Harbin is a town few people in the west have heard of. Harbin is fairly lively these days. Take a quick tour through Harbin and you will soon understand why prices of construction materials on the world market are rising. Enormous construction sites are operated 24 hours a day. The city is mushrooming. Despite this, noise pollution and air quality in Harbin remain at reasonable levels, possibly because of its remote location in northern China. It is not yet a truly international city. However it is a major centre for Chinese language study as Harbiners speak a particularly clear, standard version of Putonghua Mandarin. There are many foreign students studying Mandarin in Harbin at the present time.
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