Hunan, China - Huang Zhiping was tired of being cold. His head buzzed, his ears stung, and his hands were too numb to take notes. So he took out a lighter and did what any other frozen 11-year-old would do: He lit a fire inside of his school desk. As his teacher, I suppose I should have been angry with him, but actually, lighting a fire seemed like a pretty good idea to me.
Welcome to winter in Hunan, China.
In the past month, southern China was brought to a standstill by a frozen maelstrom of snow and ice. Hunan province was the worst hit in all of China, and temperatures there were the coldest they'd been in nearly 50 years.
Transportation came to a virtual standstill, blackouts became routine, and homes were collapsing beneath piles of snow. There were hundreds of thousands of stranded people trying to get home to their families on the eve of Chinese New Year, one of the most important holidays in China.
I spent the past year as a volunteer teacher in Hunan. And, while Hunan had a relatively mild winter last year, it was nearly unbearable for me. I'm not some neophyte to the world of cold. Far from it. I grew up right in the Mile High City of Denver and spent my winters skiing in Aspen and Vail.
Later, I went to college outside of Boston and once got frostbite on my cheeks while walking to class. Yet, nothing prepared me for a Chinese winter.
In Hunan, a province far from the watchful eye of Beijing, indoor heating, or even building insulation, is nonexistent. The buildings are all made of poured concrete because it's cheap and quick.
The downside, of course, is that concrete traps heat in the summer and retains cold in the winter. (Think of stepping barefoot onto the sidewalk in the wintertime.) Imagine a place where there is no escape, no respite, from the cold.
During winter, the inside of a concrete building is often colder than the outside. You might as well be outside during the coldest months of the year in Hunan, because chances are, it's slightly warmer than indoors.
The Hunanese are extremely resilient to the cold because of these conditions. What I thought of as unimaginable chill — sleeping with three blankets while at the same time wearing my winter hat and ski jacket for example — they shrug off as a fact of life.
They have dozens of quirky ways to keep warm, everything from eating dog (a "winter meat" because it supposedly it warms your body), to wearing furry shoe insoles that are sold on street corners for the equivalent of $.25.
I stopped complaining to my Chinese friends about how cold I was after a while, because I realized they thought I was nuts for saying anything.
Classrooms, just like most places in Hunan, are unheated. I can still clearly remember teaching dressed as if I were headed for a day on the slopes: long johns, thermal socks, boots, snowboarding jacket, hat, gloves, pocket warmer.
My students were dressed similarly, and some of them were so bundled up that they virtually disappeared beneath masses of brightly colored winter gear. As I tried my best to teach English under these conditions, I marveled at how nonchalant the students seemed. They were used to cold that I had never imagined, and they sat there in that freezing room eager and ready to learn.
While the cold-induced chaos in China made international headlines, I'm certain that my friends and former students in Hunan toughed it out with their usual hardy resolve.
Undoubtedly, they went about their day-to-day business and did their best to prepare for the coldest Chinese New Year they have ever known. When all the snow melts and the temperature rises above sub-arctic, Hunan, and the rest of China, will surely recover from this deep freeze.
And, wherever Huang Zhiping is, I'm sure he's making the best possible use of the frozen desk in front of him.
Deep in the heart of China, a young and dashing American (yours truly), along with his beautiful Chinese girlfriend (Dai Li), find themselves lost in a mysterious bamboo forest in Yi Yang, Hunan. Luckily, someone sent our intrepid explorers a text message, guiding them back to civilization...
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