Hammer and Sickle

In my naivity I have been under the impression that the hammer and sickle is exclusively Soviet iconography; Lenin, Trotsky, Brezhnev and all that. Not so! You see it in many places in China. I think it is associated with unions or workers at least. No matter, the Russian presence in modern China is strong. Putin is always on the tv news. Here in Beidaihe there are countless Russians, some perhaps foreign experts ( a term reserved for professional foreigners of which I am on the cusp) but most are simple vacationers. They regard this area in much the same way Canadians regard Cuba. I have been addressed in Russian several times now, the first in Beijing waiting for a train going to Tumen on the Soviet frontier near Vladivostok. The signage is often trilingual, that is to say Chinese characters, Russian and English. In Beijing on a hot night and after visiting the John Bull pub in the diplomatic district, haunt of ex-pats, I ate a meal outside in a Russian enclave. The quarters of some Soviets were spartan to say the least. A popular tv series on the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union ran in prime time for ten straight days not long ago. As far as I know Sino-Soviet relations have been on the up and up since the ideological fall out in the sixties. I'm off to check out the Russkies at the Friendship Hotel. Over and out comrades.