Beijing Exposed: The North-South China Gap is Bigger Than My Entire Imagination!
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As someone from Fujian who settled in Beijing, aside from the dryness, I find the climate here much better than in the south. We have heating in winter, summers aren't too hot, and it's way better than the damp, sticky weather down south. Plus, the four distinct seasons are a real bonus.
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Exactly! My husband, who's from Fujian, came to Beijing and never wanted to leave. He feels the same way you do and has been here for 30 years now.
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I'm from Guangdong and have been in Beijing for ten years now. Apart from my cooking skills taking a nosedive, everything else is great. I love the distinct seasons.
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Your cooking skills got worse? Haha! Shouldn't they have improved in a 'food desert' like Beijing?
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When I visited Guangxi, it was damp every day, which I actually loved. I'm so tired of Beijing's dryness – seriously, I go through a bottle of moisturizer every few days! If I don't use it, my arms and legs get all white and flaky. My best friend, on the other hand, said she'd never go back! Her clothes wouldn't dry, and she never felt truly fresh.
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That 'white skin' is likely just dead skin. We folks from Northeast China always scrub it off in the bath and then moisturize, so our skin stays smooth even in dry weather.
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You'll get used to it after a month or two. As someone originally from Wuxi, I have no desire to go back there now.
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I totally get you. I'm not from Guangdong either (I'm from Jiangxi), but winters in Guangdong are wonderfully warm – definitely the best time of year there. There's hardly any rain, so you can be outdoors all the time, which is fantastic if you're not a homebody. Northern winters are just too cold; you're basically confined to heated rooms, and I can't stand that.
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I once had a colleague from Guangdong visit Beijing for work, and we could visibly see his skin flaking off from the dryness. I ended up giving him a 'Kaiselu' – a glycerin suppository, believe it or not – to use on his skin, and it actually helped a lot!
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Hahaha
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I've never been to Guangdong, only Guangxi. Summer there is brutally hot – you start sweating after just a few steps outdoors, and your skin gets really sticky. Even in November, the bedsheets felt damp to the touch. And the cockroaches and rats were huge! Aside from the climate, which I wasn't quite used to, everything else was great. The 'fen' (rice noodles) were delicious, and the fruit was cheap and amazing. I've been thinking about it ever since I got back.
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Maybe you visited during that awkward period when the central heating is off, but it's still quite cold? I find those times in Beijing – right before the heating kicks in or just after it stops – pretty uncomfortable to get through.
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When I was in Beijing, my face wouldn't get oily for days – it was amazing! But in Shenzhen, my face becomes an oil slick again almost immediately after washing it.