Harbin

Located in the northern most part of the country, Harbin was a place of vas differences to the rest of China that I had been to beforehand. It is a relatively new city compared to the rest of China only really beginning to grow and expend in the beginning of the twentieth century. Through the course of it's hundred years it has seen a lot of changes over greater China as well as itself. In the thirties it was taken over by Japan until the end of the WWII. Before that there where huge immigrations of Russian Jews into the city, eventually becoming the largest immigrant population in China. Even though these two events don't hold true today you can still see he heavy influences of both, but mostly from the Russian Jews. A lot of the architecture has a very distinct Russian look about it, with the use of domes on buildings, and stones in the streets.