Cold bites but new habits keep away the chills

I had never seen snow before I was 17, when I went to school for a year in the US Midwest.

My second winter happened 10 years later, when I came to Beijing to study Chinese. Although snowfall, woolen socks and indoor heating were a novelty, I had taken enough science classes to know how things work at subzero temperatures. But we often act out of habit - even when it's obvious that a different set of natural laws apply.

Four days after I arrived in Beijing in mid-February 2005, friends offered to accompany me to the South Cathedral for mass. I washed my hair and thought nothing of stepping out of the school dorm with damp hair. That's the norm in the tropics where I grew up, where the hot sun and warm breezes quickly dry your hair once you're outdoors.

Well, I should have remembered that water freezes at 0 C. As I was waiting for my companions outside the school gate, I felt ice forming on my hair. I tried to break off the ice on strands around my face, and felt quite stupid doing so. That was the same year I bought my first hair drier.

After I found my first job in China a year and a half later, I moved to a ground floor apartment, which I shared with a Chinese woman of the same age. We had the luxury of a yard, where we stored recyclable materials and hung our laundry out to dry.

Summer soon gave way to autumn, and my housemate began hanging her laundry indoors. She told me to do the same, but I was happy to stick with a practice I had grown up with. Anyway, I thought, the apartment was cramped enough: We didn't have a dining room or living room, and the clothesline was in the narrow hallway beside the refrigerator.

One evening after work, I excitedly retrieved my laundry from the yard. I was looking forward to wearing a sweater I had just bought and washed - and found it frozen! I surreptitiously brought the batch of stiff, icy clothes into my bedroom and did not tell my housemate about my boo-boo. I soon began taking my laundry to a nearby shop to be washed and dried.

After four winters in Beijing, I've finally learned to make peace with the bitter cold season.

The secret, I discovered, is to dress appropriately. Long underwear, thick socks and good gloves are essential, as are comfortable, sturdy boots that can skillfully navigate icy or snow-covered streets. It's also worth investing in a good down jacket since Beijing winters seem to last forever. With all these layers, concerns about looking svelte and fashionable sometimes go out the window - when I resemble a pillow more than a woman - but surviving is the priority.

Having lived with the cold this long, I've noticed, to my amusement, that I've "relearned" some instinctive reactions. During the winter of 2006, I remember waking up in the middle of the night feeling very cold. "Turn off the air-con " I muttered sleepily, forgetting that the cold was coming from outside. Back home, cold air was always equated with the air conditioner.

This past summer, I was working on an office computer by a window and suddenly felt a blast of cold air.

"When is winter ever going to end?" I said distractedly, belatedly realizing it was summertime, the window was closed and the cold air actually came from the air conditioner.