Text by CRI Reporter Paul Kendall   

Suicide, Victorian style entertainment at Elizabethan prices, the smell of old people eating old fish. It's all been downhill for the British seaside industry since people discovered you could leave the island without dropping off the edge of the world.

Luckily none of this embarrassment of poverty has anything to do with Qingdao, but it could have done with a slight change of history. Everywhere I looked in this coastal city reminded me of Europe. Not of a visit to the aforementioned British retirement homes but of some half remembered, half idealised visit to the European mainland. To Germany, to be exact.

The Germans invaded Qingdao at the end of the nineteenth century, and their legacy is far more essential to the city's character than just its world famous brewery. They may have taken their clothing with them but Qingdao is still draped in German fashion in that it has some of the best preserved colonial architecture in China.

Credit must go to successive generations of local authorities for their attitude towards environmental preservation. The first instinct must have been to destroy these luxurious creations of "imperial aggressors". However, that ultimately means destroying a part of your own history. As well as good maintenance of old colonial buildings, newer buildings have been designed in a similar style. Thus they avoid the horrible culture clash that can occur when graceful old meets functional new. Without my guidebook and the entrance fees, it might have been difficult to distinguish genuine early twentieth century German buildings from their modern imitators.

Qingdao covers a large area but its places of interest are relatively close together. You might want to take a taxi to get around. But maybe you've been living in a city like Beijing for too long. Walking, a health hazard in Beijing, is a joy in Qingdao. Its roads are green, winding, undulating creatures whose European-style provides as much evidence of the past as the sites that guidebooks encourage us to visit.

The arboreal nature of this city is further confirmed by its many parks. They are beautiful in themselves, and Qingdaoshan gongyuan is especially worth visiting for its underground German fort. There is also Xiaoqingdao gongyuan for its great view across the bay to the main section of the city. This tiny park is a quiet spot only because of its overpriced 15 yuan ticket. Maybe this is the price you pay for privacy, and from here you can clearly see Qingdao's landmarks, including its two churches and the Bavarian fairytale palace, Yingbinlou. These buildings should not just be viewed but also visited: the Catholic church and Yingbinlou for their grandeur, the Protestant church for its contrastingly bare interior.

These parks and buildings are a peaceful alternative to Qingdao's main source of tourism; the beach. The invasion carried out these days seems to be an annual Han one, with hordes descending on the beaches here every summer. If you're here for some sunbathing, expect to have to fight for your few square centimetres of space. 

Sunbathing brawls aside, Qingdao is potentially dangerous for travellers in another way; it might make them think of settling down ... or even retiring. If the comfortable climate doesn't lull them into complete submission, the colonial architecture should sooth those who have searched fruitlessly in Shanghai and Tianjin for such fine old buildings.

(Photo Source: qingdaochina.org)

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