Yanji: A "Heterogeneous" Northeast Border Town

Speaking of Northeast China, people will think of humorous and vivid Northeast dialect and hard-core and heroic Northeast cuisine for the first tim

Yanji: A "Heterogeneous" Northeast Border Town

Speaking of Northeast China, people will think of humorous and vivid Northeast dialect and hard-core and heroic Northeast cuisine for the first time.

In fact, the whole northeast is not like this. Yanji, the capital of Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture, Jilin Province, is a "heterogeneous" border town in northeast China.

The city is full of freshness because of Korean without strong accent and unique Korean food. Yanji, known as "Little Chengdu in Northeast China" and "Little Seoul", is full of mouth-watering food, attracting foodies from all over the country from thousands of miles away.

When I came to this low-key town, I found it was much more than that.

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"Yes Yanji" is Yanji!

Yanji, located in the east of Jilin Province, at the northern foot of Changbai Mountain Range, is the "C-position" among the eight counties and cities under the jurisdiction of Yanbian Prefecture, with great value and strength. At the same time, it is also an "international thoroughfare turntable", bordering Russia in the east and North Korea in the south, only 80 kilometers away from the Sea of Japan; It is one of the three fulcrums in the "Tumen River Golden Triangle" designated by the United Nations.

This is the largest Korean settlement in China. As of 20 19, the registered population of Yanji is 5413,000, of which 308,400 are Koreans, accounting for 57% of the total population.

Besides Korean and Han nationalities, Manchu, Hui and Uighurs live here. After years of integration and development, Yanji has become an inclusive and open city.

Walking on the streets of Yanji, you can experience full sensory impact at any time: stop signs, store signs, street signs and so on. , printed with eye-catching Chinese and Korean bilingual characters; The ears are mixed with Northeast dialect and Korean; There are plenty of pickles and sauces in the restaurant. ...

This border town is very small, and the main roads in the city can almost connect things. Taxis are almost always taken from 5 yuan. You can even take a taxi from the same taxi driver in the morning and afternoon. It's amazing.

As a tourist city with great development potential, Yanji's traffic convenience cannot but be praised. No matter on the busy street or in the alley between buildings, if you stop for less than 1 minute, you can wave for a taxi. Vehicles on the road are polite to pedestrians, which is also a pleasing scenery here.

Although Yanji is small, it has complete facilities, including airports, railway stations and high-speed railway station. Since 20 15 high-speed railway station Yanji West Railway Station was officially opened to traffic, more and more people have come to Yanji for sightseeing.

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Tourism that cannot be ignored

Yanji is not a traditional heavy industry city in Northeast China. Compared with the first and second industries, the tertiary industry is the outstanding contribution of Yanji's industrial economy.

Yanji, with its unique Korean culture, attractive food and amazing scenic spots in Yanbian Prefecture, has become a newly-built tourist city among network celebrities, and "Pride" has been listed as one of the "Top 100 Counties with Comprehensive Competitiveness of County Tourism in China in 2020".

On the streets of Yanji, you can see restaurants, coffee shops and beauty salons in just two steps, and the nightlife is also very rich. A full meal, a cup of coffee, and a leisurely beauty are really "on".

What is worth mentioning is Yanji's service attitude. Thoughtful and meticulous service has changed our impression that the service industry in the north is weak, which is not good for individual stores, but a common phenomenon.

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Food culture is the soul support of Yanji tourism. It is no exaggeration to say that Yanji cuisine can be eaten for several days without repetition.

The whole wall of the building opposite Yanbian University is a food signboard, which is not only a punch-in point for tourists, but also an appetite harbor for Yanda University students and food from all over the country.

The essence of Yanji cuisine can be summarized as follows: it has authentic Korean flavor, but there is no lack of the shadow of Northeast cuisine. Features, enough weight! Taking rice and cold noodles as the staple food and kimchi, sauce and soup as the non-staple food is the core of Korean eating habits.

Yanbian is a famous hometown of rice in northern China, which is famous for being good at planting rice in the cold north. The Yanbian rice produced under the unique conditions is crystal clear, soft and palatable, and its fragrance is long.

Smart and creative Koreans use rice to make all kinds of delicious foods: bibimbap, rice cakes, rice sausages ... It is a great pity not to taste these traditional foods here.

In Yanji people's minds, there is also "cold noodles", one of the top ten noodles in China. In the past, Koreans had the custom of eating cold noodles at noon on the fourth day of the first month, or on their birthdays, which means "longevity" in folklore.

The freshly squeezed buckwheat noodles are tough and have Q-bombs. Noodles are covered with beef, fruit slices and pickles. The soup is cold, sweet and sour, and it is refreshing to take a bite. Eating with crispy crispy rice crust meat is simply a wonderful taste bud experience of ice and fire.

I believe everyone has eaten kimchi and other side dishes on the table in Korean restaurants. When I came to Yanji, I discovered how shallow my previous understanding of kimchi was.

In the past, due to the cold and long winter in Yanji, Korean families would pickle kimchi to preserve dishes from winter to the next spring. Nowadays, it has already been integrated into the daily diet of Yanji people. According to statistics, there are more than 200 kinds of kimchi, and all kinds of vegetables, wild vegetables and fish can be pickled, which can be described as "everything can be pickled".

Sauce soup culture is also the background of Korean cuisine. The Korean people have a saying that "every soup must have sauce", and each sauce has its own unique flavor and exquisite collocation: bibimbap with bibimbap sauce, stinky sauce soup with green jam, beef soup with beef sauce ... When you go to Yanbian Oriental Water Market, you can enjoy the real "rich and fresh fragrance".

When you come to Yanji, you must try Yanbian beef soup, which is tender, juicy and delicious.

Yanbian area is the birthplace of Yanbian yellow cattle. Since the Qing Dynasty, with the migration of Korean people, Korean cattle were introduced into Yanbian area of China from the east coast of North Hamgyong Province, and gradually improved into Yanbian yellow cattle in long-term production practice. At present, it is mainly distributed in Yanji, Helong, Wangqing, Hunchun and neighboring counties in Yanbian.

In recent years, with the continuous growth of Yanbian cattle industry, it has promoted the development of deep processing. If an adult Yanbian yellow cattle is canned, its value can be increased to 30,000-50,000 yuan after subdivision. Yanbian yellow cattle can bring nearly 700 million yuan of income to local farmers every year.

Beautiful scenery/landscape

After eating and drinking enough, it is a good choice to go around Yanji.

Maoershan is only 8 minutes' drive from downtown, which is a place for local people to relax. Due to the ups and downs of the mountains, there is a peak that is slightly abrupt and looks like a straw hat, so it is called Maoershan.

Go up the hill slowly along the wooden plank road, breathe fresh air and enjoy the scenery along the way, and you can reach the top of the mountain in about half an hour. The top of the mountain overlooks the whole Yanji city and is also a natural viewing platform for the Burhatong River and Hailan River.

When you come here in summer, you can see lush shrubs; When you come here in winter, you can see the scenery of the dream snow country.

At the foot of Maoer Mountain, there is also a Korean folk customs garden. The park collects and preserves Korean cultural wisdom and breath, where you can appreciate and experience Korean traditional living habits.

With the development of the times and the advancement of urbanization, Korean folk houses in the traditional sense are rarely seen in Yanji. In the past, Koreans were mostly tile-roofed houses or thatched houses with civil structures, with roofs hanging on the mountains, no halls, no rest, etc. Heating with kang is a remarkable feature of the internal structure of the house. These buildings can now be seen in folk gardens.

Simple houses, swings, springboard, wrestling field, food street, wedding hall, visitors can wear Korean costumes, learn simple and lively dance steps and have fun.

20211,the 8th Yanji International Ice and Snow Tourism Festival opened in the Folk Garden, attracting tourists from all over the world to watch the ice sculpture snow sculpture, watch the light show and experience folk activities. Despite the cold weather, everyone's enthusiasm has not diminished.

Most tourists to Yanbian don't stay in one place. They often use Yanji as a transit point. After they are full of energy, they will continue to set off for Changbai Mountain and Hunchun Fangchuan Scenic Area.

Changbai Mountain, located in Antu County, Jilin Province, is famous for its sacred mountains and holy water, and is the birthplace of Manchu. It was called "Holy Land" in Qing Dynasty. Even the emperor had to personally or appoint a minister to visit Changbai Mountain in Wula, Jilin (now Jilin).

"It's a pity that life is not on Changbai Mountain!" The highest and deepest crater lake in the world and the Tianchi Lake in Changbai Mountain, the birthplace of the three major rivers in Northeast China, have fascinated countless people. Due to the high altitude and unpredictable weather in Tianchi, the locals admit that it really takes luck to see the whole picture of Tianchi.

Compared with Changbai Mountain, Hunchun's Fangchuan scenic spot is a little smaller, but the title of "Looking at the Three Kingdoms at a glance" still attracts groups of tourists.

Hunchun is the only city in China bordering on Russia and North Korea. You can have a panoramic view of the Three Kingdoms when you board the Dragon and Tiger Pavilion in Fangchuan Scenic Area.

On the left is Hassan District in Primorsky Krai, Russia, and on the right are Tumen River and Doumanjiang City in North Korea. The sea of Japan and coastline can be seen faintly in the distance, so it has the reputation of "looking at the three countries at a glance and calling them the three countries at once".

In this place, the national boundaries become clear and concrete, and we can deeply feel the heavy sense of history.

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Yanji people's "rush"

The temperament genes of "heterogeneous" border towns in Northeast China can be traced back.

Koreans in China are immigrants from the Korean Peninsula to the northeast of China. The migration of Koreans began in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties in17th century, and by the middle of19th century, thousands of Koreans had crossed Tumen River and Yalu River and migrated to the northeast of China.

With Yanbian as the center, they formed a vast Korean inhabited area, and with their own hands and sweat, they developed and irrigated the barren black land into fertile soil with rich rice fragrance and rich materials.

Yanji people have a long history, and their blood is full of an enterprising spirit, a quality possessed by vagrants.

For a long time in the past, many Yanji people were keen to work abroad to earn foreign exchange. Especially Koreans, because of their language advantages, many will go to work in Korea.

This wave of going abroad to work originated in the late 1980s, when non-governmental exchanges between China and South Korea began-visiting relatives. Many Koreans go to Korea to visit relatives and bring a lot of ginseng and velvet antler, which makes them earn their first bucket of gold.

1990 After China and South Korea formally established diplomatic relations, people began to go abroad through intermediaries. Even if the agency fee for going to Korea is as high as tens of thousands of yuan, many people will go abroad even if they borrow money because they can return to their capital to make money in the second year of going out to work. Women generally work in restaurants, while men generally work in construction and clubs.

An important incentive for them to work abroad is that the income from working abroad is much higher than that from home. For example, the domestic salary of 3,000-4,000 yuan can reach 1 10,000 yuan in Korea during the same period. This also allows them to form a lifestyle of "going out to work in Korea and returning to Yanbian for consumption".

In addition, another reason is that Koreans have a strong sense of intergenerational responsibility, and they will make money by working abroad to meet the responsibility of supporting the elderly, raising children and marrying their sons.

However, with the growth of domestic economy in recent years, the advantages of working abroad have gradually weakened, and many people have begun to return to China. However, due to the lack of employment opportunities in Yanji, many young people still choose to develop in big cities in China.

Sister Du, the daughter of a taxi driver, returned to work in Chengdu after studying abroad. "Are you willing to let your daughter work so far away?" Facing our doubts, Sister Du said, "Chengdu is not far away, and she has always been at home, so we will respect her choice."

Similarly, this 70-year-old Korean woman and her two sons are also developing outside. The eldest son has settled in Guangdong, and the youngest son works in Korea.

The old lady is very tolerant and open to children going out to work and settle down. She thinks it's enough as long as the children like it. This concept is more or less related to her experience when she was young.

In the 1980s, the old lady took her family out to work, transported firewood to Daxinganling, Inner Mongolia, opened a hotel, and worked in Beijing and Hebei. In 2020, it was the first 10 year for her to return to Yanbian after her wandering abroad. When she was young, the years of running for a living brought her an optimistic and open-minded attitude and a stable and peaceful life now.

The home where the old lady lives now is a typical Korean decoration style, with a big wardrobe and a warm kang, and she can sleep on the floor above. There are many electrical appliances in the modern kitchen area, most of which were given by my son in Guangdong. There is also a wireless network installed at home. Usually, she often chats with her son and grandson through WeChat.

Although she is too old to do much work now, the old lady still makes her small yard look good. There is a small clearing in front of the door, where you can grow vegetables when the weather is warm; There is a small greenhouse with a dozen chickens; There is also a woodshed dedicated to building firewood for heating. Walking to the gate of the yard, the old lady proudly pointed to a few small flowers on the roadside and said, "Look! This is the flower I planted! "

In this land where Jindalai is in full bloom, there are many lovely people who are so enterprising, enthusiastic and full of vitality. ...

In the people's park in the winter afternoon, cheerful music came from a distance, and people danced heartily and carefree in the warm sunshine. If you pass by, you will be infected by this warm atmosphere.

The greatest charm of this city is that it can harvest all kinds of surprises without searching hard, and people can fall in love with it the first time they set foot. This is Yanji, an inclusive, open and comfortable Yanji!

-Reprinting cooperation-