Wait a minute... the Harbin Disney Ice Festival?  Until I purchased my ticket at Zhaolin Park to attend its winter festival event this year - as I did in 2005 and 2007 - I had no idea that Disney was playing a role in it.  As it turns out, this is not a one-time thing: the Disney name will be associated with future winter festival events at Zhaolin Park as well.  A Disney licensing company in Shanghai (not the Walt Disney Company itself) has taken over its operations.  Because this is where Harbin’s winter festival started decades ago, it’s actually a big deal - big enough for the New York Times to report on it, albeit in a rather unfair and misleading way.  I’ll say more on that in a minute.  This was the view just inside the south entrance to Zhaolin Park.  Mickey and friends are on the platform behind the logo.

Detail of “Pretty Female Soldier”, a Russian entry in the ice sculpture competition held every year here in Zhaolin Park.  Just after the New York Times published its article, a reporter who read it asked me to comment on the Disney element in Harbin this year, since I’ve been covering Harbin’s winter festivals for years.  He wondered if “something more pure has been sullied by Disney’s participation” - a question no doubt inspired by the tone of the New York Times article.  I’ve seen similar reaction to the article elsewhere.

Detail of the competition sculpture “Encounter”, another Russian entry.  Here’s my perspective on Disney’s participation.  I’ve said here in the past that of Harbin’s three major winter festival events, Zhaolin Park’s is the least impressive, and has been for some time.  Outside of the competition ice sculptures, the same kinds of ice structures have appeared here for years - the same simple block castles, the same green-lit military ships and tanks, the same pagodas, the same rows of ice archways, the same blinking globes.  Unlike the other two Harbin winter festival events over on Sun Island, this one doesn’t evolve.  It’s as if creatively, once they figured out how to put light bulbs inside ice blocks decades ago, they closed up shop.  Only the competition ice sculptures, like the ones shown on this page, truly remain worth seeing here.

Detail of the competition sculpture “Galaxy”, yet another Russian entry.  Now, in the sense that the Zhaolin Park ice event doesn’t change, it is indeed “something pure.”  And no doubt, for people who have never seen it before, the first visit is pretty neat.  But it’s like visiting a museum - and the Zhaolin Park ice event is not meant to be like that.  People want to see something new and different.  So, competing winter events came along and took the concept of snow and ice events much further.  And because of that, the Ice and Snow World event and the Snow Sculpture Art Fair event are now more popular than the Zhaolin Park event.

Detail of the competition sculpture “Brave Heart”, a Thai entry.  Simply put, the Zhaolin Park ice event has needed help for years.  Despite what the New York Times article implies, there's nothing sacred here to sully, nothing pure here to worship.  Disney certainly knows how to put on a show in a park.  And the similarities between the Harbin winter festivals and the Disney theme parks are obvious; over the years I’ve pointed some of them out on this site.  So, I'm okay with the concept of Disney participation in the Zhaolin Park ice festival event.

I’m okay with the concept.  That said, I’m not so okay with the results.  Zhaolin Park this year looked very much the way it always does during its ice festival event.  Here’s what was new.  Big pictures of Disney characters (not made of ice or snow) were stuck to entryway ice walls...

...little models of Disney characters (not made of ice or snow) stood in regions throughout the park...

...arched gateways (not made of ice or snow) with Disney logos on top stood at the entrance to those regions in the park; and a temporary structure (not made of ice or snow) housed Disney merchandise that appeared to have come from Japan and had nothing to do with this event.

Other changes: the ice slide shown here was called “Cinderella's Castle” despite looking nothing like Cinderella’s castle.  (Remarkably though, it had escalators and elevators.)  And the usual ice ship was called a “Pirates of the Caribbean” attraction despite looking very much like the park’s past ice ships.

There were some other changes too - Mickey-head windows in ice walls, a simple snow sculpture of Disney character faces - but simply put, the Disney differences seemed merely cosmetic and quite unrelated to the Zhaolin Park ice festival event.

Yet somehow these minimal changes justified a massive raising of ticket prices.  Two years ago, daytime and nighttime tickets at Zhaolin Park’s winter event were 10 yuan and 40 yuan respectively; this year, they were 50 yuan and 100 yuan ($15).   This, simply because a small model of Aladdin’s Genie...

...had been placed on the steps of a simple ice structure that Zhaolin Park would surely have constructed in a similar manner anyway.  Ticket prices at this year’s other two festivals were 120 yuan ($18) and 150 yuan ($22), and well worth it; they remain by far the better events.  Disney (or, more accurately, the Disney licensing company in Shanghai) did not add nearly enough value to the small Zhaolin Park event to justify its huge ticket price increases.

Here’s something you won't see at the theme parks in California and Florida: snow on the Disney characters.  So, my perspective is that the New York Times missed the point of the Zhaolin Park winter event by simply decrying Disney’s participation here.  And Disney’s licensing company missed the point of the Zhaolin Park winter event by simply slapping the Disney name on everything.  Looking ahead, this was Disney’s first year here; my hope is that they’ll truly add creativity to the event in the coming years.

Looks like the Disney princesses could use a dusting too.

The preferred method of transportation at the Harbin Disney Ice Festival, though not an ideal one: drivers had a tendency to run their carts into the ice sculptures.

An icy bathroom.  I don’t want to even think about going in there.

Detail of the competition sculpture - and this is truly its name - “My Tongue”, a Mongolian entry.  Perhaps the icy fly emerged from that icy bathroom.

Detail of the competition sculpture “Fireworks”, a Russian entry.

Detail of the competition sculpture “Love Story”, yet another Russian entry; those guys are good at this stuff.

The park’s monument to Li Zhaolin, a general who spent most of his adult life organizing and leading China’s resistance efforts against the Japanese occupation of this area during the 1930s and 1940s, and the person for whom Zhaolin Park is named.

My Harbin winter festival photographs through 2007 have been published as a book entitled “Hot Ice and Wondrous Strange Snow: The Winter Festivals of Harbin, China”.  The book, available through Blurb.com, can be previewed and purchased below.