Leisure on the Chinese Eastern Railway: Yacht Club and Racecourse as “Other Spaces” of Harbin

Abstract

Applying Fr. D. Turner's frontier theory and M. Foucault's concept of heterotopic spaces the author studies “other” spaces created by Russian railway men and Cossacks in Northern Manchuria in the late 19th – first half of the 20th centuries. Particular attention is paid to the organization of leisure in Harbin. The article considers two quite interesting spaces: the yacht club on the bank of the river Sungari and the hippodrome. The choice of these leisure spaces was based on a number of important characteristics. The purpose of this study is to analyze the spaces of the yacht club and the hippodrome as heterotopic spaces on the frontier territory. The author reaches several important conclusions about the basic principles of the basic principles of the creation and the functioning of these leisure spaces. Within these spaces, many cultural processes took quite different forms. The article provides numerous previously unknown facts about the development of yachting and trotting in Harbin.

Keywords

• cel
• harbin
• yacht club
• racecourse
• northern manchuria
• china
• russia
• railway men
• cossacks
• leisure
• leisure spaces