The weather in Beijing turned cold very quickly last month. Over the course of about a week the seasons shifted from autumn to winter.

The city was hit by a snowy blizzard, causing the government to declare an ‘orange warning’.

Schools were closed, children sent home; the municipal heating system began warming up ahead of schedule and seems to be running at full blast. Bad weather also caused a train crash on the overground metro.

The temperature has been hovering around -6°C for days, rarely peaking above zero.¹

While it’s warm in the well-isolated residential building, I didn’t want to spend the entire time inside, so I went out to play at being a tourist.

The university stadium is frozen over.

The bicycles locked up outside are covered in snow.

These aren’t huge snowdrifts, the problem is it’s so cold that the snow won’t melt away on its own, even in direct sunlight.

Volunteer work brigade

I passed by a group of around 20-30 people, armed with shovels, hacking away at the ground to clear the snow away.

They weren’t wearing manual workers clothes, just jeans and jackets. A lot of these people were wearing party badges, maybe it’s a volunteer effort to clear the snow.

Of course, it’s common to see volunteers clearing snow in Britain too, but they’re rarely so well organised.

Tourism

I walked onwards to the garden in the west of the campus.

Over this bridge.

Here’s a small shelter by the lake.

I sometimes have lunch in the canteen near here, and like to sit on the bench at the end. It’s far too cold now though.

A man is trying to walk out onto the ice with his son. I’m a bit wary, a thousand public safety warnings have successfully convinced me that walking out onto icy lakes is a bad idea.

Also, the waterfall flowing into the lake hasn’t frozen over yet. The ice covering the lake can’t be that thick.

I find it difficult to deal with this kind of frozen desert climate. In Britain it gets cold, but only from the wind and rain. You can deal with it, stay dry, get out of the wind, wait out the rainy showers.

Here, you can wear as many layers as you like, the cold is permanent, you can’t escape it.