So apparently the district committee has decided that the trees around here have been getting a bit too tall, so they’ve order a few rows of them to be “trimmed.” Now, two whole rows of tree have been reduced to nothing more than 10-foot stumps…I wonder if they’ll survive or not. Obviously, we all know that trees can survive winter without their leaves (and thus photosynthesis), because they become dormant and use stored energy in their roots and whatnot. But leaving a tree totally bare at this time of year forces it to enter a early “hibernation” period. To be sure, it’s probably going to take a long time and a lot of stored energy, but I reckon they’ll probably make it.

I don’t know about you, but I’ve always been a big fan of green plants and having a nice scenery around the place I live, which is hard to come by in a city like Beijing. According to my grandma, some of the trees have been growing so close to the buildings that they have prevented sunlight from reaching inside. While I agree that the problem can be a little annoying, I also don’t think you need to cut down an entire row of trees to solve the problem…just an annual trim or so of the branches close to the buildings will suffice.