Cold as Cold is

I'm making my way to the subway and the song in my headphones goes "we are born to shimmer, we are born to shine, we are born to radiate". Which is a good thing because it is damn cold here.

Later, I am sitting on the coach, Aidan is directly across the small wooden table we have, in his small wooden chair. We are playing cards. He called me at work and asked to play when I got home. So here I am, developing a not quite five year old into a card shark. The game? WAR, five across. Which means we both lay five cards face down and then flip one by one. Whoever wins the best of five gets to keep all 10 cards. This is a nice balance between what Aidan can learn and what my boredom will tolerate. In the middle of the game, Yang's mom Yihang comes downstairs, opens our large living room window and then sits near the window. She is trying to let some fresh air into the house. Which, I might add, works like a charm. How can I tell? Well, it is about 10(F) degrees outside and I am suddenly freezing. Aidan seems not to notice. Was I surprised? No, not really, but that's a story for another day.

Beijing winters are not all that cold, so we are told. And this is true if you are from Ottawa, Harbin, or Buri Buri School on a late summer afternoon. Beijing winters are like a reverse lobster cook. Instead of getting warmer and warmer it gets colder and colder until you don't even realize you've adjusted your life and are now a hermit. Take November, it starts out as the remnants of Beijing's best month, October. Outside of native Beijingers, who fear cold like a cat water, one can walk around in jeans and a sweatshirt. Then the temperature drops about 10 degrees over a couple of days. Then December comes and the temperature drops another 10 degrees. The next thing you know anything around 30 is considered warm and you are hunkered down until April. The cold even marches across out bedroom floor (don't go there). It marches in this sense. We are on the eighth floor of a 12 story apartment building which is largely slabs of concrete. Out bedroom has a faux wood floor on top of said concrete. In November your feet start to notice the wood is cold near the window. Then in December the coldness has creeped three feet into the room.  At the end of January the cold has made it's way half way across the room and is heading for the stairs. The battle will continue until the spring takes up the fight in the other direction.

Another side effect of the cold is people tend to be house bound until they can't stand it anymore. For me, I used to have an outlet of running outside at lunch even during winter. But recently my workplace closed the gym and I no longer have a place to shower. So instead, I stay inside all day at work and on some evenings head out for a walk after the kids have gone to sleep. Yihang thinks this a sign of dementia and I can really disagree. But I do feel better after getting some exercise and getting out.

 
Living room view of three worker girls daring the cold with jump rope. Aidan and Lydia camped out above.

On Saturday morning I entered the local Starbucks from the back and ordered a venti coffee (21 kuai) and it noticed the place was a bit deserted. Then I noticed the Starbucks staff all had on long sleeve windbreakers on top of  thick coats. I then noticed it was freezing in there. So I said in my best Chinese tài lěng le 太冷了(its freezing) which caused a response that I didn't understand but knew meant the front door was being repaired and was letting in massive amounts of cold air. I took a quick peek to make sure Yang's mom wasn't up front.

On Sunday we broke free of the chains of Winter and went to Houhai lake in the center of Beijing. Beijing waters are mostly still and dirty and as such freeze over in the winder. When Houhai freezes it transforms from a paddleboat paradise to an winter sports montage including skating and the occasional ice hockey match.  We went there for the chair sleds which are nice and safe and hard to fall on your tush.

As I write this, the Chinese national English TV station is detailing all the weather related problems for Chinese New Year travelers due to an abnormal cold snap in the middle of the country.  It makes me think we are pretty lucky to be stuck here in Beijing, even if the cold wind blows tomorrow.