Cold

Hanging out with fellow American teacher Jason (left). Note layers of clothing.

Cold waking. Cold teaching. Cold eating. Cold sliding into bed.

Never had I been constantly, unremittingly cold. Building interiors weren’t technically freezing, but in the winter the highest temperature my body felt was in the fifties, hour after hour, day after day, week after week. The only hope of warmth depended on the planet’s eventual re-tilting toward the sun.

Our apartments rarely had hot water. I know because I checked the faucet compulsively. About once every two weeks I’d get lucky, whereupon I’d immediately peel out of my four-layer indoor uniform (full-body thermals, t-shirt, turtleneck and sweater) and scrub. Then I’d stick my head in the hallway and yell “Hot water!” so fellow teachers wouldn’t miss it.

Otherwise, I forced my naked skin beneath the ice-drizzling nozzle just once a week. Body odor didn’t escape all those clothing layers, nor did it pervade through cold air – or so I convinced myself. My bathing habits didn’t stray far from the cultural norm: my students showered only once or twice a week throughout the semester, even when it was warm. Since their dorms didn’t have showers, they paid a fee at a separate facility on campus.

The cinderblock walls of our English classrooms emanated cold like an icebox. Perpetually numb, my fingers had trouble holding whiteboard markers. Gloves didn’t allow me to write, so I cut holes in a pair of socks and wore them on my hands, hoping that even a thin second layer around my palms might coax a little more blood into my digits.

“How do you stand it?” I asked my students.

“This is not so cold,” they reassured. “We are north of the Yangtze River. We have heat. South of the Yangtze River, the buildings have no heat.”

“No heat at all? How far south is the Yangtze River?”

“It is a long way, but it is still very cold there. And some parts of the Yangtze River bend north. Almost as north as Beijing I think.”

“So they get heat.”

“No,” they laughed. “It is a law. These places are still south of the Yangtze River, even though the river rises north. So they do not have heat.”

Figuring I would buy a winter coat in Beijing, I hadn’t brought one from America in order to save luggage space. In the fall I wore a leather jacket left behind by a former American teacher. Then the real cold clamped down, and from the back of my closet I dug out an abandoned turquoise down coat that was miraculous — fluffy, impervious, almost toasty. The color was puffballish, but hey, I was in China, free to wear what the Chinese wore.

Or so I thought, My students erupted into laughter at the first sight of me.

“What’s so funny?”

“Mistah Hobison, that color is only for girls!”

Oh.

Still, I debated: the coat was perfect. Who cared how I looked, as long as I was warm? But my male pride relented. Down coats were expensive – I doubted I could afford one on my Chinese salary, and I wasn’t willing to dip into my US cash reserve. (Frequent rumors suggested Deng Xiaoping was dead, which meant I might need ready cash to buy an emergency plane ticket home.) So back I went to the leather jacket, with about fourteen layers of thermals, tshirts, long-sleeve shirts and sweatshirts, along with a thick, knotted wool scarf. Not nearly as impregnable, but very manly-looking.

Yes sir: cold and macho.

To think that before arriving I’d imagined China as steamy rice fields.

Class photo taken the day I wore the turquoise down coat (I’m in the center back). Notice only two others are wearing the same color — and they’re both girls.

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