Fed up of not being able to feel your toes around the house?

So are we.

But despite the unusually early snowfall we witnessed last week, the city’s public heating system will not be turned on early this year, and thus we have one more week for our colds and flus to percolate before the centrally-imposed November 15 start date for heat arrives. 

As reported by The Beijing News, the temperature forecast for the coming week is for an average of between 6 and 7 degrees Celcius, which is actually slightly warmer than the typical Beijing November, which averages 5.5 degrees Celcius.  We found even warmer temps forecasted for Beijing on weather.com:

Ipso facto, we’re a bunch of softees and shouldn’t be complaining.

If this all strikes you fresh-off-the-boaters as strange, it helps to know that most of Beijing’s housing stock receives their indoor heat not from on-site heating systems controlled by private property management companies, but rather from massive central boilers that then send heat via hot water radiators.

According to Beijing regulations, central heating is turned on only in the case of unseasonably cold weather, which is defined as a forecast of 5 degrees Celsius for 5 consecutive days.

Either way, all you’ve got to do is get through this week and then we will all be walking around the house like the man in the cartoon on the right, while our Shanghainese and other southern friends spend the winter much like the man on the left.

More stories by this author here.
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Images: northtimes.com