Spring Festival plans falling into place

• Wuxi Tony Update.
• This weekend, the foreign trainers will rehearse for their School's Chinese New Dinner performance.  Various groups from the school will perform.  This year, the trainers don't want to make complete asses of themselves like they did at the last CNY Dinner.  The other groups spend a lot of time practicing so the laowai feel compelled to take the performance seriously.  The Spring Festival slash Chinese Lunar New Year's Dinner will take place on January 15.
• The K family will have nine consecutive days off for the CNY.  They will spend half of it in Beixing/Taixing and half of it in Wuxi.
• Most Taiwanese have air-conditioners in their homes but no heaters -- something that visiting mainland Chinese find curious.  Taiwan's climate is such that heaters aren't needed but air conditioners are.  I learned this from a Taiwanese student we have who finds Wuxi very cold now.
• The temperature is hovering around zero these days.  Those not wearing long-johns are feeling it.
• China is guaranteed to have a economic crash because it is building a monster-tall skyscraper.  Read this article that chronicles the relationship between skyscraper building and economic crashes.