manninchina

November 15 is a special day across northern China…all heat is officially turned on. Many places (offices, restaurants, apartments, etc…) do not turn the heat on until November 15. There are exceptions, especially in new apartments that cater to foreigners.

It’s been averaging the high 40s here over the past few weeks…now, highs are in the 30s. That’s during the day…nights have been below freezing. Imagine not having heat. It’s not fun.

All of China does not even have heating systems. There is a line (not sure where it starts and ends). All cities below that line don’t even have heating. Of course, you can purchase your own space heater or AC/Heat combo appliance if you’d like.

Yesterday afternoon, as I left the Silk Market where I was looking for cool knock-offs (didn’t buy anything…but did see a guy get quite angry with one of the girls who works there), I saw a huge cloud of black smoke rising very close to my apartment. Getting a little closer, I could tell it was coming from behind my apartment…was the big TV on fire (The Place)? Wasn’t that either. It was coming from a construction site behind The Place. After about 20 minutes of seeing the smoke, I finally heard and saw fire trucks. As I made my way closer, the activity was picking up. They blocked off the entire block around the construction site, chasing away Chinese, but not foreigners (which is typical).

Something interesting that I saw was that in addition to the police and fire departments on the scene, there were also military guys keeping an eye on things. Even more interesting, there was a policeman whose job seemed to be taking pictures of the scene near the fire and of the fire itself. Is this how media in China gets their pictures and stories? Maybe. I did see one foreign guy who seemed to be a professional photographer (the 3 high-end SLRs with mega lenses gave him away)…he was finally chased off the scene after about 30 minutes.