han dominated" are more dreary and desolate than cities dominated by other races.
I would say race is way low on the list of factors that make a city awful. I would say, with basically anything, the economic state is number one. Size of population is up there too. How much they're straddling between their industrial boom and the information age.
There are many awful cities on this planet, and race is not the common denominator by a long shot.
What did the Han do to you dongbeiren? Why is your life so hard here? Are they heckling you too much?
RachelDiD:
You raise some good points--but race and culture are distinct traits. Beijing is the dreariest city I never want to live in again--it is high on the economic scale, well populated, has many foreigners, and definately more access to the outside world than most of the rest of China...and yet the people there act like the same greedy bumpkins on the streets of Wuhan, so far as manners are concerned. Perhaps people of different cultural heritages in China are not raised to think that their culture is always number 1, needs absolutely no improvement, and that they get to treat people who do not belong to their ethnic group like crap because their ethnic group deserves to dominate...One can imagine that refugees from North Korea would like to leave everything of North Korea behind. The Han children of the Cultural Revolution still embrace a great deal of its backwardness.
dongbeiren:
If you read my post you'd see that I did account for size which in China generally correlates with economic development. The point is that a smaller city with more Koreans and fewer Han was a lot more exciting than a larger city with more Han. I'm suggesting that the influence of Korean culture might be a reason for that. And yes I do get heckled as much as any other non Chinese looking person would and somehow I'm guessing most of the hecklers are Han.
I do have to say...the most incredible part of Chengdu, my favorite place in the entire city, was the Tibetan Quarter. The people there are friendly (except the ones who are there to harrass tourists or crazy Kampas on a rampage).
My city is 30 or 40% Uyghir but their influence is being diminished by the day, it seems to me.
I miss the influence.
Drab is the new normal out here.
"...with little to do except heckle the foreigner". Ahh, you have accurately stated what is considered a national Chinese pastime.