11th Harbin Ice and Snow World

Mid-afternoon, and the light begins to leach from the landscape.
We are sat in the middle of an empty car park, awaiting the descent of darkness.

'Cold?' asks 'Brother' Tang, my driver.
I smile feebly and stuff my hands deeper into the pockets of my overcoat, while Lin, my guide, huddles into her red puffer jacket. 'I'm marrying a southerner and moving somewhere warm,' she sighs. Tang laughs the laugh of a man built to keep out the cold. He turns up the heating in the car, but it's -28°C outside and the Manchurian winter seeps in insidiously.

An old Chinese air comes on the radio. 'Xu XiaoFeng,' says Tang, and I nod as if I'd heard the name before. He begins to hum tunelessly along. I imagine the man being the bane of the karaoke halls of Harbin, but he was a good sport. Perhaps his singing got better after a few beers; perhaps after a few beers, no-one cared.
'Do you sing?' he asks Lin, when the music ends.
'Yes,' she says softly.
'Sing us something, then.'
'No.'
'Hah! So you can't sing!'
'Well, that's where you're wrong.'
'What sort of songs do you like?'
Lin shrugs. 'Quiet songs,' she says, at length. 'Sad songs...'
And she turns to stare wistfully out the window.

Four in the afternoon. The car park has filled up with coaches, and it's dark enough to venture out to the Ice and Snow World. The wind scours my cheeks raw during the short walk to the entrance, but inside the towering ice gateway is an extraordinary winter wonderland of ice temples and palaces and pagodas, lit up in festive lights.
'Take your time to wander round,' says Lin, looking miserable in the cold.
'I won't be long,' I reply. 'When does it close?'
'When it melts.'
And with a shrug she was gone, retreating to the warmth of a little indoor auditorium.