Jiamusi is in Heilongjiang, in Northeast China.
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Heilongjiang · City Guide
Jiamusi, Where China Sees the Sun Opening.
Overview
Why Go
Fuyuan is the easternmost county in the country, so the sun comes up here more than an hour before it does in Beijing while every clock in China reads the same time. In June it is light before three.
Heixiazi Island sits where two rivers meet. The 2004 supplementary agreement on the eastern boundary divided it between China and Russia, the handover finished in 2008, and the Chinese half is now a wetland park.
The Hezhen, numbering around five thousand people, traditionally tanned and sewed fish skin into robes, shoes and bags. The technique is listed as national intangible heritage and is still taught at Jiejinkou in Tongjiang.
The Fujin wetlands are a stop on the northeast migration route and hold breeding white-naped cranes. Two thousand hectares of plain marsh with boardwalks through it and very few people on them.
Jiamusi cold noodles are not the Korean dish of the same English name: they are wheat noodles in a sweet and sour chilled sauce with sesame, eaten from a bowl rather than a broth. The city exports the format nationwide.
See
Wetland park on the Chinese half of the island, with pontoon boardwalks over the marsh, a boundary marker and some of the buildings the Russian side left. Passport needed. Half a day.
The easternmost point in China, with a marker on the bank and a sunrise that happens absurdly early in summer. The town behind it is a fishing and border-trade place. Half a day with the drive.
A Hezhen village on the Heilongjiang at Tongjiang with a museum of fish skin work, drying racks and craftspeople who will show the tanning. Two hours, and go with a translator if visitors can.
Where the Songhua runs into the Heilongjiang, with the two water colours meeting in a visible line across the channel and Russia on the far bank. An hour, and it is ideal from a boat.
Two thousand hectares of plain marsh on the Three Rivers plain with boardwalks, hides and breeding cranes. Ideal early and late in the day, and mosquitoes are serious. Half a day.
The old river port quarter with Russian and Japanese-period buildings, a Songhua promenade and ordinary neighbourhoods behind it. Two hours, and it is where the cold noodle shops are.
On the Map
Approximate locations of the attractions above, across Jiamusi.
Eat
Wheat noodles chilled and dressed with a sweet, sour and sesame sauce, with cucumber and sometimes egg, served without broth. It is a Jiamusi invention that has spread across the northeast under the city's name.
Fresh river fish sliced thin and tossed raw with shredded potato, vinegar, chilli and wild herbs. It is the Hezhen dish outsiders are especially often offered. Eat it where the fish came out of the river that morning.
Carp, catfish and sturgeon relatives from the two rivers, stewed whole in an iron pot with cornmeal cakes stuck round the rim. Ordered by the fish and priced by weight along the river road.
Short-grain rice from the Three Rivers plain, one crop a year in a very short growing season, which is what growers credit for the texture. Eaten plain, and sold by the farm.
Do
In June the sun is up before three and the sky is light well before that. Set the alarm accordingly, take a layer, and remember the clock says Beijing time regardless.
Access is controlled and passports are checked, so bring documents and allow time. The wetland boardwalks are the main walk and the boundary marker is the other thing people come for.
The skins are scraped, dried, worked soft by hand and then sewn with thread made from the same material. Seeing how much labour a single robe takes is the whole lesson.
At Sanjiangkou the Songhua and the Heilongjiang run side by side for a distance before they mix, so the colour boundary is visible from the bank and obvious from a boat.
When
Green, warm and the sole comfortable season, with an early sunrises and the wetlands at their fullest. Mosquitoes are severe; bring repellent.
Clear, cool and the harvest on the plain, with cranes staging before they leave. The ideal month overall.
Cold and bare with the rivers starting to freeze and border sites closing. Short days and very few visitors.
Deep cold to minus thirty with ice on the rivers into April, then a late thaw. The city works; the border wetlands do not.
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Jiamusi is in Heilongjiang, in Northeast China.
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