Kina / China: Changchun. Where Japan and China fought – The last emperor of China, and the art and power of movies. 

We are high in the north eastern China here. 

So night that it’s cold. There are still snow and even ice 🧊 structures from the winter decor. 

It’s also far from Beijing. Up here there are fewer electrical cars. There are more possibilities for locals to get both really rich and poor. Wee see more huge cars than otherwise. We also notice how life gets tougher somehow when it gets cold. 🥶 

It’s more I Soviet vibe I get from being here, than I expected. 

I actually end up saying this so many times, that Laerke is about to loose her patience.

We walk to our destinations at first, then change to didi the online called taxis, later even the local tram.

First impressions are a little tense. Much use of the horns in traffic and much spitting on the streets.

Starting with walking we pass the shopping mall where no foreigners seem to go, ever. We get our nails done for 100 yen for the both of us. In a huge room filled with bras and underwear and shopping women in winter clothes. 

At the palace here the last emperor of China stayed while he was adult and during this period was the ruler the Japanese had placed in power. 

The Chinese surely do not like this part of their history of Japanese occupation. It is repeated in the palace museum that this was the puppet ruler of the occupation.

I mostly remember him from the 1984 movie of The last emperor when he becomes emperor as three years old. At that time his mother ruled. 

In real life he seemed less cute than in the Oscar winning movie. Aristocratic and spoiled with a very old fashioned view of the women he married. 

The museum of the movie production here is truly interesting as this was created by the Japanese who produced 240 movies here. 

Movies are not just art or innocent love stories or stories of love in the countryside or war stories. It’s story telling and identity. China portrays this as propaganda from the country occupying China, which is fair. They also took over the movies studios and production as soon as they had the chance – also fair. 

Then this place were close to get in trouble with the communist revolution domestically. Some were arrested. The leader managed to both stay and reopen the movie production after 7 years of closure during the revolution years. 

We found a bakery with the funniest bread. It’s not a bread country so it seems this place experimented with putting mate tea in the croissant. 🥐 

Having bread around the triangle shaped sea weed hand food that is normally rice 🍚 triangles covered with sea weed. I had been looking forward to coffee ☕️ and had the fortune 🥠 that even tough their coffee mashing did not work, they knew a coffee place 100 m away. I was so happy and enjoyed sitting next to one of the huge teddy bears 🧸 There are here to make single customers feel welcomed- cute and considered.

The Buddhist temple we had decided to visit were closed so we had to stay just outside. And walked all around looking in as the neighbourhood said to know on the door. 

Soooo of course we have to end every day with trying something new – the new food this day was ants. A particularly fat and nutricious worm 🐛 that we had seen moving in the morning market and now it was here … fried. So we tried it. Our DARE for the day. 

We are in the countryside and political correctness has not reached the city. The restaurant owner and all male guests were smoking inside and watching crap TV with the volumes of the different things they saw louder than the neighbours. Argh. 

One thing is civilised all over the country. Even out here China never fails to have public toilets 🚻 everywhere at not cost even as they are manned and clean. We really appreciate this! Very civilised! 

Train station in a usual provincial city most Western Europeans do not know … they are all huge and trains are on time !