DALIAN, CHINA: Overview of the City

Compiled by Heather Hopkins Clement

The beautiful city of Dalian is refreshingly different from other major Chinese cities.  There are lots of green spaces and evidence of the Russian’s and Japanese’s previous presence in the city can still be found.

The best way I have found thus far to get an overview of the city is to take the tourist loop shuttle bus once around before getting off to take in some of the city’s sights.  The city also has sister city relationships with several other popular cruise ports of call:  Incheon, S. Korea and Vladivostok, Russia.

Below is a sampling of what some travel guides have to say about the city:

LONELY PLANET:

A recent survey named Dàlián China’s ‘most liveable city’, and if you linger on its beaches, explore its modern museums or stroll through its shopper-thronged pedestrian areas, you’ll see why. Perched on the Liaodong Peninsula bordering the Yellow Sea, Dàlián is one of China’s most prosperous cities. And even as many flashy towers are being built, this lively, relaxed city retains some early-20th-century architecture and refreshing acres of grass.

Several beaches surround the city, and relaxing by the sea is one of the main reasons travellers visit Dàlián. Dàlián’s extremely successful football (soccer) team also lures many fans.

FROMMER’S:

397km (246 miles) S of Shenyang

Dalian is the supermodel of Chinese cities. Thoroughly modern, sartorially savvy, and unabashedly narcissistic, it is also the largest and busiest port in northern China. Dalian's straightforward beauty can be refreshing in a region where most towns are of the interesting-but-homely type, and indeed, there are few more enjoyable activities after a week in the Dongbei gloom than a sunlit stroll along the city's supremely walkable streets. The mere fact that the city has a definable downtown, unlike other cities in China, is to be lauded.

Like Shanghai and Hong Kong, the cities to which it is most often compared, Dalian isn't really Chinese. Located just north of the Lushun naval base at the tip of the Liaodong Peninsula, it was conceived by Russia's czarist government as an ice-free alternative to Vladivostok. Construction of the port, originally called Dalny, got off to a quick start after Russia secured a lease on the peninsula in 1898; however, it lost the city and Lushun to Japan in the Russo-Japanese War (1904-05). Dalian (in Japanese: Dairen) soon grew into the pleasantly sophisticated port Russia had imagined.

Communist-era industrial development swamped Dalian in thick clouds of factory smoke, but it was miraculously resurrected in the mid-1990s by Mayor Bo Xilai, who tried to model the new Dalian on cities he had seen in Europe. This led him to introduce several revolutionary measures -- including a hefty fine for public spitting -- that have become a model for urban renewal projects throughout China. Today, Dalian is considered a vision of China's future both by optimists, who laud its beauty and modernity, and by more cynical observers, who point wryly to the same silver skyscrapers and note how many are empty. Striking as the modern buildings are, it is the old colonial architecture, remnants of Japanese and Russian rule contrasting pleasantly with the newness around them, that is the city's most interesting attraction.

Fashion designers and consumers from China, Japan, Korea, and Hong Kong descend on Dalian in mid-September for the 2-week Dalian International Fashion Festival (Dalian Guoji Fuzhuang Jie). The festival isn't as important or glamorous as the city claims, but it's worth seeing if you're in the area.

Dalian Municipal Bureau of Tourism:

·In Brief

Dalian started out as a small fishing village a little over 100 years ago. Since then Dalian has seen its share of triumphs and tragedies.  Unlike the heavily touristy areas in China (i.e. Beijing, Xi'an, and Hangzhou), that contain numerous palaces, temples and museums, and that emphasize their long history and rich culture, Dalian offers you a totally different experience.

·History

· 500 million years ago Was an area of shallow ocean

· 0.2 million years ago the land takes shape gradually

· 6000 years ago Human civilization began

· 3000 years ago Entered into the Bronze Age

· 1894 Sino-Japanese War broke out, the Eastern Liaodong Peninsula fell to the Japanese

· 1895 Qing government won the peninsula back

· 1898 Tsarist Russia Leased Dalian Bay and Lushunkou

 

·Int'l Sister Cities of Dalian

· Vancouver, Canada

· Bramen Land, Germany

· Glasgow, Scotland

· Inchon, South Korea

· Kitakyushu, Japan

· Le Harve, France

· Oakland, U.S.

· Rostock, Germany

· Houston, U.S.

· Maizuru, Japan

· Vladivostok, Russia

· Pointe-Noire Congo