Winter started for real in Beijing ten days ago. That means terrible cold and strong winds off the Mongolian plains. I was just walking around for 10 minutes yesterday and my fingers went numb. Beijing winters, alas, have almost no snow. During the summer they fire mortars into the sky to seed the clouds and make it rain. I don't think they do that during winter to help out the poor American boys from the Midwest who miss the snow.
I now have a regular 20 minute bike commute from home to school in cold and wind. The onset of winter doesn't seem to have driven many Chinese people off the bike lanes, and half of them don't even wear anything on their head. My bike ride isn't so bad, really. The nice thing is that the cold makes you forget how your knees hurt from riding a bike that's too small into the wind, and dodging other bikers and cars helps you forget about the cold.
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