Gilles Sabrié for The New York Times
When winter came to Beijing, it arrived as it often does, as a snarling Siberian wind. The cold howled through the hutongs and around the ring roads. It weaseled under the doors and through the seams of your shirt. It was early December. “Da xue” season had arrived, the time for “major snow.”
But there would be no snow, there almost never is in Beijing. The waning days of 2018 had been crisp and clear, with flecks of starlight pricking the orange dome of the city at night. Snow didn’t matter.