I am a chinese from the place closest to russia you can get. Let's tell you what this is really like

I live in a city called manzhouli, look it up yourself. basically, the closest chinese city to russia/Ukraine/ kazakhstan. <br><br>I am a chinese (not from china). Living in Inner Mongolia, the northern most province of China, with the capital being the city I mentioned earlier, Manzhouli. <br><br>1. Local People<br>Mandarin is the primary language (we can all speak chinese), but there is a lot of mongolians here too. you could say 40% the population is mongolian and 60% chinese. But we all get along well, our mayor is also mongolian. Sometimes you see some people dress like traditional mongolians and commemorate when Chinggis Khan was born (they celebrate this everywhere within Inner Mongolia). Many people here speak mongolian as their first or second language, excluding old people (many of whom can't speak chinese), russian is getting popular among the kids. <br><br>2. Food<br>We eat a lot of Russian food and Mongolian food. I don't want to exaggerate too much but this is probably the one of the few places (probably the only place) in china you could find over 20 different types of bread and pastries in one hour. the only thing that isn't russian is that the bread is super high quality and you could eat it by itself (no jam or butter needed). our instant noodles are russian too, called "myaso" <br><br>3. Geography<br>04:00 am here is the equivalent to 02:00 am in beijing. We are *the* border city, our university is literally over the border. (half the university is in russian and half is in china). China is such a big country that we are not the Easternmost city, but we *are* the northern most city. If you want to compare, it is more north than North Korea. because it is so north, the weather is a bit chilly (not as bad as some parts of russian) but over the spring and autumn, it is the perfect weather for hiking. *the only thing that's not perfect,* is that when you want to hike, you have to look out for bears, especially on the chinese side. the russian side is a lot safer when it comes to bears, but over the last two years, we silently militarized our border (not to the extent of Ukraine obviously, excluding a few instances where f-16s would fly over our city, but you wouldn't notice unless you really pay attention). So it is risky to hike on the russian soon, we don't want to be shot because some solder mistaked us for a spy. our city is sourrounded by forest in all four direction. there is a big lake over the russian side as well, it's called "hulun lake" and it is one of the five largest lakes of china, and the only lake that is over the border of both china and russia. It's not salty, the water is crystal clear and if you swim a bit over the chinese side, you won't even notice you're in russian waters, but it is over 100m deep in the middle, so you have to be careful. we have a very high snowy mountain nearby too (you can't hike up if you don't know how to ski), and you could see the whole city over that mountain. it snows a lot over the winter, but we had one really big blizzard in 2018 where it snowed over a meter and the temperature went under -40 fahrenheit (-40 celsius). the weather started to get slightly warmer over the past few years though, and we didn't really ever have a blizzard like that ever since. <br><br>4. Culture<br>We are a dark horse in the literal meaning of the word. we once hosted the "Chinese Horse Riding Tournament", you could look it up yourself over wikipedia. there is a place in the middle of the city called Zhelang Hu, which is a museum with a lot of old relics from China (could go as far back as the Han Dynasty). otherwise, we don't have much, as you could imagine, we're not a big city. we have a lot of forest (some are primary forests) over the russian side, russian scientists over the past two centuries have been studying the geology and biology of the area and all that, so you could still see some forests that haven't been touched. <br><br>5. economy<br>Russia is our biggest trading partner. ever since I was a kid, I could see a lot of chinese people going to russia to study and trade goods. the primary trading method was "carrying goods over the border" (by walking lmao). called "shuttle traders" in english, we call it "mang quan mai" ourselves. a lot of our people here also go to trade with Kazakhstan, Mongolia, and Ukraine. I spent one semester in Ukraine when I was a kid, that was over a decade ago (I don't remember much about Ukraine though, all I know is that it is a lot warmer than here despite the fact that it is literally over the border of both Russia and china). in hindsight, I should not have gone there back in the day, I probably shouldn't have gone to Russia too since their economy is literally in shambles. but we still depend heavily on russian trade. <br><br>6. Government<br>We are a part of china. over the last two years, we silently militarized our border. it's not obvious unless you look closely, but we're getting a lot of "gifts" from the PLA lmao. basically, we could get a lot of high quality clothes (we get arctic uniforms from the PLA, similar to the ones they use over in tibet), high quality boots, great quality rifles (we get the same ones as our soldiers, but without the ability to shoot, but we can use them to fend off bears). otherwise, there isn't really anything too out of ordinary. however, we have one "event" that silently happened over the last two years, is that our police started to crack down on a lot of immigration. f-16s started to fly over our city over the last few years, and they're not ours. our police had their efforts doubled or tripled, we don't even see any suspicious activity and the police will already be at your door. our university is a big university, with a big campus over the russian side. russian and chinese kids go to the same university here, with many classes focusing on russian language and literature. Last year, we once had a rumour (not confirmed) that there is a chinese spy disguising himself as a russian student over in our university, and the PLA went through half the dorm within one day. <br><br>7. Russian<br>I speak fluent russian, it's literally the third most spoken language in our city (after chinese and mongolian). lots of people here know russian, and russian is a mandatory course you can't avoid when you get into high school (it's definitely NOT a required course in chinese highschools). our university teaches russian language and literature too, so many kids here know russian. <br><br>8. the rest<br>there is not much to say otherwise. I don't want to exaggerate too much but this is probably the only city in china where you could go into random houses and the host would immediately give an offering (usually vodka). we have a lot of bears and boars nearby, so a lot of people in the vicinity have hunting permits (it's illegal to hunt without permits). some people go hunting to get rid of the bears, some people just hunt for fun. if you want to hunt, you have to go through a training course and have a physical test (to see if you're strong enough to carry a bear carcass), and once you finish that you will get a permit. without a permit, you could go to jail. in hindsight, I should not have revealed all that, because I want to leave my city *the way it is.* I am a chinese (not from china) and I live in Inner Mongolia, which is silently becoming more independent. Many of our people in the inner mongolian government over the past few years started to *not speak chinese* anymore. they only speak mongolian. if you ever want to come here (I hope you don't lmao, I want to leave my city the way it is), be prepared for the weather. it is a lot colder than Korea and Japan, but if you have been to Siberia, it's nothing (Siberia is way colder). if you want to hike the place is perfect. we have a university with half over the chinese side and half over the russian side, where we teach many courses on russian and if you want to study in china, we're your only choice to study in a chinese university right over the border of russia. just a bit of advice, if you ever come here, and want to hike, don't overdo it, because our primary forests are *not trails,* they are thick forests you literally have to break through with a machete. if you want to get lost, and if you want to go bear hunting lmao, be my guest. if you want to meet with real people, there is an organization in our university called the "Manzhouli Youth Communist Organization", we will give you russian food, high quality bread and a lot of vodka. the catch is that you have to go hiking with us, and if you're lucky, we'll even take you to some of the primary forests over the russian side, where you could still see the perfect, unbroken forest (including the lake that is over the russian side). if you want to join the mafia and want to be a people smuggler, our city is *not* the place