Dalian

Dalian is barely more than a century old. The natural harbour at the tip of the Liaodong peninsula, ice-free and deep, was a cluster of fishing villages when Russia leased the area from the Qing in 1898 and laid out a commercial port called Dalny, with circular squares and radiating avenues on a European plan, while fortifying the naval anchorage at Lüshun, known in the West as Port Arthur.

The Russo-Japanese War of 1904–05 was decided here. Lüshun was besieged for months and surrendered, and under the peace settlement Japan took over the lease. The city, renamed Dairen, became the southern terminus of the South Manchuria Railway and the main port through which Manchurian soybeans, coal and timber left for the world. Japanese planners kept the Russian street pattern and filled the squares with banks and company offices, many of which still stand.

Soviet forces occupied the area in 1945, and the port and naval base stayed under Soviet control for some years after the People's Republic was founded, returning fully to China in the mid-1950s. Under Mao the city built ships, refined oil and made machinery. From the 1980s it was among the first Chinese ports opened to foreign investment, with a development zone to the north, and in the 1990s and 2000s a period of ambitious city building added Xinghai Square, new districts on reclaimed land and a software park that drew outsourcing work from Japan. Dalian now trades on its coastline as much as on its cargo.

Dalian thinks of itself as a seaside city first — a place of beaches, sea air and squares rather than of factories — and that image is carefully maintained in the parks, the coastal road and the flowerbeds. The European inheritance is part of the appeal: Russian and Japanese buildings around Zhongshan Square, a tram system that has run since the early twentieth century, and street layouts that feel unlike other Chinese cities.

Football is the strongest local passion, and the city is nicknamed China's football city. Dalian Shide took eight national titles in the early professional years and supplied many international players, and the game is treated as part of the city's identity, with pitches and football imagery in public parks, including a giant football sculpture in Labour Park. Sea swimming, winter dips, fishing and walking the shore are ordinary weekend habits, and older residents fill the squares in the evening with line dancing and exercise groups.

The city has long ties with Japan and South Korea through trade and outsourcing, and Japanese and Korean food, signage and businesses are more visible here than in most of China. Manners are Dongbei — plain-spoken, hospitable and fond of a long dinner with toasts — but a little more coastal and commercial in tone than in the inland cities. Fashion and garment manufacturing have given the city an annual clothing festival and a reputation for dressing well.

The 2020 census counted about 7.45 million people in the municipality, which reaches up the peninsula well beyond the built-up city; some 5.1 million of them lived in the continuous urban area. Most live in blocks of flats on the slopes above the harbour and along the metro lines, and the newer districts to the north and east have absorbed much of the recent growth.

The economy rests on the port, among the largest half-dozen in the country, together with shipbuilding and repair, oil refining and petrochemicals, machinery, electronics and a substantial software and business-services industry serving Japanese and Korean clients. The Dalian Commodity Exchange, founded in 1993, is the only futures exchange in the Northeast. Tourism matters in summer, and fishing and aquaculture, especially sea cucumber and scallops, support much of the coast.

Life follows the sea and the seasons. Summer brings crowds from across the Northeast to the beaches, with traffic queues along the coastal road and seafood restaurants full into the night; winter empties the shore and moves social life into hotpot restaurants and malls. Like the rest of the region, Dalian has an ageing population and has seen young people leave for Beijing and the south, though it retains more of its graduates than the inland cities, helped by its universities and its outsourcing industry.

Dalian eats from the sea. Clams, razor clams, scallops, oysters, sea urchin, prawns, crab, squid and small fish are the heart of the local table, usually steamed, boiled, grilled over charcoal or simply salted, on the principle that fresh seafood needs little doing to it. Sea cucumber, farmed and gathered along this coast, is the prestige ingredient, served braised or stewed and given as a gift in dried form. Kelp and other seaweeds appear in soups and cold dishes.

Dumplings are the other staple, often filled with seafood — prawn, clam or fish with chive — rather than the pork fillings of inland Dongbei. Grilled skewers, barbecue and hotpot are eaten year round, and the big Northeastern dishes are all here too: guobaorou in its sweet-and-sour glaze, stews of pork and potato, and fermented cabbage with white pork in winter. Cold noodles and grilled meat reflect the Korean presence, and sushi and izakaya cooking the Japanese one.

Local habits round it out. Seafood is often chosen live from tanks and priced by weight; markets sell the morning catch and rows of dried fish, shellfish and kelp; and the beer festival in late summer has made the city's outdoor drinking season an event in itself. Fruit from the peninsula, particularly cherries in early summer, is sold at roadside stalls along the coastal roads.