Qingdao, China once played home to a German trading colony. Like most colonial powers, the Germans shrugged off what the local culture had to offer by ways of food, etiquette and architecture. When the Germans came to do business on the coast of the Yellow Sea, they brought their language, European style buildings and the art of beer making with them. You won't hear much, if any German spoken in Qingdao, these days. But you can still find the nation's influence haunting the city. It's the home of Tsingtao Beer: its original brewery was founded as a German-Anglo business proposition. Tour the joint (your ticket comes with a tasting) and you'll see the European influence in how the brew is made. More obvious, however, is the city's German quarter. In a nation known for aping great structures from around the world for its citizens to visit, the little slice of Imperial German that you'll find in the heart of this Chinese harbor city is the real deal.
I visited Qingdao in 2017, for work. Wonderful people. Great barbecue culture. Terrible, crippling smog. Fried Silkworm tastes much like popcorn. People go to Starbucks for cold drinks. It's damn difficult to get a cup of coffee there. When the Germans left in 1914, they didn't take their cobblestones and brick buildings with them. The infrastructure and architecture they installed to make themselves at home got left behind.
One of my favorite discoveries in the city was how many people came from all over China to take their wedding photos in the German quarter. I was there in the summer. Young men and women sweltered in their wedding clothes waiting for the opportunity to have their photos taken in front of St. Michael's Cathedral, and the European-style streets that surround it. Family members and professional photographers work hard in the heat, laying down on scorching hot cobbles to get the perfect shot. A perfect moment created to commemorate the start of something that all too often ends imperfectly.
