Harbin Snow and Ice Festival

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Harbin Snow and Ice Festival
by Cindy holdemqueen_at_hotmail.com 2004
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• The temperature in Harbin reaches forty below
  zero, both Fahrenheit and centigrade, and stays
  below freezing nearly half the year.  The city is
  actually further north than notoriously cold
  Vladivostok, Russia, just 300 miles away.  So
  what does one do here every winter?  Hold an
  outdoor festival, of course!  Rather than suffer
  the cold, the residents of Harbin celebrate it,
  with an annual festival of snow and ice
  sculptures and competitions.  This is the amazing
  sculpture made of snow greeting visitors to the
  snow festival in 2003.

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• Snow and ice sculpture in Harbin dates back to
  Manchu times, but the first organized show was
  held in 1963, and the annual festival itself only
  started in 1985.  Since then, the festival has
  grown into a massive event, bringing in over a
  million tourists from all over the world every
  winter.  The sculptures have become more
  elaborate and artistic over time this bear and
  cub are just one small part of a fifty-meter-wide
  mural sculpture.

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• Most of the sculptures appearing at the snow
  festival are competitive entries.  Each team
  starts with a cube of packed snow that appears to
  measure about three meters on a side, and then
  starts carving away.  Teams come in from all over
  the world - Russia, Japan, Canada, France, even
  South Africa.  Part of the fun is guessing the
  nationality of the team, based on their
  sculpture's artistic style, before reading the
  signs.  I believe this was a Russian entry.

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• The sun begins to set behind the magnificent
  entryway sculpture.  The snow festival is
  actually separate from the ice festival both
  take place on the wide open spaces of Sun Island
  Park north of Harbin's river, Songhua Jiang. 
  Harbin is situated south of the river, so it's a
  chilly ride over to the sites.  It seems even
  chillier when crossing the bridge over the very
  wide and very frozen Songhua Jiang.

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• I was surprised to discover this sculpture of a
  Native American sitting in the frozen northeast
  of China sure enough, I read on the sign that a
  Canadian team sculpted this entry.  Chinese teams
  had many sculptures at the festival as well, off
  in another section, but a vast majority didn't
  measure up to these amazing works.

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• Even the sunsets in Harbin look cold.  Though
  only mid-afternoon, the sun was setting over the
  snow festival and the temperature was falling
  even further below freezing.  But the coming
  darkness was actually good news, because it meant
  that the ice festival was about to begin.

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• The ice festival, a few miles away from the snow
  festival, is anything but dull and colorless. 
  Crowds flocking to the entrance are greeted by
  dance music booming in the distance, as if at an
  outdoor pop concert.  And bright neon colors
  shine everywhere, buried within huge blocks of
  ice forming structures as high as thirty meters,
  such as this huge structure beyond the entryway. 
  You can just make out people standing atop its
  blue and red stairway.

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• A view from atop that structure, looking back on
  a Russian-styled building and a mock Great Wall,
  both constructed out of ice.  Making it to the
  top of this structure is an accomplishment in
  itself - imagine walking up a stairway of solid
  ice for two floors with no handrails.  The yellow
  block wall on the right and the balcony work on
  the lower left are all ice, with no internal
  support structure - just lights.

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• The Great Wall doubles as a long ice slide just
  sit and go.  You can pick up some serious speed
  and wipe out spectacularly at the bottom if
  you're wearing a slick coat, but you won't go
  anywhere if you're wearing corduroy pants.

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• An overview of the ice festival from atop the
  Great Wall of ice.  It's like a Disney theme
  park, with multiple attractions and food hawkers
  and kids running around and people lined up for
  bathrooms.  The only differences are that the
  temperature is about a hundred degrees colder
  than the typical Disney park, and all the
  structures are made out of ice rather than
  plastic - and slipping and falling here doesn't
  result in tremendous lawsuits.

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• An entire ship constructed of ice, with
  passengers onboard.  Though it might not be
  seaworthy, the ship would certainly float - after
  all, it's made of ice.  Hundreds of years ago
  during the Manchu days of ice lantern art, the
  sculptures were lit only by candles.

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• One of the popular activities at the festival is
  climbing a wall of solid ice.  Amazingly, I
  didn't see a single person fall, and most
  everyone made it to the top.  All the ice comes
  from Songhua Jiang, the nearby river, which
  provides a limitless supply huge chainsaws are
  required to cut through the ice, which can be
  meters thick.

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• The snow festival is mostly a display of art the
  ice festival is mostly a display of
  architecture.  Nevertheless, a number of
  sculptures can be found at the ice festival, such
  as this life-sized horse.  Agile youngsters with
  good balance climb atop the horses to have their
  pictures taken.  Notice the layers of ice in the
  horse blocks of ice are fused together to form
  larger blocks so that sculptures - or huge
  buildings - can be made.

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• A Thai temple of ice, complete with hallways and
  rooms inside.  Long ago, Disney made a
  Circle-Vision 360 film called "Wonders of China"
  - still showing at the China pavilion in the
  World Showcase at EPCOT - which includes a brief
  section on Harbin's ice festival.  In the movie,
  the sculptures are quite low-key, little more
  than blinking light bulbs inside small globes and
  ice carvings.  Things have changed a bit since
  those days.