Binjiang is particularly cold in the twelfth lunar month.
It's not quite like the north where it easily hits minus ten degrees, but due to the damp air and lack of heating, it feels even colder than the north.
Xu Haoran's wife, Lin Xiaoqin, is a northerner, and you'd think she wouldn't be afraid of the cold. Yet, when she first came last year, her hands got swollen from the cold. As she put it, it felt colder indoors than outside, as if standing in an ice cellar while teaching kids in the classroom.
In such chilly weather, you'd expect people to be huddled around electric heaters inside, but Han Yu, Jiang Kun, and Xiao Yu were outside working up a sweat.
Old Han's family bought two rows of old dormitories at Bailong Port Passenger Pier, but no one had lived there for at least half a year, and the yard was overgrown with weeds. As the weather turned colder, the weeds withered and could ignite with even a spark, so they needed to be cleared.
