Professor Ma

During the second week of school, I had the pleasure of attending a lecture by Professor Ma on the history and culture of Harbin. Professor Ma was born and raised in Harbin and has lived here for almost nine decades. He was a teacher at CET'S program for many years, was president of Harbin's Esperanto association, currently teachers an extra-curricular course at CET on Chinese cuisine, and was educated both during the Japanese occupation and after the Chinese Civil War. It was truly fascinating to hear about Harbin's history from someone who has lived here for so long.

A hundred years ago, Harbin was nothing more than a small Manchu fishing village on the Songhua river. At the time, China feared the rising power of Japan and lacked infrastructure in the northeast. Russia agreed to build railroads across the region using Russian capital and Chinese labor. Of course, Professor Ma emphasized, they did not do so out of great kindness, but rather because of the vast profits they knew they could make from the railroads. Heilongjiang is rich in coal, oil, wood, and fertile soils. With the tracks laid, Harbin grew into a major city with tens of thousands of foreigners immigrating from Russia, Poland, and other parts of Eastern Europe. In addition to these merchants, refugees, and soldiers, others came from other parts of Europe including England, Spain, France, and even less powerful nations such as Turkey and Switzerland.

The Russian soldiers who guarded the railroads were known as the "railroad protection army" which sounds like "long mustached soldiers" in Chinese. Professor Ma related one story from his childhood where he and his brother were playing too close to the tracks and were yelled at and hit by the troops. He also related an interesting story about the British consulate. One day he and his brother were playing and accidentally stumbled onto the grounds of the British consulate whereupon the Indian guards kicked them out.

The influx of foreigners meant that Harbin was one of the first Chinese cities to have movie theaters, taxi cabs, and coffee houses. In Professor Ma's words, it was a truly global city and at the time rivaled Shanghai and Guangzhou.

One of the largest enclaves of foreigners in the city before the Second World War were the city's Jews. Coming as merchants or fleeing the chaos of revolution-era Russia, Jews immigrated by the thousands to the booming rail hub and made major contributions to the city's economy. A few of the old Synagogues are still standing and one is a museum now. Way out of town he spoke of a well-preserved Jewish cemetery where the father of one of Israel's former Prime Ministers is buried.

Of all of Professor Ma's anecdotes, one of the most interesting (for a college student at least) was his description of college life under Japanese rule, which was heavily influenced by the militarized and hierarchical society of 1930's Japan. "If you were a freshman and you saw a senior, you had to salute. If a senior saw you, he could insist on you shining his shoes. If you refused, he'd hit you. It was awful, but when you got to be a senior, you could do the same to the new freshmen."