Introduction
The forces of modernization can be seen across all of the major industrialized nations of the world; however, not all cities are modernized in the same way. There are different forces from the past that interact with the processes of modernization to create very different cultural spaces. For example, in the modern city of Harbin within the People’s Republic of China, this northern city has undergone similar processes to the modernization as the capital city of Beijingbut these two cities remain culturally different entities and these differences can be attributed to the differences in their cultural past. This is because the cultural present is embedded in the cultural past and the present forces of modernization must not only be embedded in the cultural spaces of the past but it must also be integrated into its archeological strata. This one factor has been overlooked by those economists who argue that the world is flat and that all forms of cultural materialism have been obliterated by the forces of globalization (Friedman, 2005). What such economists have overlooked is that the cultural present is embedded in the cultural materialism of the past, and the present forces of modernization must not only be embedded in the cultural spaces of the past but they must also be integrated into its archeological strata. Hence, in order to explain this phenomenon, a different model of cultural space is needed. Such a model has been proposed. The sedimentation theory of cultural space and its explication of space and time is the focus of this book. It envisions knowledge as layers of human activity deposited in a cultural space over time. Not only envisions time as the accumulation of social practices layered in cultural space, but also provides epistemological mechanisms that explain how reality is socially reconstructed within a cultural space.
Urban Cultural Space
Cities have long had a crucial impact upon, and have in turn been influenced by, cultures. What makes cities especially interesting in this context is that they bring together many different cultures in relatively confined spaces. This juxtaposition of peoples often leads to innovation and new culture forms as cultures interact, and creates various urban landscapes. Urban landscape refers not just to architectural edifices, or the order or make-up of the urban planning within a city, but the social or cultural significance of this order or make-up (Meinig, 1979). Any morphology, any patterns, arrangements and restructuring of a city, does not just arise spontaneously in place. All these are the result of and reflection of the cultural imperatives of those who make and represent the landscape (Lewis, 1979).
The cultural image of a city is the overlap of many individual images or layers. The materialized contents of the city’s cultural space can be categorized into five types of elements: paths, edges, districts, nodes, and landmarks (Lynch, 1960). Paths are the channels along which individuals customarily, occasionally, or potentially move. For many people these are predominant elements in their image of the city, thus a key feature in a city’s cultural space. Concentration of special use or activity along a street can give it prominence in the minds of the city’s residents and visitors. Edges are commonly boundaries between two kinds of areas. They act as lateral references. Railway routes and rivers have long been considered boundaries setting different urban districts apart. Districts are the relatively large city areas which have some common characters. While people living in and visiting a city may confuse in its path pattern, they may all agree that the city has, in the number and vividness of its distinctive districts, reflected in people, architectural styles, and the kind of economic and social activities. Nodes are the intensive foci to and from which people are traveling. In many places, the railway station has long been the primary gateway to the city. The first impression of outsiders was left by the railway station. Currently, along with the rapid growth of air travel, the airport has surpassed the railway station becoming the prominent gateway to the city. Landmarks, such as buildings, monuments, stores, or signs, are used by people to enjoy the uniqueness and specialization of a city’s cultural space. Many landmarks are unique and memorable in the historical context.
In the following sections, we’ll examine the historical evolution of Harbin’s cultural space, based on the sedimentation theory of cultural space, as well as the five key materialized elements of urban landscape. The modern city of Harbin has evolved with multiple layers of culture embedded in its landscape. In this unique Chinese city, its rich cultural past has reconfigured the present, and still commends the present urban form.
Cultural Space of Harbin - The Russian Influence
Harbin, the capital of Heilongjiang province, is the northernmost metropolis of China. It’s situated on the banks of the Songhua River, which cuts across the northern part of Manchuria, and its climate is affected by the proximity to Siberia: winters too long, dry, and extremely cold, and summers short and warm. From the perspective of world cultural geography, Harbin is located at the borderland between East Asia cultural realm and Slavic cultural realm. As part of the Chinese cultural sphere outside the Great wall, Harbin had long been peripheral to the core of Han Chinese cultural region. Meanwhile, it was on the eastern frontier of Russian territorial and cultural expansion in the late 19th century. In the late 19th century and early 20th century, Harbin was largely a zone of contact where interaction or interchange between local population and Russian and other western migrants shaped identity and cultural practice, and created unique urban cultural landscapes. The strangely non-Chinese name gives the first hint of an atypical Chinese city. To the visitors, this feeling is reinforced by the Western-styled buildings along the cobble-stoned Central Avenue and the silhouettes of onion-shaped Russian church cupolas in the central urban areas. Its past has been restructured, modified, or redefined by the socially and culturally emerging forces of the present.
These unique features are rooted in the extraordinary history of the city. In the short course of a hundred years, Harbin has been ruled by Russia, by Chinese authorities, by Japan, by the Soviet Union, and finally by Chinese communist government. Probably no other Chinese city has experienced such dramatic shifts and such a rapid succession of widely different regimes. In a larger perspective, Harbin has experienced all the stresses and strains associated with China’s modern transformation, but to an exceptional degree. The early twentieth-century Western penetration of China was more pervasive in the case of Harbin than in most other Chinese cities. In this way the modern history of China is written all over Harbin.
The Russians left the most visible imprints on the cultural landscape of Harbin, and made what has been called at times the “little Paris of the Orient”, or the “Oriental St. Petersburg”. Closely linked with the construction of the Chinese Eastern Railway (CER), which was built by the Russians in the period 1898-1903, Harbin became a major economic and strategic center in the Northeast Asia in the first decade of the twentieth century. The Chinese Eastern Railway (CER) was an extension of the Russian Trans-Siberian, connecting Eastern Siberia with Vladivostok, with a southern branch extending from Harbin to the Yellow Sea port Dalian. After the arrival of the railway engineers in 1898, Russian influence in Harbin was indisputable and highly visible for several decades (Carter, 2002).
In the 1890s, the main concentration of villages in the Harbin area was in Xiangfang (香坊), about 10km south of the Songhua River. When the first batch of Russian railway builders arrived in April 1898, they settled their first headquarters in Xiangfang. The settlement grew at an astonishing pace. In 1899, the non-Chinese population had grown to 14,000 people, representing 28 nationalities of the Russian empire (Clausen and Thogersen, 1995). In 1901 it was decided to move the railway headquarters to an area of elevation nearer to the river; this became the “New Town”, and the original settlement became “Old Harbin” or “Old Town”. At the same time a third settlement called Pristan began to emerge on the riverfront next to the rapidly growing Chinese village of Fujiadian. New town today called Nangang (南岗), became the center of officialdom, where all the main CER buildings and institutions were established, as well as villas fort the Russian elites. Pristan, called Daoli (道里) by the Chinese, became the commercial and recreational center of Harbin. The Chinese town Fujiadian bordering the railway zone, also named Daowai (道外), developed into a large residential area relatively untouched by foreign influence. These three newly developed districts, along with Xiangfang, formed the four nuclei of modern urban Harbin, which gradually merged in the following years. But, to this day they have retained distinct differences related to their origins, from the stately buildings and government institutions concentrated in Nangang, to the “bourgeois” Daoli, and the lower-class, small business clustered Daowai. Railway routes have served as prominent edges separating these districts of Harbin.
Several thousand nationals from 33 countries moved to Harbin following the Russian defeat in the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905). Sixteen countries established consulates there and several hundred industrial and commercial enterprises making Harbin the center of northeastern China. During the Russian Civil War (1918), many of the defeated Russian White Guards and refugees retreated to Harbin making it a major center of White Russian émigrés. It became the largest Russian enclave outside of Russia. They established a Russian school system and published Russian language newspapers and journals. A complete microcosm of Russian society emerged and flourished in Harbin. Some of the landmark Russian architectures in Harbin were completed during the early twentieth century.
Early districts of Harbin: Key landmarks and paths in Nangang and Daoli
(Map courtesy of www.shtetlinks.jewishgen.org/Harbin)
The most significant Russian landmark in Harbin, Cathedral of St. Nicholas, was completed in 1900 in the central square of Nangang, the focus of Russian civil, religious, and political life. It was at the intersection of two foremost paths - the east-west axis (Station Street) and north-south axis (Grand Avenue), and the heart of the cross and the heart of Russian community. Around the Cathedral, other famous landmarks, such as Moscow Department Store (today’s Heilongjiang Provincial Museum), and New Harbin Hotel (today’s Harbin International Travel Services) were constructed. Old Harbin Railway Station, the key node and city gateway, was located at one end of Station Street. This layout served as the most prominent symbol of Russian power and influence over the city cultural space.
In Daoli, the construction of Saint Sophia Church, the largest Orthodox Eastern Church in the east, began by Russian troops in 1907 and was completed in 1923. The architectural style is largely Byzantine and today it is protected as a historical site. Saint Sophia remains as evidence of the Russian influence into eastern China and the city of Harbin. It remains as a significant mark on the historical landscape of Harbin and is one of 17 such churches in the city. Zhongyang Dajie (Central Avenue), one of the prime business streets and paths in Daoli, is another perfect witness to the bustling international, primarily Russian, business activities at that time. The 1.4km street is a veritable museum of European architectural styles, including Baroque and Byzantine facades, little shops of Russian bread, French fashion houses, American snack food outlets, and a Christian church.
The local cuisine in Harbin is also Russian-influenced. Harbin's bakeries are famous for their bread (lie-ba in local dialect, derived from the Russian word khleb for "bread"). Harbin's sausages (qiu-lin hong-chang) are another notable product, in that they tend to be of a much more European flavor than other Chinese sausages.
However, Russians and Chinese remained at a long distance from each other. For example, it’s recorded that only a single marriage between a Russian man and Chinese woman in Harbin in the pre-1917 period. Racial hostility was evident, and the attitudes of the Russian towards the Chinese gradually came to resemble the Western colonist world outlook (Clausen and Thogersen, 1995).
The Cathedral of St. Nicholas
Begun building in 1899, this wooden Cathedral in Central Square, Harbin, was completed in 1900. The other building on the photo was Moscow Department Store (today’s Heilongjiang Provincial Museum).The Cathedral was destroyed during the Cultural Revolution. The site is now Hongbo Square. (Photo courtesy of Harbin Urban Planning Bureau)
Saint Sophia Church
Saint Sophia Church is the largest Orthodox Eastern Church in the east. It’s located at the heart of Harbin’s business district of Daoli. (Photo courtesy of Harbin Urban Planning Bureau)
Central Avenue in Daowai District, one of the busiest business streets in Harbin. At the end of the avenue stands Flood Monument on the waterfront of Songhua River. (Photo courtesy of Harbin Urban Planning Bureau)
Chineseness in Harbin's Cultural Space: The Early Effort
The competition and negotiation between the Russian and the Chinese cultures have largely shaped Harbin’s history, which evidently is visible in the city’s landscape. The Confucian Temple (文庙), constructed between 1926 and 1929, was a key component of the early attempt by Chinese nationalists to claim the city as Chinese after seizing power in the wake of Russian revolution. Chinese officials in the 1920s used architecture and city planning to accentuate the fact that Harbin was now under Chinese control. They created a Chinese tradition in Harbin: the impression that not only Harbin now a Chinese city, but it’s also tied to a long historical Chinese past.
The Confucian Temple (Photo courtesy of Harbin Urban Planning Bureau)
The Confucian Temple conveyed an image that was visually and obviously Chinese, employing traditional Chinese architectural aesthetics that stood out against the Russian onion domes and European-styled architecture. It was located in a symbolically strategic position at the southern end of the Grand Avenue in Nangang, giving it an importance beyond its modest size. It was funded and promoted by governmental and nongovernmental Chinese elites of Harbin and the surrounding region to serve as a marker of Chinese cultural identity in the city.
Paradise Temple (Photo courtesy of Harbin Urban Planning Bureau)
Around the similar period of time, there were some other efforts promoting a Chinese Harbin, including the Paradise Temple (极乐寺) erected by the Buddhist Association and nationalist schools. The corner stone of the Confucian Temple was laid on October 10, 1926. By choosing the Chinese national Day for the ceremony, it was made explicit that the temple served primarily as a significant representative of the Chinese cultural heritage in the midst of Russian buildings all around. As Zhang Xueliang, then commander-in-chief of national army and the political leader of Manchuria, declared, “Harbin is a place where the Chinese people have gathered together”. Harbin was, at last, a Chinese city. Whereas the spires of St. Nicholas and the domes of Moscow Department Store encouraged the notion that Harbin was a very foreign city, the tilted, sloping roofs of the Third Middle School, the Buddhist Paradise Temple, and the Confucian Temple all indicated that something had changed, and changed in a way more familiar to Chinese. These buildings made Harbin more Chinese.
THE JAPANESE OCCUPATION OF HARBIN
In 1932, the Japanese occupied Harbin under their domination of Manchuria (Japanese: Manchukuo) until August 20, 1945. At that time, the Russian Amy regained possession of Manchuria and in April 1946, Chiang Kai Shek and Stalin agreed to turn it over to the Chinese.
The Japanese occupation changed the ethnic composition of Harbin’s population. Although during the 1930s half of the Russian and European population had left and been replaced by Japanese and Korea (Clausen and Thogersen, 1995), at the time of the Japanese surrender Harbin still had a considerable Russian community. Under the Japanese control, Harbin residents were forced to learn Japanese and suffered political prejudice under the virtual Japanese rule. Like the Russians before them, the Japanese were modeling Harbin in their own image, but not without Chinese opposition. A cluster of Japanese people and business, which was first established by early Japanese immigrants in Daoli, was flourished during the period of Manchukuo. Many important structures, such as Manchukuo Central Bank Harbin Branch, district court, Japanese hospital and department stores were all concentrated in Daoli. However, the overall city layout set up by Russian designers and architectures remained largely unchanged during the Japanese occupation.
During the interim of two decades, the Japanese developed a Germ Warfare Experimental base (Riben xijun shiyan jidi) in 1939 to "research" the capabilities of the spirit and the endurance of the human body to germ warfare. It was run by the Japanese army's Unit 731 (Qi san yao budui) and the research center experimented upon many of the captives of the vicious war in Northeast Asia, including Soviet, Korean, British, Mongolian and mostly Chinese prisoners of war (POWs). These experiments are reminiscent of research done in Auschwitz. The sight is now a museum and it is said to have witnessed the execution of over 3, 000 POWs in the most horrific way: frozen, bombed, roasted, infected, injected, dissected...alive until dead. Unfortunately, there is much denial by the Japanese of these activities and just before the Russians retook the city, many of these cities were blown up by the Japanese.
Transformation of Harbin's Cultural Space after 1949
In the 1950s after the founding of People’s Republic of China, Harbin became one of China’s main centers for heavy industry. Its population expanded, and new industrial and residential areas were developed in the outskirts of the city. During the First Five-Year Plan (1953-57), many of the large-scaled plants making up the backbone of Harbin’s industry were constructed. Out of the 156 national key projects that were implemented with Soviet assistance, thirteen were placed in Harbin. Among them were huge plants for power-generating equipment such as boiler, steam turbines, and electrical machines. Several new industrial districts were established around these plants, the most prominent of which is Dongli District. In English, "Dongli" means motivating power. This district is the industrial heart of Harbin. Those Soviet-style manufacturing architecture, along with new paths such as Heping Avenue, represented a unique industrial landscape of Harbin after 1949, signifying that Harbin had been transformed from a city of consumption to a city of industrial production.
Harbin Measuring & Cutting Tool Plant (Photo courtesy of Harbin Urban Planning Bureau)
The 1950s and 1960s also witnessed the construction of some large-scaled educational and recreational structures in Harbin, along with which several new avenues were paved, such as Xuefu Avenue, Hexing Avenue. Some of the constructions were designed or assisted by the Soviet. The early city leaders of the communist government attempted to preserve and carry on the architectural uniqueness, and to a large extent, the unique urban life style of Harbin. Many of the new buildings completed during this period still went behind Russian/European styles. Harbin Workers’ Cultural Palace, Harbin Youth’s Palace and Harbin Children’s Palace (the so-called “Three Palaces”), as well as the main buildings of Harbin Institute of Technology and Heilongjiang University of Chinese Medicine are representative structures in this category. Another masterpiece finished is the Flood Monument commemorating the fight against the devastating floods in 1957. The cylindrical tower and its subsidiary of the semicircular colonnade of ancient Roman tradition perfectly fit the style of Central Avenue.
Harbin Institute of Technology
(Photo courtesy of Harbin Urban Planning Bureau)
Heilongjiang University of Chinese Medicine (Photo courtesy of Harbin Urban Planning Bureau)
Harbin Workers’ Cultural Palace
(Photo courtesy of Harbin Urban Planning Bureau)
The Flood Monument
(Photo courtesy of Harbin Urban Planning Bureau)During the same period, the Chineseness in architecture and city design was also endorsed by the municipal government. Some of the Chinese-styled architectural treasures, such as Harbin Medical University, Harbin Engineering University, were designed and finished by Chinese architects. Landmarks in the 1950s and 1960s have become an integral part of Harbin’s urban landscape. They, on the one hand, carried on the architectural and artistic styles and standards, as well as the cultural heritage, of the early twentieth century. On the other hand, these structures have also demonstrated their own artistic qualities with the attempt of integrating Chinese and European styles, and paved the road for the future urban design of Harbin, which strives to preserve the city’s unique and splendid historical and cultural heritage and pursuing an open-minded urban society and urban culture.
Unfortunately, this early vision of Harbin’s city design and development was largely abandoned during the Cultural Revolution. The Russian influence in Harbin was condemned completely as Russian imperialist aggression and plunder, of which Russian-styled architecture was referred to as the materialized evidence. On August 23, 1966, the St. Nicholas Cathedral was destroyed by the Red Guards. During those turmoil years, the cultural and historical past of the city was severed.
Harbin Medical University
(Photo courtesy of Harbin Urban Planning Bureau)
The Harbin Engineering University
(Photo courtesy of Harbin Urban Planning Bureau)Since the beginning of economic reform in 1978, Harbin has had some problem readjusting to the new trends. The domination of large-scale, state-owned, heavy industry plants has hampered the city’s development at a time when industrial growth has taken place primarily in small- and medium-scale enterprises in the consumer goods. The rejuvenation of Harbin and the entire Manchuria, to a certain extent, lies in the integration of the region into the international cooperation of the greater Northeast Asia. Harbin has been placed in the forefront in the expansion of trade between China and Russia in recent years due to its deep Russian connection. This Russian connection is working to its advantage. For instance, the newly established Harbin Economic and Technological Development Zone enables direct access to Russia. A cooperative relationship has been set up with the Novasibirsk Science Institute Technological Park of Russia. The Russia-oriented Scientific and Technological Cooperation Center has also been in service. A Russian theme park was also established in Nangang. In 1997 after intensive renovation, St. Sophia Church was reopened to the public. It now serves as a centerpiece for Harbin’s current ambition to become a tourist center in Northeast China that emphasizes the city’s regional pasts, not just its national ones.
Harbin Economic & Technological Development Zone
(Photo courtesy of Wei Song)
CONCLUDING REMARKS
It was argued earlier in this investigation that Kuhn’s theory of scientific revolutions provides a basis for the discussion of change within the cultural fabric of a society. Emphasis was placed on the period of crises where the social construction of reality is questioned and new potential paradigms emerge. It was argued that this locale is not the present but the co-present. It is where the present is embedded in the habitus of the past. It is also where the future is being created by means of new levels of consciousness raising and new re-presentations of the artifacts of the past. It is here that the rationale for change takes place. It is from this context that cultural changes emerge.
What this new framework for the study of culture proposes is that culture is a steady-state phenomenon that represents linear moments of frozen time in a dynamic realm of change. What is needed is a complexity theory of culture. It is under these circumstances that the nature of cultural change can be better examined, articulated, and defined.
People in Harbin embrace and are proud of the rich cultural heritage of their city. To say Harbin’s fundamental nature is Russian is to be mistaken. Harbin has been, and will continue to be a Chinese city in its identity. However, it is a Chinese city where the identity and culture of many nations, particularly Russia, have been written to the cityscape of Harbin. The city’s mixture of grandiose historical architecture with the growing number of modern commercial and office buildings reflect the intriguing juxtaposition of Harbin’s history and future.
The cultural image of Harbin is the overlap of many individual components. Paths, such as Central Avenue and Grand Avenue, are recognized by its European-style architecture, business and various administrative and religious activities from the past Russian period on to today. New road systems in current Harbin, particularly in the recently developed Economic and Technological Development Zone and Songbei District (north of Songhua River), then mark the newest addition to the city’s cultural space. While people living in and visiting Harbin may confuse in its path pattern, they all agree that the city has, in the number and vividness of its distinctive districts, reflected in people, architectural styles, and the kind of economic and social activities. Railway routes have long been considered edges or boundaries setting such districts as Nangang and Daowai apart. It’s also difficult to think of Harbin without picturing Songhua River and its scenic waterfront, which has been developed into a major recreational area since the Russian era (currently known as Stalin Park). The railway station has been the dominant gateway to Harbin. Since 1990s along with the growth of air travel, Taiping International Airport has emerged as the new gateway to the city. Harbin’s landmarks, such as Saint Sophia Church, the Confucian Temple of the early 20th century, Flood Monument of the 1950s, and Dragon Tower, Heilongjiang Science and Technology Museum and Heilongjiang Provincial Library of the 1990s, outline the historical trace of the city’s development, from the Russian past to the city’s present ambition toward modernization and globalization. The following table summarizes some of the most representative urban features in Harbin’s cultural landscape, along with their historical dimensions. It clearly demonstrates that the cultural space of Harbin has been formed by the sedimentation of materialized layers of different historical periods. Harbin is developing and renewing itself, and has been creating new layers since the 1990s. However, the past is not buried. The cultural influences of the past still exist as sedimentations of the architectural structures in the present. The Russian past exists within the co-presence of this Chinese city. The present cultural landscape is embedded in the past, which gives the richness and uniqueness of Harbin’s urban cultural space.