Jiamusi 佳木斯市

Setting and landscape

The land tilts from southwest to northeast: low hills extending the Wanda Mountains (完达山) and the Zhangguangcai Range (张广才岭) cover the south, while the northern riverside plain lies at about 80 metres, flat and widely marshy, and has largely been turned into farmland. Across the Amur and the Ussuri the prefecture faces Russia's Khabarovsk and the Jewish Autonomous Oblast along a 382-kilometre border.

History

The name, recorded in the late Kangxi reign of the Qing as Jiamukesi gashan (甲母克寺噶珊), comes from a Manchu word the city glosses as 'post-station master' or 'station officer's village'. In 1930 Jiamusi village merged with Dongxing town (东兴镇) as Jiamusi town. Manchukuo made it the seat of its Sanjiang province (三江省) in 1934 and a city in 1937; from 1945 to 1949 it was the capital of Hejiang province (合江省).

The city calls Jiamusi the main home of the Hezhe (赫哲族), one of China's less populous ethnic groups, whose culture grew from fishing and hunting. Their Yimakan (伊玛堪) storytelling, in which a single performer mixes speech and song without instruments, entered the first national intangible heritage list in 2006; the Wurigong gathering (乌日贡大会) of Hezhe arts and sports, held every four years since 1997, was listed from Tongjiang (同江) in 2021.

What to see

The Jiejinkou Hezhe resort (街津口赫哲旅游度假区), a national 4A area 45 kilometres northeast of Tongjiang city, includes a Hezhe culture village presenting songs, dances, fishing and hunting life and fish-skin culture. The city's recommended sunrise spot is the meeting of the Amur and the Ussuri in Fuyuan (抚远), where, it says, the sun rises about an hour earlier than elsewhere in China. Heixiazi Island (黑瞎子岛) at the confluence was split by a 2004 China–Russia agreement that gave China 171 of its 335 square kilometres; the Chinese part belongs to Fuyuan, and a national nature reserve was designated there in 2015.

Food and local products

Hezhe cooking centres on fish. For talaha (塌拉哈), skin-on slices of fresh fish are threaded on sharpened willow sticks, roasted over a fire until only partly cooked and dipped in vinegar and salt. In winter, frozen fish is skinned and shaved into curls (刨花) eaten with vinegar, salt and chili oil; fish floss (鱼毛), boiled, boned, pounded and stir-fried until golden and crisp, is stored in fish oil.

Getting oriented

The city government sits in Jiaoqu (郊区). The Harbin–Jiamusi (哈佳) and Mudanjiang–Jiamusi (牡佳) high-speed railways reach the city, and airports serve Jiamusi, Fuyuan and Jiansanjiang (建三江).

Highlights

• Jiejinkou Hezhe resort 街津口赫哲旅游度假区: National 4A area 45 km northeast of Tongjiang city with a Hezhe culture village.
• Heixiazi Island 黑瞎子岛: Island at the Amur-Ussuri confluence, divided with Russia under a 2004 agreement; the Chinese part belongs to Fuyuan.
• Hezhe Yimakan 赫哲族伊玛堪: Solo spoken-and-sung storytelling without instruments, on the first national intangible heritage list (2006).
• Talaha 塌拉哈: Skin-on fish slices roasted on willow sticks until partly cooked and dipped in vinegar and salt.