So I'm sitting at "my" desk in my school freezing because I have no idea how to turn an air conditioner into a heater. I'm having a hard time typing because I'm pushing my fingers closer to the keyboard than necessary, trying to suck the heat out of the computer. My fingers wouldn't be so cold if I wasn't drinking some chilled yogurt from 7/11 downstairs, which makes me worry about how my cold will probably get worse because everybody in China knows that when you're sick you can only drink warm or hot things or you'll pretty much die.
Now I'm left wondering a) will I survive the winter? b) at what point did drinking yogurt become normal to me? and c) when did I start believing that crap about cold vs. hot beverages?
On Sunday someone flipped the winter switch in Shanghai. Saturday was warm enough to make people sweat in their haibao costumes, but one of my friends warned me that some kind of Siberian weather system or something was blowing in. I called shenanigans, but boy was I wrong. Cold enough to pink the cheeks and numb the fingers.
There is no central heating in this city. I can't account for the rest of the country, but I seriously doubt they have it either. Instead, you switch your air conditioner to the "heat" setting, which I imagine is similar to warming your house with a large hairdryer. So far I've stubbornly refused to try this at home, instead doing more sensible things like closing all the curtains, wearing two pairs of pants and mummifying myself within multiple blankets.
Everybody is sick. I mean EVERYBODY. Coughing, hacking, spitting, and sniffling everywhere. And lots of surgical masks. I'm hovering between sick and well, drinking heaps and heaps of tea. The Chinese hold a VERY firm belief that you mustn't drink cold things when ill (or when it's that time of the month, ladies.) This isn't some old-wives nonsense. Everybody believes it. No more cold orange juice and Sprite with ice this cold season. Nuh-uh. Bring on the tea and wonton soup. Except I just had a cold sandwich and orange juice for lunch...
Hopefully from now on I'll be posting more often. I was a bit lethargic last month and almost gave up on the blog thing completely. I felt like I had nothing interesting to write about, but that's not really true. It's just hard to continue noticing everything after living here for a while. Somehow my sense of the ridiculous and absurd has been simultaneously dulled and sharpened. Guy-who-took-his-shoes-off-in-the-metro didn't even phase me yesterday. And last week I saw an old man in an electric wheelchair with a portable karaoke system (completely with mic, speakers, and laptop) rolling around the park singing his fave tunes. His driving/reading/singing coordination was impressive, and with only one hand! (the other was holding the microphone.) If that's not worth writing about, what is?
Also, I uploaded a couple pictures from my birthday last week. I have no idea what's going on with my blog - whenever I try to insert a photo within the text, it says "err:TypeError: tinymce is null". What does it mean?!? What tiny mice?! So you just have to click on "Photos" to see them.
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