With the people I've spoken to and the travel books I've read, Shanghai is supposed to be cold (with humidity) but rarely gets below freezing. I thought, in relation to my winters spent in New England the past four years that this winter would be nothing in comparison. But the past few weeks have severely proven me wrong. Not only has it been cold, over a period of two weeks it has also snowed in Shanghai at least 4 or 5 days. We even had a snow day off two Tuesdays ago. Ironically children had the day off but faculty were required to come into work. Although this may be normal for Washington State and Canada, I have never heard of such a thing in Pennsylvania or New Jersey schools. If the weather is poor enough that it's unsafe to let children travel to school, why force teachers? What was even more unfair was the fact that teachers who live in Puxi (in the area West of the river) didn't come in because the roads were too dangerous, but teachers who live in Pudong (the area East of the river) had to come in because we live closer. How ridiculous is that? It's a complete double standard.
ANYWAY... about the snow. When I first arrived back to Shanghai it simply rained for almos two weeks straight. We had maybe one day of sunshine before the snow started. Although colder, I much prefer snow to rain because at least you don't get soaked, plus you can have snowball fights and play outside. We didn't get that much snow (maybe a few inches), but in a city that has the same latitude as Austin, TX is not used to having to plow roads, clean snow off cars, and bike/drive on ice. The amount of snow Shanghai got over the period of Jan 24-Feb 2 was the most the city has gotten in like 57+ years. With this comes cold, and in an area this far south the buildings are poorly insulated and poorly heated. Many faculty members with school provided housing had a lot of trouble with their heating systems but luckily mine was fixed as soon as I returned to China.
When I returned on Sun January 13, I got in around 2pm. My internal clock was messed up but I ended up taking a shower around 11pm only to have my electricity turn off in the middle of the shower. This meant the heat turned off too. So I just spoke to the person at school in charge of housing and kindly demanded that he fix my electricity and heat (the heat hadn't been working previously but it wasn't as much a problem because in December it wasn't nearly as cold.)
Anyway... jumping back to the winter weather, we had off on Tuesday, January 29, but I still had to go in to work. That afternoon I took some snow pictures. Many people made snowmen, and some people had never even seen snow before. I hope you enjoy the following pictures around my neighborhood. (Notice the palm trees protected in bubble wrap!)
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