'kay if you want to visit Beijing ........
Listen to what they say - come in September. The weather is gorgeous, it's not too hot, it's not too cold. December ... not so good. Right now it's -3°C/27°F with a possible low of -9°C/15°F - the highest being a warm and toasty -2°C/28°F. Don't believe me? Yahoo! Weather tells me so.
Right now, there's a huge icy wind blowing. Everyone in the street is rugged up in huge, long bulky coats with hats and scarves wrapped around their faces. Beijing street fashion is big parkas - some are a funky shiny gold colour and most have a kind of eskimo-like faux-fur trim around the hood.
The Korean students wear a baseball cap with the hood of one's parka pulled over it. I'm not sure how warm a baseball cap is, but I guess looking cool and funky keeps you warm.
I really envy the Beijing babies because they are wrapped in quilts and doonas and carried around in warm, shapeless, faceless bundles by their mums, shielded from the cold. Occasionally you catch a fleeting glimpse of rosy cheeks and dark, curious eyes peeping out from a wriggling, squirming blanket, but for the most part they appear to be content to remain inanimate. Beijing baby hats are without exception - cute. Everywhere I look I see bunny ears, kitten ears and puppy dog ears poking out from their hats.
Unfortunately, koalas are not so cute. Four layers plus long socks was not enough today. When I took my gloves off for two minutes to get money out of my wallet, my hands turned blue because of the wind chill. What's scary? They say it's going to get colder! Please, somebody, wrap me in a blanket and carry me around. I'll even wear a pair of cute bunny ears if that's what it takes!!!! :)
In other news, the cold has clearly made my Chinese deteriorate. I called the service line: "The drain in my bathroom is blocked (堵 dǔ), would you please send someone to come and fix it?"
Messy-haired Chinese man in blue overalls appears at my door: "So where's the leak (漏水 lòushuǐ)?"
"No leak! The drain is blocked," said I, pointing at my bathroom floor which is drowning with water. For dramatic emphasis, a pair of blue plastic thongs (Translation for Americans: slippers) floated by picturesquely as I pointed). Sorry I had to do that translation because the Australian concept of thongs (being things you wear on your feet) appears to be completely different from the concept of thongs elsewhere (being things you wear ummm ... elsewhere).
Because I live in a daggy old-fashioned Chinese apartment (which has no hot water in the kitchen!), there's no separate section/partition for the shower - when you have a shower, you conveniently soak the entire floor, which is really smart planning by the architect. It's the same guy who put all the powerpoints 7 feet up from the ground (a challenge when you're a five feet tall koala), on the opposite side of the room from where all the electrical appliances are. Also the same guy who made sure none of the buttons in the light switches actually fit which seems strange because as I've said before, don't they have moulds for things like that?
I'm also disconcerted by the fact that I understood less than one in every ten words that he said. Could it be the antibiotics? Did my flu cause brain damage? Then I realised that he wasn't speaking Mandarin. He was speaking some sort of local dialect into which he threw a few Mandarin words just to play with my mind. No wonder I had no clue what he was saying ...... :)
I also showed him the section of my bathroom wall where the tiles have kind of exploded and look as if they want to give way and collapse at any point.
"That's a problem right?"
"Yes," he said nodding. He kept nodding.
"So you'll fix it?" He nodded but said nothing.
"And that would be... when?" He kept nodding. Then I started wondering if he thought I was speaking some kind of strange dialect. In any case, he's much better than the other repair man who always likes to snoop around in my bedroom, peek into the kitchen and weigh himself on my scales.
Right now, there's a huge icy wind blowing. Everyone in the street is rugged up in huge, long bulky coats with hats and scarves wrapped around their faces. Beijing street fashion is big parkas - some are a funky shiny gold colour and most have a kind of eskimo-like faux-fur trim around the hood.
The Korean students wear a baseball cap with the hood of one's parka pulled over it. I'm not sure how warm a baseball cap is, but I guess looking cool and funky keeps you warm.
I really envy the Beijing babies because they are wrapped in quilts and doonas and carried around in warm, shapeless, faceless bundles by their mums, shielded from the cold. Occasionally you catch a fleeting glimpse of rosy cheeks and dark, curious eyes peeping out from a wriggling, squirming blanket, but for the most part they appear to be content to remain inanimate. Beijing baby hats are without exception - cute. Everywhere I look I see bunny ears, kitten ears and puppy dog ears poking out from their hats.
Unfortunately, koalas are not so cute. Four layers plus long socks was not enough today. When I took my gloves off for two minutes to get money out of my wallet, my hands turned blue because of the wind chill. What's scary? They say it's going to get colder! Please, somebody, wrap me in a blanket and carry me around. I'll even wear a pair of cute bunny ears if that's what it takes!!!! :)
In other news, the cold has clearly made my Chinese deteriorate. I called the service line: "The drain in my bathroom is blocked (堵 dǔ), would you please send someone to come and fix it?"
Messy-haired Chinese man in blue overalls appears at my door: "So where's the leak (漏水 lòushuǐ)?"
"No leak! The drain is blocked," said I, pointing at my bathroom floor which is drowning with water. For dramatic emphasis, a pair of blue plastic thongs (Translation for Americans: slippers) floated by picturesquely as I pointed). Sorry I had to do that translation because the Australian concept of thongs (being things you wear on your feet) appears to be completely different from the concept of thongs elsewhere (being things you wear ummm ... elsewhere).
Because I live in a daggy old-fashioned Chinese apartment (which has no hot water in the kitchen!), there's no separate section/partition for the shower - when you have a shower, you conveniently soak the entire floor, which is really smart planning by the architect. It's the same guy who put all the powerpoints 7 feet up from the ground (a challenge when you're a five feet tall koala), on the opposite side of the room from where all the electrical appliances are. Also the same guy who made sure none of the buttons in the light switches actually fit which seems strange because as I've said before, don't they have moulds for things like that?
I'm also disconcerted by the fact that I understood less than one in every ten words that he said. Could it be the antibiotics? Did my flu cause brain damage? Then I realised that he wasn't speaking Mandarin. He was speaking some sort of local dialect into which he threw a few Mandarin words just to play with my mind. No wonder I had no clue what he was saying ...... :)
I also showed him the section of my bathroom wall where the tiles have kind of exploded and look as if they want to give way and collapse at any point.
"That's a problem right?"
"Yes," he said nodding. He kept nodding.
"So you'll fix it?" He nodded but said nothing.
"And that would be... when?" He kept nodding. Then I started wondering if he thought I was speaking some kind of strange dialect. In any case, he's much better than the other repair man who always likes to snoop around in my bedroom, peek into the kitchen and weigh himself on my scales.