This is the “coldest winter since the 21st century” in Beijing. Sitting at Home with a cup of hot tea on a cold winter night is a comfort that many people look forward to and have, but what about those who still have to run around outside for various reasons? How do they spend such winter nights?
Several winter nights, reporters and photographers took to the streets, trying to find a few night people. The cold continued, and in only half an hour, the masks were frozen hard and crisp. Take off the gloves, just two minutes, fingers have been frozen purple, difficult to straighten and bend. A little longer, you can feel the fingertips hurt, the pain spread to the wrist. Standing outdoors, legs like two hollow channel, the cold air is forced to the body.
The normally bustling Guijie Street and Sanlitun shopping districts were empty, the restaurants were lit up, but there were large empty seats inside. But people were still hurrying through. Most of them are wearing brightly colored work clothes, they are delivery workers, chauffeurs, freight drivers …… who stay awake in the cold to keep the city running. There are others, homeless and stranded in the cracks of the city.
We talked to them, about the cold winter night walk had to be, but also about the small warmth, and the desire for spring.
Homeless man, Old Xia
Old Xia kept rubbing his hands as he stood carefully in the underground passage, afraid of hindering someone. It was so cold this year that he dragged his small suitcase and had nowhere to go but to spend the night here. Inside the suitcase were his treasures, portraits of people he had painted. All sketches, some of the paper yellowing, the edges stained with lead ash.
Drawing is something old Xia has loved all his Life. After graduating from high school, the college entrance examination had not yet resumed, so he simply returned to the village to farm. When he was farming, he still thought about painting, and he taught himself in the earth house, painting people and scenery. People in the village laughed at him for “not doing his job” and dreaming of being a master all day long. Fearing that he would be laughed at, he threw away his tools, stopped painting and concentrated on being a farmer.
Old Xia said he and his wife saved money for their two sons to go to school and start a Family. Today, his wife and older son live in their hometown of Hebei, and his younger son lives in Tongzhou and bought a house. But the old Xia does not want to go home. He feels that he has done his fair share for the next generation, and now he should live his own life. Son initially always call him to persuade him to go home, can not persuade, also gradually regardless. Old Xia said that when he came home, the painting things should be thrown away by his son, not to return.
Old Xia’s “own day” is painting. At first in the Houhai Park, painting portraits, a twenty to thirty dollars. There is a small pavilion, tired of painting, you can lean on the bench to rest. He always used an old smartphone to take a picture of the customer, or let them leave a paper photo, and then finish the painting in the next two or three days. He pulled out a black-and-white photo of a young girl from his coat. A few days ago, a girl handed him this photo, it was her mother. The photo was torn, and she hoped to recover it by painting it.
A Food city near Houhai Park is Lao Xia’s favorite place to go, where there is heating and clean tables and chairs. After the Epidemic became severe, few people patronized the food court. The large hall is Lao Xia’s drawing room alone. He also liked to go to McDonald’s and KFC, where it was bright, the light was always warm, and he could sleep on the table when he was tired, and no one chased him away. But lately he can’t even go there, he has to scan the health code to enter the restaurant, and to save money on his phone bill, his phone is never turned on the network. Without the Health Code, he was blocked from the door. It was winter, and the park was gradually becoming less crowded with tourists. He could not sell a single painting a day, and he could no longer sleep in the pavilion, so he mentioned his suitcase and moved to the present underpass.
He still had to paint. When he mentioned painting, he smiled sheepishly, and the folds on his face were wrinkled together. Lao Xia says that in the new year, he plans to continue drifting on the streets. He thinks the weather will soon be warm and he can return to the pavilion in Houhai Park then. As a wanderer, he feels he still has a home.
Ambulance driver, Li Gaqi, 32 years old
On the coldest day in Beijing, Li Gaqi was transferring patients in Shunyi. He volunteered to go to the rescue and worked from 12 p.m. until 6 a.m. It was difficult to put on thick clothes in the protective suit, so Li Gaqi only put on two sweaters. Rain shoes do not resist freezing, he felt the cold air straight up. Medical gloves could not block the wind, and his hands had to be constantly moving to ensure that they were not frozen. Regarding the fight against the epidemic, Li Jiaqi didn’t think about “greatness” and “glory”. “He just thinks that if we don’t go, no one will go. “
From 8 p.m. to 8 a.m. the next morning, Li Gaqi would be on standby in the ambulance, waiting for the phone to ring from the emergency company. For the next 12 hours, he would drive the ambulance, shuttling through various urban areas of Beijing to start emergency care. On the busiest nights, he would make more than 10 trips, and the farthest distance he drove was more than 100 kilometers. In addition to driving the ambulance, he also needed to help the paramedics with CPR and stretcher lifting. He had little chance to rest throughout the night, and cases always came up one after another. Car accidents, falls, sudden death, and childbirth are the situations he has often faced in his 12 years of practice.
In winter, the nighttime emergencies are a little more intense. The temperature drops, cardiovascular emergencies increase, and there are accidents caused by snow and ice, such as people slipping and falling on the ice. Snow and ice can also give him trouble, with a thick layer of snow on the ground and nothing visible in the white. Li Gaqi must grasp the balance between speed and safety, bypassing the possible small slopes and potholes, and sometimes into poorly planned neighborhoods, he has to be prepared for tire skidding in advance.
Doing first aid for so many years, the 32-year-old Li Gaqi thinks his biggest change is that his temperament has smoothed out some. When he was in his early twenties, he was a popular figure on campus, playing basketball, forming a band, and was a very “manic” youth, but now, in order to get the patient to the destination smoothly, his temper Now, in order to get the patient to the destination smoothly, his temper has been softened.
Some small changes also made him sigh, in the past two years, the number of emergency encounters with young people has become more frequent, the proportion of sudden death and the elderly, “half and half”. “This line of work for a long Time, in fact, many times are numb, nothing more than their own become more afraid of death,” he said. “But still move the heart, especially watching those young lives gone, really feel quite a pity. “
Rover, Shen Bo, 60 years old
It was so cold that Shen Bo had to lie down, burying his whole body under the blanket, with a woolen cap covering his eyes and only his nose breathing.
Shen Bo lives in the underground passage of this subway station. The quilt and mat were picked up just before dark and spread on the open space in front of the security checkpoint. We tore open the heating patch and handed it to him to stick on his sweater. He heard that a sticker can heat up, feel magical, “this is good”, he tore open the heating patch, black carbon particles scattered a piece. It was too cold, the heating patch lost its effect, he could only pinch it into a cylindrical shape and hold it tightly in his hand.
Shen Bo does not remember his specific age, he said, about 60 years old. His Parents died early and he became an orphan. Because of poor health, the family’s fields were abandoned, and he could not find work on the construction site. People in the village looked down on him, so he wandered into the city. His latest job is to return the transportation card for others at the entrance of the subway station, a dollar, can buy a steamed bun to pad the stomach. When the weather got cold, the business of refunding bus cards was almost gone, and Shen began to scavenge for food from the garbage. He has no cell phone, no mask, wandering the streets alone. A few days ago, the temperature dropped to the freezing point, someone came to the passage to give them military coats to wear and take a few pictures. When they came again, they took away all the bedding and pillows in the passageway, including the army coat. Shen Bo went to the nearby garbage cans to look for it, but did not find it.
Clutching the heating patch, Shen Bo soon fell asleep again.
Logistics company truck driver, Qiang, 36 years old
In Qiang’s impression, this winter is extraordinarily cold. He put on a layer of cotton jacket and cotton wool pants under his work uniform, and the car had warm air and quilts, often covering him with a layer of sweat. But out of the car door, sweat froze, cotton pants on the hair hard, sticking to him itchy. Beijing’s coldest day, the warm air in the car does not work, he put on all the clothes, the car line on the fifth ring, he said, in addition to him, can not see other cars.
Every night at 11 p.m., Qiang and his companions drove four large trucks carrying 18 tons of cargo from Zhuozhou, Hebei, into Beijing. 60 kilometers of road, without traffic, two hours, if the traffic jam, four or five hours are possible. After unloading, they turned back to Hebei, 8:00 a.m. to rest. Afraid of sleepy, Qiang used a flash drive to download some rhythmic Music, listening to the highway.
Qiang said, the past 20 years he was floating around Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei, to the kiln factory burned bricks, to the construction team filled with cement, carpentry, tile work have done. The work is temporary, no insurance. When the logistics industry emerged, Qiang delivered to major logistics companies and found that it was a way to make money, but the agent who introduced the order always charged 40% of the fee, he did not want to. He worked hard, saved money plus a loan to buy four trucks, became his own boss and paid the salaries of three drivers.
Another troublesome thing that winter brings is fog. Once, the highway was closed because of the haze, vehicles are blocked in the small road, usually more than 1 hour to drive through, that day he spent 11 hours, “hungry, you can only ‘ tons of tons of tons’ to give themselves water to drink. “After going back 3 days did not slow down.
Recently, because of the epidemic in Hebei, the village road more and more closed. Do not know the situation of the driver, drive to the intersection and have to go back. The drivers have formed a group, who met the road closure, in the group yelled. You need to bring nucleic acid test results into Beijing, 72 hours, afraid of delay, every morning back to Hebei, Qiang first thing is to line up to do nucleic acid testing. He is very careful, but sometimes, he still gets stung. In Beijing, he took an online taxi and chatted with the driver, who casually asked him where he was from. Qiang was depressed, got off and walked a kilometer by himself to his destination.
Hebei, Beijing every day running, Qiang can not return home a few times a year, he and his wife on the phone, talking about children, parents. “I can’t talk to her about the bitterness, a woman is too difficult to take care of children and the elderly, but also to clean up household chores. I drive to make money, this work is not tired, and she is far worse than. “Qiang said. His wife sent him a Bosideng down jacket and a pair of old Beijing cloth shoes, cloth shoes with a thick layer of plush inside, more than 30 yuan, Qiang felt good to wear. Sometimes, he also feels lonely.
Qiang said that a month ago, he bought a white Maserati, more than 2 million. We do not know if this is true, but he said that the epidemic is over, to take us for a ride. “The thing about earning money is that if I don’t earn money this year, I will earn money next year, and there will be a year when I will earn money. I know that God will think of me one day. “He said that when he was in his 20s, his family was still eating nest eggs. Parents farming, five children at home, can not take care of, when he was in elementary school, he worked for the school, pulling weeds, other children laugh at him poor. When he graduated from elementary school, he went out to work. He said that the Maserati was his response to his childhood, and he got ahead.
Delivery man, Zhang Jinfu, 27 years old
This is Zhang Jinfu’s first winter of delivery, he made some preparations for winter, the electric car handle has a heating function, he added a layer of woolen cap in the helmet to prevent the cold wind into the helmet. When it’s really freezing, he’ll give himself a break and warm up his stomach with a sip of wine at a roadside restaurant. On November 21, the first snow of 2020 fell in Beijing, and he was speeding against the clock to make a delivery when suddenly the snow rolled into his tires and the electric car skidded, hitting a bicyclist across the street. The other party’s leg was cut by the road. Zhang Jinfu accompanied him to the hospital and paid 500 yuan. Zhang Jinfu said, that was his entire income the day before. The company’s main goal is to provide a solution to the problem of the problem. It was so cold that he feared he would freeze on the road and did not go out that day, hiding at home to keep warm.
Zhang Jinfu had a lot of ups and downs in 2020. After 10 years as a cook, he decided to open a fried rice noodle stall at the beginning of the year, the stall was set up for six months, business gradually improved, but in July, someone told Zhang Jinfu, can no longer be set up, or to confiscate his stall car. He was very depressed, how to promote the stall and not allowed to swing? Turned around and opened a small restaurant, pricing is very cheap, nearby workers often come to eat. But the consequences of the epidemic gradually emerged, and there were fewer and fewer job opportunities for the workers, who left Beijing in droves. Not many people came back to the restaurant, and Zhang Jinfu lost 50,000 to 60,000 yuan. In order to stop the loss, he took the store out and started to send take-away from last October.
He likes to run single at night, from 11:00 p.m. the night before until 2:00 p.m. the next day, can run more than 50 single, high unit price of orders at night, he added a large cardboard box in front of the car seat, can be loaded with more take-out.
After January this year, Zhang Jinfu found that the number of orders became less, the original hour can send 11, 12 orders, but now can only send 8 orders. The solution was to extend his working hours from 12 hours to 13, 14 or 15 hours, with only one day off a month. Without any entertainment or socializing, he delivers every day until dawn, goes back to sleep, and wakes up to continue delivering.
Zhang Jinfu talked about some of the warm things he encountered this winter. When he waited in the store for businesses to take out, they would bring him hot water and ginger Soup, telling him to take it easy and drink a bowl before leaving. He has not been home for four years in a row, “can not save money, embarrassed to go home. “He sent beautiful little cotton coats to his two daughters,” I can do, is to give them some money, give them a good New Year it. “This winter, he is ready to continue to deliver in Beijing.
A few days ago it snowed in Beijing, and today it’s windy, and the cold winter continues. Zhang Jinfu posted a short video. In the video, he holds up his phone and rides his bike against the wind and snow. Before that, he had ridden all night, and then sent three or four hours, he could return to the rental house, back to that little mass of warmth.
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