darn china and its unbeatable chinese wisdom. following the spring festival, and the warm weather it brought with it, i assumed that spring would be right around the corner. yes, i know that western wisdom dictates that march 21 is the official beginning of spring, and so it should be about two or three weeks before the weather starts to be springlike. but the chinese said it was spring, so i believed it. imagine my horror when it began to snow saturday night, and the temperature has been below freezing for the past two days (actually it wasn't horror, i love snow and i was really excited because i thought i'd missed beijing's only snow of the winter while i was in new delhi. but it's the principle!). to my dismay, winter is going to make a last push before it gives way.
oh, but so here's where chinese wisdom is unbeatable. on the bus on the way to work today, after walking through some cold and unkind winds, i complained to my chinese coworker about it. "the chinese say it's supposed to be spring now, we just had that damn festival!" she smiled in this ironic way that she has (i'm not a big fan of this girl, she's superserious and pretty religious and also whenever i tell her i'm going to mcdonalds she says "how can you eat that? its so unbelievably bad for you."), and said "oh, of course. there is a chinese saying, 'snow on the lantern.' sunday night was the lantern festival, it traditionally snows on that night." What!? nobody ever mentioned that to me before. sometimes i wonder if they don't just make up some of those sayings when they need to support their arguments.
but man, i was ready for winter to be over. it's funny, i've never had such a bad reaction to winter before. i mean, growing up in ny and going to college in pennsylvania, i've seen some cold winters. but i've never really had that sort of malaise and depression that can come with winter. here, i've been hit with it hard core. maybe it's because its windier and drier than the other places i've lived. whatever the reason, i've spent the past two months in a bit of a slump. i don't get home from work until pretty late and then the thought of leaving my apartment and walking into the cold dark windy beijing night was just too much for me. of course, there were other reasons for the down mood. i started working very long hours at a pretty boring job, someone i really liked left town, and, as always, i'm not entirely sure what my goal for being here is. anyway, i didn't realize how much the weather was affecting my mood until last week when it really started to feel like spring. all of a sudden, i just started to feel happy. no real reason, but i was excited to go out and hang out with my friends, and the feeling of living in the city started to excite me again. so imagine my dismay when all of that was ripped away from me with one icy blast of wind. grrr. also, today is my six month anniversary of living in Beijing. if i think of it, maybe later i'll write my thoughts about that.