Baby, It's Cold Outside

November 11, 2010. Woke up to -17 Celsius this morning. Winter has come way to early this year. Two days previously, we had a high of +10, cloudy and wet. The perfect combination and the next day we awoke to 6" of beautiful white stuff. Snow tires were the hot sellers on campus with traffic brought to a standstill.

The snowplows were out. I am always astounded that a city of 4,500,000 uses very little heavy equipment and the snow is moved off the streets and sidewalks into trucks by hand. Only in China could this happen. Thousands of people with plastic snow shovels. Canadian Tire could make a killing here.

A little snow doesn't seem to slow down the Chinese desire to play basketball. The snow had barely stopped and they were out clearing a court. Basketball, seems a funny game for the Chinese to be fixated on. They are not exactly a country known for their large stature. The Yao Mings are few and far between.

The buses were busy. Oddly, traffic seems to move better after a snow fall. The private cars stay home and only taxis and buses dare to venture out on the roads. The buses are great, for about $0.15 you can go any where in Harbin. The buses don't run on set schedules, the just drive the route over and over till their shift ends. You will often see two buses from the same route arriving at the same time. Of course they are never the bus you are waiting for. The two buses will pass each other taking turns stopping at alternate bus stops. Some buses are shiny and new, and others would be considered death traps in most 3rd world countries. They are not heated but at this time of year, it is actually a pleasure to be travel in an over crowded bus. You can share the other riders body heat.

The week ended with a special treat. One of my students invited me to attend a student Peking Opera group that meets every Sunday to practice. At the practice they let me play in the band where I was in charge of cymbally type of instrument. The conductor would raise his magnificently thick eyebrows in my direction if he wanted me to ching ching. I was pretty good I thought. They invited Nonie and I to attend a traditional Chinese talent show the next weekend. We were were greeted at the door by one of the actors/actresses. In the old days, the opera was the domain of men and all the parts including the female roles were played by men. The young fellow in the picture had a lovely voice but perhaps a tad to much makeup for my taste. Beside opera, the show also included Chinese cross talk which was very funny and I found myself laughing with the audience even when I didn't know what they were saying. The two and one half hours seem to ZZZzzzz by. Listening to Peking Opera is a lot like listening to the bagpipes. It's fun for the first 10 minutes but you want to poke your ears out after 150 minutes.

Nonie and I are hosting the 2nd Almost Annual HIT Foreign Teachers Open Ping Pong tournament and attending a concert. More on that in our next blog.