Well, I arrived in Harbin on October 18th and the weather was, let's say as a normal January in Hamburg and I was stupidly dressed with a linen jacket and mocassins - just out of Rome. January in Harbin could be worse. Wikipedia says - 13 C is the medium High Temperature, they call it also Ice -City in China.
Harbin is known for it's pollution problems and the picture below, taken from my Hotel room might confirm this.

One corner stone of the Chinese foreing policy is the principle of Non-Interference into the internal affairs of another country. If another government slaughter a minority, violates human rights, oppresses women, all this should not matter for the relationships between countries. Only the United Nations, if in unison should have the right to intervene. As getting an unison decision from the UN is difficult today and will become nearly impossible tomorrow, the cementation of national inviolability will become very strong.

Hot, hot, hot

I never felt so hot. It is nearly 40 C with high umidity and it does not cool down in the night and the air condition in my (government owned) hotel has only two modes: Backoven=off and fridge=on, but tomorrow I will change hotel, thanks to lily.

Neigbourhoods

I am just back from visiting the "terracotta soldiers" at the tomb of Qin Shi Huan, the first emperor and representative of the Quin dynasty. As generally known he was buried with more than 7000 Terracotta soldiers to be mighty also in the afterlife. He was also buried with 100 s of acrobats, chefs and all the other people that were necessary to assure the used lifestyle of the emperor. I am not knowledgeable enough for being sure if at the end really only the terracotta duplicates have been buried or also the living people who had that function.