A customer reads on the third floor of the Gogol Bookstore. Photo: IC

Collection of Maxim Gorky's novels My Childhood, In the World and My University at the Gogol Bookstore in Harbin, Northeast China's Heilongjiang Province Photo: Chen Xi/GT 

 

Siberian tigers Photo: IC

When people talk about Harbin, the capital city of Northeast China's Heilongjiang Province, the first thing that comes to most people's minds is its marvelous ice sculpture festival held every winter. 

However, as a city close to Russia, Harbin is also famous for its Russian shops and representative animal - the Siberian tiger.

Gogol Bookstores 

While walking down Harbin's famous Gogol Street, built about 100 years ago, the most remarkable shop came into my view: the Gogol Bookstores, named after Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol, a well-known Russian dramatist and writer of Ukrainian origin. 

The bookshop has three floors in total. Entering the door, a colorful classic European glass window caught my eyes. The light pouring in from the sunset blended with the soft indoor lighting was very calming. 

On one side, some old Russian books were piled in two shop windows and on a wall were some old pictures of the bookstore, which gave it a sense of history. 

Walking up a set of stairs marked by years of scratches, I arrived at the second floor. A sculpture of a girl holding a book and reading carefully sat in the middle of the hall. A sculpture of Gogol stood to her left. 

The bookstore seemed very popular since many people were reading and studying there. Some were students doing their homework and others were children reading books with their parents. Looking through the doorway from the hall, the quiet readers looked like a peaceful picture. 

On display on a bookshelf in the right corner of the hall were some souvenirs including cloth bags, maps of Harbin and bookmarks, and some cards featuring quotes about reading from famous people. The quote "No one ever reads a book. He reads himself through books" from Romain Rolland, a legendary French dramatist and novelist, impressed me the most. 

Close to the souvenir corner was a tiny cafe where a waitress offered coffee and tea to customers.  

"Most of the books on this floor are bestsellers, and we also sell some classic books like novels from some famed Russian writers to match the bookstore's theme," Jiang Wenqian, the manager of the bookstore, told me.

Jiang later guided me to the third floor, a quiet floor for only VIP customers. According to a sign, only customers who have put at least 400 yuan ($56) on their membership card can become a VIP. 

Compared to the second floor, the third had far fewer books, but there were many more desks for studying and reading as well as three vintage sofas in one corner of the room.  

"Books on the third floor are mainly  classic works written by famous Russian writers, like Maxim Gorky's My Childhood," said Jiang. 

Surviving in the digital age

I asked Jiang if they choose the bookstore's name because this historical figure had some sort of close connection with the shop. 

"Many people think that, but in fact, we gave it this name just because it is located on Gogol Street. This store is actually under the administration of the Xinhua Bookstore - the largest and only country-wide bookstore chain brand in China. This special name, however, does attract many people, including locals and tourists, to come here to read and take a look around," Jiang said with a smile, noting that traditional bookstores have to take every advantage because of the rise of e-books.       

"We have tried many ways to promote traditional bookstores. For example, we hold wedding ceremonies on the third floor for couples," Jiang said. 

Holding a wedding ceremony in a bookstore? I was very surprised after hearing this great idea. Jiang told me that most of the couples married there have been young teachers. According to these young couples, since they use books to teach students and need to read a lot of books to prepare for classes, they feel that books have become part of their lives and so want them present during one of the most important events in their lives. 

Jiang said they also use the third floor as a kind of Western restaurant, and people can order food and dine on this floor. 

"The wedding ceremony, the restaurant, and the cafe on the second floor help a lot to keep the bookstore open. Actually, many bookstores are trying some creative ideas to try to attract customers. I believe e-book will not replace traditional bookstores because there are a certain group of people that just like the smell of paper books," she said.

The Siberian Tiger Park

Siberian tigers are one of the endangered tigers in the world. They are found only in East Russia and Northeast China. Before going to visit the popular scenic Siberian Tiger Park, I did not know anything about the animal except that it was scary and could eat people.  

Feeling apprehensive but curious, I bought a ticket and took a bus tour through the tiger park. The outside of the bus was covered by a steel cage to prevent the tigers from breaking through the windows.

The driver drove us passing two small parks full of small animals, but we did not see any tigers until we came to the third park. Suddenly, a strong smell was blowing into the bus through the windows and a kid shouted out, "Mom, the tigers are so smelly." 

The driver explained that tigers are solitary animals and usually will warn other tigers not to invade their domains through their scent.  

The tigers at the park looked very lazy and did not seem very concerned when they saw us. Some of them were laying around sleeping on the grass and some of them were swimming in a pool. Their lazy appearance was very similar to your average house cat, and I realized why tigers belong to the cat family. 

Right after this realization, a tiger sat down on the road right in our way. The tiger's fierce expression made me feel a bit nervous again, but a woman nearby seemed very excited and said, "Look, a real 'tiger in the road' is just in front of us." 

"Tiger in the road" is an old saying in Chinese, meaning some robbers who hijack fortune on the road in ancient China, and now it refers to a person or thing that stands in one's way. This experience made me admire our wise predecessors that they could create such a vivid expression that was still used today. 

The driver seemed very calm. He kept honking the horn to frighten the tiger, but it did not move. It suddenly jumped toward the bus but after not getting anywhere it left. I finally saw the brutish nature of tigers with my own eyes.  

Into the tiger's mouth

The bus took us to a fourth park and stopped. The driver told us we could buy some meat and feed it to the tigers. It was a very thrilling activity and I was impressed with its commercial ingenuity. Two families bought two buckets of meat, and used a pair of big tongs to feed the tigers. A young boy around high school age picked up a piece of meat and slowly put it outside the bars. His hand was trembling as his mom stood to one side encouraging him. 

A tiger saw the delicious food and came to the bus. It jumped up, put its two front paws on the bus and opened its mouth to get the meat. That was my first time I had ever seen just how sharp the teeth of a tiger are. After the tiger got the meat, the boy shouted out with pride, "I just fed a tiger! I'll never be afraid of anything else in my life." His mother looked amused.  

The food attracted many other tigers who came over for a look. Soon enough, our bus was completely surrounded. After the feeding, the bus drove us out of the park, and we saw some tigers that were locked in chains. The drivers explained that some of the tigers are still too young and were not ready to live on their own and that some of them were injured and recovering. 

When we got off the bus, we came to a long corridor and saw some cute little tiger cubs playing with some balls. They were so adorable. They were only 1 or 2 years old and basically looked just like some big cats. One feeder tried to use an empty bowl to get a cub to go to a pool for drinking water. The little cutie thought some meat was in the bowl and followed the feeder to the pool, but when it found the bowl was empty, it ran away.  

"Because our park's territory is limited, we have to put three or four tigers together," Liu Huan, one of the employees told me. He said they usually  put them into the park when they are 5 years old and train them how to feed themselves.

"We train the tigers to live independently by placing some domesticated fowls like roosters in the park and having them hunt the birds. By doing this, they can keep their hunting ability and that will benefit them when they are released into the wild," Liu explained, noting that they plan on building a bigger forest park for the endangered tigers and want to keep increasing the number of big cats at the park.   


Newspaper headline: Adventure in the Northeast China