Question for Non Dave

[Miss Motz]

Hi ND,

I'm sure I read somewhere in one of your posts you were going to the Chinese snowfields?? Did you go?? Were they worth it?? Skiing/Boarding is high on my list of things to do, also why I'm trying to research schools in the North East, I gather thats where the fields are??

[Ruth]

You'll have to go further north than where I am in Liaoning. We get a light dusting of snow a few times a year. Barely enough to fuss about. Certainly not enough to ski or snowboard on. I visited Harbin two years ago and the hotel where I was staying offered ski packages. Apparently there are ski resorts near enough to Harbin to do day trips.

You are quite right to ask Non-Dave. He's the resident expert for that part of the country.

[Non-Dave]

Skiing was high on my list of priorities too and I'm happy to say that it can be done here - and cheap!

I went skiing a month or so ago in Shuangyashan (about 6 hours north-east of Harbin). It was a very basic ski-field on the edge of town with two lifts and pretty unadventurous runs, but there was lots of snow and the whole day sking package (including reasonable quality equipment rental & lift pass was 45 RMB). One of my colleagues in the twon was going every day for a few weeks...

There are 2 major ski areas up here 1. Dailing (about 3 hours north-east of Harbin) and 2. Yabuli (about 3 hours east of Harbin). I haven't been to either yet but plan on doing so next season - If you have to be this cold then at least you should be able to go skiing!

Yabuli is the pride and joy of Chinese Tourist skiing (apparently) and I have been told by locals that it is very modern and has some good runs.

You can buy heaps of skiing/snowboarding gear, clothes and accessories in Harbin quite cheaply, so you don't have to lug stuff from home. You can also rent just about everything you need at the fields.

Jobs are plentiful up here too, so definitely check the area out.

[Ruth]

Mother Nature is making me eat my words. Woke up this morning to a world blanketed in white and the stuff is still falling. Big fat beautiful flakes of snow. So pretty from inside when I don't have to shovel it or drive in it. We've got more than 6 inches out there now. This is a huge deal for Xingcheng where we are lucky to get the ground covered two or three times a year.

I never realized before how all-weather umbrellas can be. Sun shade, protection from the snow, and (what I thought their only purpose was) to keep one dry on rainy days. Shows you how restricted my upbringing was. I got shots of a couple of people with umbrellas in the falling snow on the camera, BUT I had just closed the window when two people went by on a bicycle. I missed the shot It would have been a good one.

[Miss Motz]

now THAT woulda been a sight to see , umbrella's, bike and snow is not a combination you see often :-)

Thanks for the info ND I'm looking forward to the skiing and boarding next year (remains to be seen whether or not I come out unscathed and all bones intact)

[Mr Nobody]

You have 206 bones or so. You don't need all of them. Just make sure you break the ones you don't use so much.

[cheekygal]

speaking of snow - it seems to be slightly snowing outside today....

[Newbs]

This of any interest to anyone?

Chinese hit the slopes as skiing takes off
Wed Mar 1, 2006 9:20 AM GMT
Printer Friendly | Email Article | RSS





By Lindsay Beck

HONGHUALIANG, China (Reuters) - Li Chenlong learned to ski the hard way, by climbing a mountain, strapping on his skis, and figuring out for himself how best to get down.

Ten years on, the 26-year-old is decked out in the latest snow-boarding gear and greeting pals as he clomps through the lodge at Wanlong Ski Resort in north China's Hebei province.

Chen Hua got the bug after trying out skiing on an indoor slope in Shanghai.

"The first time I skied on real snow I was on a business trip to Beijing. I got in a taxi and said 'take me to the nearest ski slope'," said Chen, who drove overnight from Shanghai for a few days of skiing at Wanlong.

As China's economy takes off so does its ski industry, with small resorts springing up around Beijing and investors developing mountains throughout the north, providing a winter playground for the country's nouveaux riches.

Many on the slopes are trying the sport for the first time.

Some ski in jeans, or even suits and ties, and the mountains are a minefield of fallen bodies and lost skis left by enthusiastic, but as yet unskilled, skiers.

For Lu Jian, chairman and CEO of the Nanshan Ski Resort an hour's drive from Beijing, it's the enthusiasm that counts.

ECONOMIST TO SKI BUM

In his bright blue ski suit and baseball cap, Lu looks little like the middle-aged Chinese economist he is, and every bit the adventure sports enthusiast.

He went to Canada in 1992 to investigate the business of courier services and instead came away inspired by the mountains.

"At that time we visited Vancouver and when we went to Whistler I got the idea that China should develop public ski resorts," Lu said over tea at Nanshan.

The former futures trader became one of the initial backers of Yabuli, near the Russian border, now China's largest ski resort and host of the ski events at the 1996 Asian Winter Games.

He then turned his sights on Beijing, opening Nanshan, in its fifth season and suddenly one of 14 small resorts catering to Beijing's jet set. Most have fewer than 10 runs and a vertical drop of less than 500 metres (1,600 feet).

Lu estimates there were 500 skiers in China when Yabuli opened.

Now there are upwards of 3 million -- still a drop in the bucket compared to its 1.3 billion population, but enough to be attracting the interest of foreign brands, whose stalls selling designer ski wear crowd Chinese ski resorts.

Ski resort operator Intrawest Corp. has also said it is exploring the idea of building resorts in China.

Interest in the sport is also likely to grow now that China has won its first Olympic skiing medals.

Han Xiaopeng was a surprise winner in the freestyle skiing aerial event at last month's Winter Games in Turin, while Li Nina, who took the 2005 World Cup title, won silver in the women's aerials.

Lu says Beidahu will be China's next resort to watch, as it expands to host the ski events at the 2007 Asian Winter Games being held in the northeastern city of Changchun.

The sport is also likely to get an indirect boost with Beijing's hosting of the 2008 Olympic Games, with investment in facilities and interest in leisure activities booming.

FARMER TO CHAIRLIFT OPERATOR

But it's not just marketers and big investors who are eyeing the changes China's ski industry is bringing.

A couple of kilometres from Wanlong's base in the village of Huangtuzui, where hogs ambling on to the road hold up cars full of skiers, savvy farmers are turning their courtyard homes into simple guesthouses for skiers and snapping up jobs at the resort.

Hui Wanbing used to drive a goods truck, but since Wanlong opened in 2003, he has worked manning a chairlift and in the off-season grows crops on village land.

During the peak travel season over the Lunar New Year, he is also charging 25 yuan a night for a bed in his house -- heated the traditional way, with a coal fire under a raised platform -- and has room for upwards of 10 guests.

"They fixed our road, and houses like ours have a bit of income, so from our perspective this is all to our advantage," he said at his home, still clad in the red ski suit that marks him as Wanlong staff.

His daughter Hui Shuai, 20, is an English student in Tangshan, a few hours' drive away, and over a home-cooked meal of hand-pulled noodles and fresh greens that grow in the mountains, she says she wants to be a teacher.

"I can go to college now without the money being so much of a worry," she said of the extra income her father earns.

With the free passes that are a perk of her father's new job, Hui Shuai has learned to ski but she says her younger brother is more fearless.

On the mountain, Chen and Li don their goggles and schuss off to conquer the steepest runs, but Hui Wanbing says that, despite working at Wanlong, he still hasn't taken to the sport.

"I'm over 40 -- I'm too old to learn," he said.

[Ruth]

Thanks, Newbs. I likely won't be traveling to China's ski resorts anytime soon, but I like to read stories about how China is developing. Always good when the little guy gets something out of it, too.

[Newbs]

Thanks Ruth. There was an article in the local Sunday morning paper here on all this. Included with the story was an image that I can't find to post at the moment. It showed some skiers on a hill of artificial snow somewhere near Beijing, and in the background you could see the flat ground, with all those sheds that they like to pepper all round the countryside, and a few factories and flats thrown in for good measure.

[Ruth]

Lovely scenery around THAT snowhill by the sounds of it. I learned to ski on a man-made hill built in a park in my home town. Real ski mountains were a couple of hours drive north. The man-made hill was good enough for kids to learn on and cheap enough that we could afford it. Also close enough to home so our parents would take us.

You've given Miss Motz some more destinations to try when she gets here.

[Miss Motz]

Thanks for the info Newbs, pity that it's getting soo crowded though, never mind if you can't beat 'em join 'em Should be funny to see a 5'8" , 80kg female cruising down the Chinese Ski slopes, It'll make em move faster

[Ruth]

As I was reading the article, the line about the skiers in suits and ties struck me funny. I really believe it because I've seen them at the beach and climbing mountains. I had the mental image of a lady in heels and pointy toed shoes skiing. They wear them everywhere else, why not to ski in?

[con's fly is open]

A snowboarding medal? I foresee the future of the hilly regions of Dongbei:



Do the country a world of good.

[Miss Motz]

hmmmm I prepared to see all sorts of things on the chinese ski fields!! Couldn be detramental to my health though, I mean with all the laughing I wont be looking where I'm going It promises for many funny stories for you guys though!!

[Ruth]

We love funny stories. Don't forget to take your camera, 'cause we like pictures too.

[con's fly is open]

Funny stories? You'll have more than you can stand soon enough.

[con's fly is open]

Before Scandinavia: These could be the first skiers
By Robert Marquand, Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
Wed Mar 15, 3:00 AM ET

BEIJING - Move over Bode. You may have competition you don't know about - among a sturdy skiing clan in northwest China.

They are central Asians, Mongols, and Kazaks, living in the remote Altay mountains of Xinjiang province, where some claim skiing was first conceived.

Using curved planks whose design dates back 2,000 years, the Altaic peoples are formidable skiers. They might not win a medal on perfectly groomed Olympic trails. But they can break their own paths, track elk for days in deep snow, and capture them live.

They don't zig-zag through slalom courses or bump down moguls. But using a single pole, they plunge straight down mountainsides in a blaze of efficiency, and climb hills with a speed and grace that has wowed the few Western experts who have witnessed their prowess.

"These skiers wouldn't do well in the Olympics," says pro skier Nils Larsen. "But the Olympians from Turin couldn't make their skis do what the Altaic skiers can.

"The Altaics learn at age three, and by seven they are really good. They saw us skiing, swerving and turning, and they thought it was the funniest thing," Mr. Larsen adds. "For them, going straight down the mountain is the manly thing. They think it is silly to turn, unless you have to."

In fact, until a few years ago, no one in the West's serious ski communitywas aware of the Altaic skiers, and no one knew that "ancient" skis were in use anywhere on the planet. Archeologists have long known about long skis with animal-skin bottoms preserved in Swedish bogs and depicted in old cave paintings.

But Larsen, a telemark-skiing expert from Washington state, heard a few years ago from friends on a scholarly expedition in the Altay region who saw locals using what had been identified as aboriginal skis.

For ski buffs, the discovery was exciting, spawning informal visits by foreigners desiring more information about how old skis were made, and how locals used them. This January, some 40 Altay herdsmen took part in what was billed as an "ancient-skiing contest" (except it wasn't "ancient" for the locals).

"My father told me about these older skis," says J.Suhee, a Mongolian diplomat raised in the Altaic region and now in Beijing. "But they were for survival, not for sports."

The skis used today in Altay are not unlike the 4,500-year-old skis found preserved in bogs near Hoting, Sweden. Local Altays hack them out of a single piece of lightweight wood - spruce or white pine - and wrap them with hairy, brittle horse-shank skin.

The skins are permanently attached to the bottom of the ski, providing a "grip" going uphill, and a natural "brake" going down. (The skins stay tight on the frame since they are soaked and stretched over the form, and then shrink as they dry.)

The skier's foot is kept in place using what is known in the West as an "arctic binding." Four holes are drilled through the ski, with rawhide binding threaded through in the shape of an "X." The foot is slid into that X, and it keeps the foot relatively stable.

"The skis have a distinctive shape, and the designs we saw are fairly uniform. But they seem more like cousins of our [modern] skis, than brothers and sisters," says Larsen, whose business card reads, "minister of ski culture."

Differences in ski styles are major. The Altay skis are at least twice as wide as even the latest hourglass-shaped alpine skis. And unlike modern skis, which have the boot clamped into place, these skis require much more maneuvering with foot and pole to steer the skis.

Balance is completely different. Altay skiers do not lean forward in a knee-intensive crouch. Rather, going down the mountain, they lean far back and use the pole as ballast. The pole tends to get used on one side or the other - not on both sides, as a kayaker would use a paddle.

Larsen, who videotaped the making and use of the Altay skis, says he was impressed with the local talent: "I've taught skiing 25 years, so I know when someone has good balance and .... they are naturals. The ski is like an extension of their body. You can tell they are totally confident on the ride."

Altay snows are so deep that cross-country skis are ineffective. But with their "ancient" skis and highly developed stamina, many Altaic skiers go for 12 hours at a time. They hunt for days, following deer, elk, bear, wolves, and other game through deep snows. Eventually the game tires, and often local Altays will tie them up. "They have scads of captured elk, which they use for antlers," Larsen says.

The origins of skiing are disputed. Research of ancient skiing methods is not highly funded. But anthropologists and ski-history buffs debate two main origins: Scandinavia, where the oldest preserved skis are found, and the Altaic area. Of late,a consensus has been forming among scholars and ski enthusiasts that it was the Altaic area.

Civilization developed earlier there. Altaic peoples may have brought skis to Sweden or Norway. Or the common-sense concept of skiing may have arisen independently in each place.

On Jan. 25, days before the ancient-skiing contest, China's state-run news service Xinhua announced that China had essentially invented skiing.

Citing newly discovered Altaic regional cave paintings of four hunters on boards with poles in their hands, chasing cattle and horses - the Xinhua story proposed that "Chinese were adept skiers in the Old Stone Age," and that skiing originated there 100 to 200 centuries ago.

Historians did not rush to embrace the theory. The ethnic Han Chinese, let alone a corporate state called China, did not exist inthis part of the world in stone-age days, 10,000 years ago, they note.