Huludao

I just got back from teaching a 2-week intensive English course for workers at the Jinxi Petroleum Refinery in Huludao, a small industrial city in western Liaoning province.



Many of my students were locals who studied at a vocational school or at a 4-year college elsewhere in Liaoning, but who have returned home to be near their parents. Filial piety runs strong in these parts. Many of them will work at the refinery for the rest of their lives, just like their parents did before them. About 60% of my students were guys about my own age who either live at home or live in the company dormitory for about 600 RMB/year, or about $92. (My rent is 1100 RMB/month, to give you a sense of comparison.) They are the Party's base - self-professed Communists and sons of "peasants" who, when asked what their job is, reply, "Worker!" The other 40% were the refinery's office workers, researchers, and future engineers - they had a much higher level of English and I was almost able to do the kinds of activities I would do with my DUT students with them. Other than the stress of churning out over half a semester's worth of classes in 2 weeks, for the most part I enjoyed teaching them.

Huludao is strange place. I suspect it is like many smaller cities and towns in China: a mix of new and old, rich and poor, a place that retains traces of the past while building its way into the 21st century - gleaming malls, public works projects, a new, modern bus station.

You can't take your horse drawn cart onto the overpass.


But you can take your donkey on the lower road.


I lived about 10 minutes from "downtown" in the company hotel, which was across from the company hospital, next to the company training center, and down the street from the company nursery school. The "company" itself was a massive unknown zone somewhere behind the hotel, a mess of buildings, smokestacks, pipes, and train tracks.

The neighborhood came alive at night, with the area under the overpass becoming the happening spot for shopping and eating all sorts of BBQ ranging from clams to octopus to squid (Huludao is a coastal city.)



Huludao is a place where you can still see the old people dancing 扭秧歌 (Niu Yang Ger), which literally translates to Twist Sprout Song. I'm told it was an old harvest song that has become a traditional northeastern dance involving colorful fans and handkerchiefs. Live musicians (often old men) accompany the dancers (often old women). I've only seen it in Huludao and in Zhuanghe, another small town in Liaoning. In cities like Dalian, this tradition is falling by the wayside, replaced by mass dancing to poppy electronic music.

For the old people who keep dancing, and the peasants with their horse-drawn carts, life is changing fast around them. Fortune Street is coming to Huludao. This new development project will bring luxury brands like Prada, Versace, Armani, and Burberry to a place where I would have guessed that many people can only afford fakes.



The obsession with brand-name goods is a horrifying trend all across China that deserves its own blog post. Fortune Street will bring what all the people want to the people who have the fortunes to get what they want. Meanwhile, the workers will work, the old people will dance, and maybe one day they'll take down that sign from the overpass, because everyone will have cars, and no one will ride bikes or use horses. For Huludao, like so many other places in China, so-called progress is a piecemeal process.