So here we go – yet another winter in Shanghai. Although our lives move on amid the skyscrapers of a modern Chinese metropolis, we still shiver and curse the lack of central heating, endlessly wondering ‘Why!?”
Well – the answer is QINLING HUAIHE ( or Qin - Huai) LINE 秦岭淮河线 Qínlǐng huáihé xiàn, which bisects China into wintertime central heating haves and have-nots, and we Shanghailanders are on the wrong side of it.
Here’s how it all began.
The Qinling Huaihe line is a reference line used by geographers to distinguish between Northern and Southern China, corresponding roughly to the 33rd parallel. Qinling refers to the Qinling Mountains, and Huaihe refers to the Huai River. It divides China into two regions that differ from each other in climate, culture, lifestyle and cuisine.
Regions north of the line tend to be temperate or frigid, with snow being a regular feature in winter. Regions south of the line tend to be subtropical and tropical. The south is hotter and wetter than the north.
Historically, the North was more developed (employing the latest technology of that time) than the South. Many northern residents would have a kang, a brick bed heated by wood burned underneath it. But southerners had no such tradition. But much has changed in recent times, and half of the most developed Tier 1 cities of China are in the South. It was also in the Ming dynasty that the economy of the South outpaced that of the North.
Nowadays, most people acknowledge that divisions within Chinese society do not fall neatly into "north and south" divisions, because of the significant overlap in many regions of China.
Qinling Huaihe line was first drawn by Chinese geographer Zhang Xiangwen in 1908, defining north China as anything above a line running along the Qinling Mountains in the west and the Huai River the east.
The great heating divide dates from the 1950s. Back then, China started to install centralized systems for residential areas with assistance from the Soviet Union. But China was facing an extreme energy shortage in those years, and Premier Zhou Enlai suggested the Qin-Huai line, a well-known demarcation between north and south, as a cutoff point.
The divide was not ironclad. The Huai River runs through Xinyang in Henan province, but because more than 75% of the people live south of the river, the city was left out of the heating club. About 66 miles north, Zhumadian in Henan enjoys central heat. But go 43 miles north to Luohe, and there are no radiators in sight.
The line divides two of China's largest leading cities, with Shanghai, just below the line while Beijing is well above it.
Perhaps the only explanation that could justify our ‘winter suffering’ comes from Jiang Yi, director of a building energy research center at Tsinghua University, who told the Beijing News” If China took the unlikely step of providing central heating to all the residential urban areas in the south, it would need to burn an additional 50 million tons of coal each year”
In this case, dear Shanghai people, Turn up your kongtiaos and carry on – ‘only’ two months left till spring!
