Spring is in the Air

The smell of spring is in the air. Over here, winter is definitively over even though it was nothing compared to the Canadian winter, at least to most areas of Canada. There never really was any snow to speak of, at least in Beijing. It’s not that it did not get cold enough, we could safely skate on lakes but it was extremely dry and there were hardly any precipitation at all. There still is any and most days had a blue sky with the exception of a few smoggy days.




















































Besides the continuity of the Spring Festival festivities, the month of February was relatively quite in many respects. I thus took more time to wander the streets and small allies (hutongs). I also went to the Cinema Temple to look at it more closely. That was where I first saw the dragon dances and those special fireworks they make by throwing melted metal above their heads onto a platform of branches and bamboos. From what I could make up of this place, they use that area to shoot films hence The Cinema Temple. I was able to wander around what looked like an old far west ghost town but Chinese style. After dusk, there were once again sparkly fireworks but I particularly appreciated observing them preparing before it with that small metal furnace.






























A few days later, I was invited to a Chinese networking event. It was through that same group that I first visited the Cinema Temple. Chinese seem to be very keen on giving out business cards which they respectfully hand out and receive using both hands. I, myself, was so far given a relatively impressive stack of cards although I cannot read most of them since they are, of course, written in Chinese. We were presented a few performances like this young boy who could play an instrument similar to a trumpet with surprising ability. Afterwards, we all went to have lunch in a large dining room which took the better part of an equally big greenhouse. Back then, it was still somewhat chilly outside so we were quite comfortable inside. I couldn’t help but think about how pointlessly astronomical the winter heating bills must be. The food however was as good and diversified as usual.

The Olympic site seems to be approaching completion. The famous “water cube”, structure destined to the swimming competitions, lately hosted FINA, “Fédération Internationale de Natation”. I did not go to see any of the events but I still was able to sneak my way in the Olympic site where I was able to go around the cube and look it up from closer. The Olympic festivities are promising to be quite colourful.