Beijing Winters

Beijing Winters 

by Armando Ortiz

Winter evenings in Beijing are frigid, and nights bring freezing winds.

Though at noon the skies are clear and sunny, you don’t want to be outside for too long.

Peddlers abound during this time, selling crab apple sticks that are sealed fresh inside, and hardened with caramel sugar or offer piping hot yams warmed inside coal heated barrels.

Seasonal preparations for the New Year begin, bringing red pasted banners and signs on the sides of doors welcoming another prosperous year, because to live is to see the magic of life unfold.

Though the eye is blind during these months the flavors that season the soul are many, and are an excuse to engage in endless conversations over hot black tea.

Handmade noodles made to order are at hand and served on steaming white bowls that are topped with thin slices of beef and for an extra five cents topped with a fried egg.

Who knows if it’s still there, but when I was there you could feast on street huoguo on random corners, where you sat on tiny chairs and miniature tables.

It’s also the time when one takes liberal servings of dumplings of all kinds; cabbage and pork,

pork and chives, mutton and onions or the veggie and egg kind.

Artificial lakes become frozen, and children along with students rent ice skates, and glide over these ancient bodies of waters that were once meant for the Emperor’s pleasure.

It’s during the night that the dry steppe air of the North passes through the city, which is further depleted of its humidity by the centralized heating.

Miles of hot tubes connect to a network of pipes that pump hot oil and water from a coal furnace that keeps blocks and blocks of people warm and with severely dry throats.

When those nights of lonesomeness get intertwined with nightmares it’s as if one were being choked by the devil’s hand and one awakens desperately reaching for water.

Yet in the mornings you stand huddled beside the radiator, thinking twice of walking to the bathroom and showering your sleep away.

Winters in Beijing also bring into focus the celebration of the Winter Solstice, which I did once, outside a pub, while eating grilled chicken wings and drinking Yanjing.

This is the celebration of the longest night and the conception of spring, when the worst has already passed, and preparations for Chunjie begin to appear.

People bundled up in layers and layers of thick cotton and synthetic wool slowly start to go back to their hometowns, and the looooooong lines at train stations become the norm.

It’s the sign of optimism that we all have survived the terrible winter and begin to celebrate, buying rolls and rolls of firecrackers and rockets, and stocking up on food.

For a week, fireworks will light up the midnight sky, and all the ghosts that crept into our lives and are fast asleep, will awaken and are scared to go back to where they belong.

For days on end, streets are closed and food stalls appear, with caramel artisans making ancient Chinese mythical characters,

And tamed birds fly high in the sky at a whistle or with the waving of a dollar bill come to you and with their tiny beaks take hold of your money and fly back to their master.

We triumphantly declare to spring to open up and begin forth the colors of life and the blossoms of spring.

The first snowfall that blanketed benches, and topped the pine trees melt from the memory as the changing jet stream shifts from Northwesterly to Southeasterly direction

Winters in Beijing are long, but now they seem short and distant, like an old recurring dream that disappears with every waking moment.