Winter

Last Friday night outside a Russian bar full of Russians two Russians refused to believe that I wasn’t Russian and insisted on talking Russian to me interspersed with bits of English and very bad Chinese and trying to convince me that I was indeed Russian. This went on for several minutes, no exaggeration. I tried to talk to them and get a Russian insight into life in Haerbin, but failed to get any response other than “Rusky!” I think they were genuinely dumb or drunk and dumb.

This last week it got cold. Not as cold as it will get but cold enough for now. We are seeing highs of -13C and lows of -20C. Or in more familiar terms 7F to -4F. It’s still November. January and February are supposed to be the cold ones. I wonder how much more the temperature can drop. We are still losing 3minutes of daylight each day. Right now the sun makes a very fast long low arc across the southern sky. The solstice is only 4 weeks off from now and then each day will be longer…but not quite warmer.

I know it’s cold now by the instantaneous freezing of nose hairs I experience immediately upon exiting any building. It’s not that cold, it can get colder. Casey and I have a bet going about at what temperature water will freeze when poured out our 6^th story window but before hitting the ground. -20C is not cold enough.

leaves
some snow
boiler

In other news I haven't really started my research or at least not like I had in mind. I am currently reading Chinese articles about China's forest management policy, which is good. I have hopes to get started on some other thing this week, but we will wait and see if they play out.