Cheeseheads, they are not

Maine might be the obvious comparison for Heilongjiang (黑龙江, or Black Dragon River), the northeastern most province of China, but I'm going with Wisconsin. What connects Heilongjiang and Wisconsin? Naming conventions, cold winters, dairy, homogeneity, and Wal-Mart.

Both Wisconsin and Heilongjiang are named for rivers. The Wisconsin River begins at the Michigan state border and flows south until it empties into the Mississippi River. Heilongjiang is the Chinese name for the Amur River, which separates depressed and stagnant eastern Russia from Chinese Manchuria. It's just like how Lake Michigan separates Wisconsin from depressed and stagnant lower Michigan.

Green Bay is almost at the same latitude as Heilongjiang's capital and first city, Harbin. Wisconsin's lowest recorded temperature is -55°F, balmy compared to Heilongjiang's record low of -62.14°F. I'm sure people in either place will tell you to leave and go somewhere warmer.

Heilongjiang produces more milk than any other province in China. You can think of it as China's dairy capital, but China produces "almost zero" cheese. Supposedly, this is because the Chinese can't digest cheese and don't care for it, but with the increased popularity of Western-styled restaurants in China, this is changing (at least for the wealthy). Wisconsin on the other hand, is first in the US in cheese production and first in the world in cheese pride. At least, I think the guy in this photo has cheese pride. It could be cheese irony or cheese ennui. It's hard to tell with all that face paint.

Manchuria (of which Heilongjiang is a part) is the ancestral home of the Manchu people, who ruled China from 1644-1912 (the Qing Dynasty). No American President or Vice-President has ever been from Wisconsin, but Wisconsin Senator Robert "Fighting Bob" La Follette is considered one of the greatest senators in the nation's history. Not as impressive as ruling a nation for centuries, but this is a democracy. Today, Heilongjiang is 95% Han Chinese and only 3% Manchu, according to Wikipedia. Similarly, according to the 2000 US Census, Wisconsin is 91.52% Caucasian and only 1.3% native American. If your family lived in Wisconsin or Heilongjiang 1,000 years ago, there's probably very few of you left today.

Finally, Heilongjiang is at the center of a complex international web involving China, Russia, and Wal-Marts in Wisconsin. The average Wal-Mart Superstore has about 900 wood products on its shelves. That's a lot of wood. Where do those products come from? Obviously, China. Those guys make everything. But where is China getting all of that wood? After massive flooding in Manchuria in the 1990s (due to deforestation), logging was made illegal in many parts of northeastern China. Well, it just so happens that the largest forest on Earth is just over the border from Heilongjiang in eastern Russia (where the virgin forests of Siberia are also protected). The Russian mafia controls the illegal logging, and most of the lumber is transported to China, where it is turned into products for export. The Chinese blame the fixed pricing schedule of buyers like Wal-Mart for forcing them to buy illegally harvested lumber from Russia. At the prices that Wal-Mart demands, harvesting wood in sustainable and responsible ways is impossible. Wal-Mart has said it will crack down on the practice, but massive damage has already been done. Some estimates have the lumber coming out of Russia at 1/3 the level being logged in the Amazon. Le sigh. As I blog this, sitting on a stool that D and I bought at Ikea, I can't help but feel responsible. Are we doomed?