China's Ice City's melting pot of flavors welcomes tourists
（文章来源：Global Times）
With the winter tourism boom in Harbin, Northeast China's Heilongjiang Province, it's not just the stunning ice and snow scenery that's drawing tourists from all over the country. The local cuisine is also causing a stir on the internet. Tourists across the country are sharing their food diaries about Harbin on social networks, praising it for its generous portions, satisfying flavors, and down-to-earth taste. Harbin's cuisine is a delightful fusion, shaped by the city's historical and geographical context.
Heavily influenced by neighboring country Russia and the influx of settlers from provinces such as East China's Shandong Province in East China, Central China's Henan Province and North China's Hebei Province, this cultural melting pot has given rise to a culinary scene that beautifully combines Eastern and Western flavors.
Domestic fusion
During the late Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), a mass migration started. People from areas like Shandong, Henan and Hebei provinces migrated to Northeast China, a region with large areas of uncultivated land. The migrants also brought their culture and language to the land, while the immigrants brought a variety of culinary styles to Harbin, enriching its food culture. Before this migration, the local diet of the ethnic majority in the Northeast focused primarily on meat with fewer grain-based foods. The arrival of ethnic Han Chinese settlers introduced their food habits and agricultural practices to the area, significantly diversifying the local diet.
The fusion of culinary practices led to a blend of ethnic Manchu and Han Chinese food cultures, creating a unique culinary style which combined the distinct flavors of Manchu dishes like barbecue, hot pot, and stew with Han Chinese cooking styles like braising, frying, and stir-frying. For example, Guo Bao Rou, a classic Northeastern dish, originated in Harbin in the early 1900s. Created by Chef Zheng Wen for Russian dignitaries visiting during the Qing Dynasty, its unique flavor profile, featuring a sweet and sour sauce adapted for Russian tastes, showcases the fusion of Eastern and Western influences.
The pork used in Guo Bao Rou is typically sliced pork loin, which is coated in a starchy batter. The dish's sweet and sour sauce is a simple combination of white sugar and white vinegar, often with a pinch of salt added to enhance the flavor. In Harbin, the traditional way to prepare Guo Bao Rou involves adding only garlic to the dish, although variations with additional vegetables like carrots, ginger, scallions, leek, and cilantro are found in other parts of China. During cold winter days, local eateries are often swamped by tourists, queuing to taste an authentic guo bao rou. Harbin's proximity to Russia and its role as a hub on the Trans-Siberian Railway brought a significant Russian influence to its cuisine.
A blend of East and West
The hearty, wheat-based Russian bread, known locally as Da Lie Ba, similar to Russian black bread, is also commonly found in Harbin. Tourists often express surprise at the size of these large loaves, with some playfully noting that they are bigger than their faces. Hong chang would be another case in point. The smoked, garlic-flavored red sausage resembling Russian kielbasa. Readily available throughout the city, it reflects Harbin's Eastern European influences.
Some local residents even give out hong chang for free to tourists, thus contributing to the warm and welcoming atmosphere of the city. "I was born and raised in Harbin. Seeing so many tourists coming from all over the country to visit my hometown and support the city's tourism makes me very proud. I feel that such a small act of kindness is just something that I should do," said Yong Di, an influencer on Douyin with 115,00 followers who was distributing Hong Chang samples.
Hong Chang was featured in multiple travel journals on social media. A post about Hong Chang by Asun, a tourist from Southwest China's Chongqing Municipality garnered nearly 150,000 likes and thousands of comments. In the video, Asun noted that a lot of Harbin locals volunteered to give free rides to tourists.
When he dropped them to the airport at the end of their trip, he gave them some hong chang as a souvenir, along with a note that said: "We are the messengers of the city's warmth. I love my hometown. I love you friends who travel from afar to Harbin and I hope you love Harbin back." As seen on social media, the locals' acts of generosity, coupled with Harbin's unique culinary offerings, leave a lasting impression on tourists. The city's warmth does not just lie in its winter attractions, but also in the hospitality and flavors that make Harbin a memorable destination.
There are close to 7, 000 languages spoken on Earth. However, it's estimated that by the end of this century, up to 50% of them may be lost.
It's commonly thought that majority languages tend to be valued for being useful and for promoting progress, while minority languages are seen as barriers to progress, and the value placed on them is seen mainly as sentimental (感情用事的). But is sentimentality really the only motivation for preserving language diversity?
Speakers of endangered languages often live in remote areas with unique landform. It is quite common for these languages to distinguish between hundreds more types of plants and animals than those known to modern science. For example, in Southeast Asia, some tribes have discovered the medicinal properties of over sixty-five hundred plant species. This has led to many of landmark achievements in medicine.
It was once believed that the limits of one's language defined the limits of one's thought. This theory, called the Sapir-Wharf hypothesis (假说), has been largely rejected in favor of the improved version, which assumes that the language we speak does not set the limits of our thoughts, but it does direct our focus in certain ways. For example, English is a tense-based language. It's nearly impossible to talk about doing something without specifying the time — i. e. I went to the party(past), I'm going to the party(present), or I'll go to the party (future). This differs from Chinese, where it's perfectly reasonable to say, "I go to the party" without defining the "when". Thus, part of the richness of language is that it allows us to organize the world in so many unique ways.
Some languages categorize the world in ways so different from our own that they are difficult to conceptualize (概念化). The United States employed native Navajo speakers to create a system of message coding during the Second World War. The Japanese were never able to break it, and the "code talkers" are often cited today as having helped decide the outcome of the war.
As we've already seen, minority languages are valuable for many practical reasons. In conclusion, I'd say the short answer is yes — dying languages are certainly worth saving!
Wouldn't it be wonderful to travel to a foreign country without having to worry about the headache of communicating in a different language?
In a recent Wall Street journal article, technology policy expert A lec Ross argued that, within a decade or so. We'll be able to communicate with one another via small earpieces with built-in microphones. That's because technological progress is extremely rapid. It's only a matter of time. Indeed, some parents are so convinced that this technology is imminent that they're wondering if their kids should even learn a second language.
It's true that an increase in the quantity and accuracy of the data loaded into computers make them cleverer at translating "No es bueno dormir mucho" as "It's not good to sleep too much." Replacing a word with its equivalent (同义词) in the target language is actually the "easy part of a translator's job". But even this seems to be a discouraging task for computers.
It's so difficult for computers because translation doesn't—or shouldn't—involve simply translating words, sentences or paragraphs. Rather, it's about translating meaning. And in order to infer meaning from a specific expression, humans have to interpret a mass of information at the same time. Think about all the related clues that go into understanding an expression: volume, gesture, situation, and even your culture. All are likely to convey as much meaning as the words you use.
Therefore, we should doubt whether a machine is able to translate the world around us. If people from different cultures can offend each other without realizing it, how can we expect a machine to do better? Unless engineers actually find a way to breathe a soul into a computer, undoubtedly when it comes to conveying and translation meaning using a natural language, a machine will never fully take our place.
