Apparently there is absolutely terrible weather in China right now with too much snow. My grandmother is currently in a Chinese hospital (here referring to Chinese as in Chinese medicine, not geographically) and was due to go back to HK for the New Year, but is now going to stay in Beijing until the weather improves.
I worry a little about heat getting shut off. I have a vague memory of something about rationing energy resources because there aren’t enough, and my mother once caught a cold while in Beijing because the central heating hadn’t been turned on yet (it was an early autumn that year I think). But I don’t really know anything about how it works for sure, though my brother and I were theorising about how Beijing will handle the Olympics. He thinks it isn’t going to work out because China isn’t capable of handling such a large event. August is hot in Beijing: 40’C and above. All the visitors will be blasting air-con at full blast because they aren’t used to it. I suggested that all the locals won’t have any air-con to deal with it — sacrifice the many, that kind of thing. Common parlance has that locals are encouraged to holiday outside of Beijing and discouraged from coming in. Most workplaces will be on official three-week holidays (or however long the Olympics take) and people told to stay at home in order to get rid of (temporarily) the insane amounts of traffic. I make China sound like a military regime and it really isn’t, but it is probably the most effective way of handling the Olympics. And it will work, I think.
Bet the organisers won’t sleep during the Olympics. With a 1.3 billion population — granted not all with access to TV — there’s a huge pressure not to embarrass the country. It’s not like other countries don’t already think that China is backward and undeveloped and evil (because anything communist is automatically almost all bad). Even Hong Kong people have had a particular aversion to “the mainland” or “mainlanders”. It’s less now, but it’s still there, that despise. Coincidentally, both my parents come from the mainland, although my father grew up in HK so I guess he’s more of a HK person than anything. My mother’s also lived in HK more than China now, and likes it better, but they still have a kind of affectionate tolerance and certainly patriotism for their country. (Not like me!) Which doesn’t automatically mean they condone the government by the by.
Apologies for discussing China and my family so often lately. I’m afraid I’m going to be in the mood for a while — the New Year falls on February 7th and it’s going to my first New Year away from home. The New Year isn’t going to be anything as special as in HK/China. For one thing, it won’t be a public holiday. HK gets three days off, and China a week. I won’t be watching the CCTV New Year’s Eve variety show. I won’t be visiting my relatives and having giant family dinners or lunches. I won’t be wishing family beautiful, hopeful phrases and getting red packets (or lai see in Cantonese; hong bao in Mandarin). I joke about the loss of my main source of income — I really do get quite rich by the end of the season — but it’s really not that. I could do without that happily, but I’m going to be dreadfully homesick for my family at the time. This is like Thanksgiving and Christmas rolled into one, that’s how family-oriented it is. Kay, I’ll stop blabbing now.
