Cold

Polar vortex is the term used in U.S. media for the freezing temperature that blew in from the Arctic Circle to the Midwest and the northeastern Atlantic seaboard of North America. An aerial photo of the frozen lake by the windy city of Chicago had a chilling effect on my bones, recalling the years I hung out there.

We are not alien to the cold. I remember one cold day in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan when I arrived, wearing a tropical three-piece. My colleagues, who hurriedly sent me off from Chicago where I transited from Manila, said that I had ample time to visit the old Navy surplus store when I got to the Canadian prairie. The wind chill that day in the late ’70s was minus 37C, and I was one unhappy camper out of the airport.

Jan. 7 and 8 are considered the coldest in Dong Bei this year, and it was cold. Since my working visa expires tomorrow the 14th, I trudged along to the Metro (happily it opened the university terminal December) on the coldest day of the year to apply for a year’s visa at the Foreign Affairs office in town.

Here’s how cold it was. Tears from the duct involuntarily started dripping out two minutes after stepping out from my residence into the biting cold. Press releases on the polar vortex advised folks to stay out of the cold as H20 freezing can occur within five minutes. Ours being just normal cold, I was properly earmuffed, adequately nose- and mouth-covered, but the cotton shield was doubly dangerous as it absorbed the wetness instead of letting it run like polymer materials do. One is susceptible to freezing, which can result in frostbite!

Our cold took longer to deliver its sting but after the 15-minute walk to the terminal, lowered my hood, loosened the scarf, and took out the muffs, my distinctive brown face was already bloody red.

But the external cold was not as chilling compared to the internal one. Hustling was a mode of operation eons ago but at a tender age of seven decades, had I followed the normal course, I would be a doting grandpa to my four grandsons (yup, my two son-in-laws had too much Y chromosomes) shuttling between their domiciles in Chicago and Oakland, California. Mighty glad I am nowhere the city-by-the-lake this week. Instead, I am hustling for basic survival as China implements rules in the books, one of which is the disqualification of foreigners over 65 to hold teaching jobs.

There is also a tinge of xenophobia as China flexes its economic power to show the world that it no longer is the world’s doormat for many foreign investments in the past to wipe its arrogant shoes on while earnings flourished on the shoulders of cheap labor and rode on the back of subsidized factory electrical power.

A friend from Saipan was rather colorful in his metaphor. When he heard of my narrative of events following the news that the visa office refused to approve the university’s submission for another contract year, he said: “You were screwed!” The sexual metaphor did not come as a surprise.

Considering how many of the female Chinese garment factory workers found bar stools in Garapan and other watering holes, and liberally opened extremities to tars on R&R for a few green bucks, one lady friend’s response was very telling: “So they treat you like a discarded used condom?”

She meant no harm. She was just stating a fact familiar to her as she continues to remit earnings to pay for a two-story Jiangsu house where she plunked savings to meet a 30-percent down payment and low interest loan on the remaining 70, as a first-time house buyer. Her parents who occupy the house have only praise for their daughter who works in public relations!

From a distance and from the horizontal sight things are viewed from Saipan’s ground level, the choice of images is understandable. However, there is a coldness inside of me from hindsight for not paying more attention to social nets to make my journey into the sunset of my years smoother.

My hustle is now hampered by knee aches when stepping out into the cold, wobbly ankles when slipping on icy surfaces, stiff elbows from rheumatoid arthritis, and the painful grate of the old cervical spondylosis. Still, we hustle.

China just relaxed its one-child per family policy to allow couples to have two if one member was an only child. The retirement age of 60 for men and 55 for women was raised to 65 and 60, respectively, now that longevity is more widespread than when the policy was first adopted. Superannuation, elders’ housing, geriatric care, and health benefits are high on the government’s challenge.

After being told to secure clearance from my neighborhood police, I stopped by the men’s room at the Foreign Affairs office. I expected red blotches in response to the cold when I blew my runny nose on tissue paper but when I looked closely on my image in the mirror, and I saw a decent silver mane and a wrinkled face emit a smile, as if to say: “Here is the sage who came out of the cold!”

I put my earmuffs back on, and huffed back on the metro to the police station!