Life under cold snap

BEIJING - As rain fell on Beijing, a cold front began to sweep most part of northern China on Saturday, the third day of the ongoing 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC).

On the country's microblog sphere of tens of millions of users, the sudden cold rainfall, dropping temperature, and forecasted blizzards and high winds seem to have "disrupted" people's normal lives.

Microbloggers twittered their personal "struggles" right before the official winter kickoff in 2012.

"It's great to have a day off tomorrow, but sadly it's going to be cold ," posted Sina Weibo user "Miaojiang_WM" complaining a disrupted weekend.

Another user "Yellow Xiaomin" was not even ready for the pending cold snap, "The temperature is dropping! I haven't found my clothes. Come out, my fancy coats. I don't like playing hide-and-seek."

On Sina Weibo, the country's most popular twitter-like service, the cold snap topped the most-discussed topic list.

Others on the list included what the happiest job is, the wedding of a Chinese diving legend with the son of a Hongkong tycoon, and a foreign football player who failed to win the MVP title in China's soccer league.

The front pages of major Chinese newspapers on Saturday focused on the CPC Congress. They reported the panel discussions of delegations, which top Party leaders attended.

The CPC Congress will continue to dominate their Sunday front pages.

In the afternoon a presidium meeting of the CPC Congress was held at the Soviet-style Great Hall of the People overlooking the Tiananmen square.

The presidium meeting decided to submit the proposed name-list of nominees for the candidates of members and alternate members of the 18th CPC Central Committee, and members of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, to all delegations to the congress for consideration.

Earlier, the General Administration of Customs on Saturday issued September trade data, showing China's trade surplus widened in October, as export growth accelerated and import growth remained steady.

On Tencent, a popular microblogging site, the cold snap made to the top-ten most-talked-about list with over 35 million posts.

Discussion of the CPC Congress received a total of over 24 million posts, despite only a dozens of posts related to the topic were made on Saturday.

Tong Lihua, a Party Congress delegate and a lawyer from Beijing, said on Tencent, "It's really uplifting. I submitted my carefully thought-out proposal on deepening law-based governance, a proposal of over ten thousand words. I was told this was historic for the past several party congresses."

Sunday is November 11, or the Singles Day, a Chinese pop culture holiday for people who are still living the single life. It got the name Singes day because the date consists of four "ones".

It will also be a day of huge discounts on China's major online department stores which began to offer half-price discounts over the past year.

"I've had everything ready. I have to get some nice and cheap stuff," said "Pingdan" on Tencent.