Appooppanthaadi - 22

One of the Discotheques

Sound of drum beats from the nearby Discotheque is still heard in my room. It even makes reverberations in the widowpanes of my room. Sitting in the 6^th floor room of my hotel, I can hear songs to the tunes of the drums. Interestingly, in China the floor numbering starts at 1.The ground floor is called first floor.


Boys and Girls are still enjoying their night out in the neighboring discotheque. Time here at present is thirty minutes past mid night. There are a number of disco parlors dotting this city like any other cities in this country. Even in towns, discotheques are a rage.That is the charm of living in China.

The romance on the sidelines

Freedom. Freedom to enjoy life the way we want to. Freedom to choose between pizza and burger.  Freedom to wear skirt or jeans. Freedom to buy vhisky or beer. Freedom to go to a mall or a park. Freedom to go around on the streets or in the parks with a girl friend or a boy friend. Kiss or hug him/her whenever or wherever he/she wants to do. No moral policing.


The otherday, right in front of my hotel, I saw a boy and girl hugging each other and locking their lips so intensly for a long time.  Here, in China kissing as welll as pissing in public is allowed! Gender equality is achieved to a great extent here. Forget about freedom of expression or right to information. Where do we get this free of cost? (But, still, it is always better live in a free and democratic society than in a heavily watched and controlled society.)

(Any provision shop or a departmental store can sell liquor. From Chivas Regal to the low alchoholic Beer is available in any of these shops. Still, we cannot find anyone lying on the footpaths or in the drainage in inebriated condition. In Harbin, beer is very cheap. A 580ml beer of 4% alchohol costs just 2.5 yuans, ie equivanlent to around 20 rupees. )

Girls enjoy equal rights as boys do, well, this is what we get to decipher from what we see on the streets. Girls can sit or stand on the roads alone- without attracting thousand eyes scanning them!  She can take a break from the work pressure and smoke a cigarette in public. She can freely walk into any shop and buy a cigarette. (Unlike in our country and like in Europe, cigarette is sold  only as packets. They are not sold as single pieces) She can drive city buses or taxis without attracting chauvinistic taunts or vulgur physical overtures.

In China, the modern day boys and girls marry each other after they become ‘friends’. They ‘love’ for years together and at last they decide if they have to marry. Once they decided, parents step in and the deal is done. Girl will never marry a boy unless he has a house.


This is an unwritten pre-requisite for the marriage. Boyfriend or girlfried visits each other's homes even before the marry.Girls clearly have advantage. She insists on the boy to have a secure life before enreting into a wedlock. Girls need not have even a job.

 In Chiense societies, girls have clear advantage. Boy has to worry about a good job and then a house before marriage. Eeven in villages, girl's parents demand 'dowry' from boy's parents. By the time boys reach teen age, they must be a worried lot.


He has to find a beautiful girl as friend first. Then he has to get a good job and then a house. If the boy's parents are rich enough, he need not worry much. Since, China has a strict single child norm, whatever parents earn goes to the child. Boy's parents have to worry a lot about securing a house for him. Sounds so funny!!

Decorations in front of the marriage halls

Autumn is a big season for marriages. As much as I saw, Chinese marriages are a mixture of traditions and western styles. In the morning of the wedding day, the groom in a BMW or an Audi or a Benz car sets out to the brides home.


A large posse of  luxury cars accompany him. From her home, he takes her to his home.  Brides relatives and friends accompany in another fleet of cars. For a procession of such big cars, the boy's and the girl's family spend huge amounts running into several thousands of yuans


The bride usually dons western style flowing wedding gown and the groom invariably wears suite. The big convoy reaches groom's home where the bride calls her mother –in -law “mom” for the first time. For the remaining part of her life, the mom may have to remain mum, in a way!!

Then over to the marriage hall. Usually they use hotel halls for the rest of the functions. In the marriage hall they exchange rings.  Then ensues a grand feast. Group smoking and drinking mark the celebration. Bride and the groom serve liquor to the  guests. They all have a sumptuous feast. Marriage is then registered officially. They live together happily thereafter….The sad part for the invitees is that they have to part with a minimum of 500 yuans as gift!

Harbin is the place where the Siberian Tiger Park is located. A few hundreds of tigers are living in a vast expanse of land well within the city limits. These tigers walk, sleep,  stare to infinity and simply roam around inside this park.


Visitors are taken around in caged buses. The common feeling about these tigers is that, such an aggressive animal look so passive in their actions inside this park. They behave like people under the influence of drugs. Perhaps, they are drugged to keep them passive. Who knows?

Eating a chicken after 'hunting'

Harbin’s Siberian Tiger Park is an exclusive tiger sanctuary were tigers roam around like cattle. They are fed with live preys. Tigers kill them in full public view and eat them. Visitors can buy animals and let them loose in the midst of the tigers.


 I could see live chickens thrown to the tigers even as the chickens were making beleaguered cries. The end of a little life was greeted with excited cheers by the onlookers. Sad,  but that’s often the reality here.

Visitors even sponsor cattle which the park authority takes to the park and let loose. Curious onlookers get ‘nice’ photo-ops as the frightened  animal battles for its life. In this tiger park, we can come across a ligar. It is a cross breed of Lion and Tiger.

for more photos : Images from China