Yes, China is weird because winters in the South are, in some ways, worse than in the North because at least up North there is heating. When I lived in Kunming it never got all that cold, rarely down into the single digits even, and we'd see snow maybe once a year if we were lucky, but I remember it being very cold in the house and the office/classroom, to the point that I would teach wearing my coat quite often, and I wasn't the only one doing this. Outdoors was somehow warmer than indoors a lot of the time. The insulation here is terrible and at least outdoors there would be sunshine.
Up North you have heating in every room, so as long as you stay inside it isn't bad. Outdoors is awful, Beijing's winters are hellish. The temperatures don't get down to Canadian levels or anything but the wind is terrible and you usually have those very crisp winters here which feel extremely cold on top of the winds.
Luckily the weather here has been nice recently, just cool enough for long sleeves, not quite to where you need a jacket, at least while the sun is out. This will probably last another 3 weeks or so before it starts getting cold. Last year we had our first snow on November 1st and I don't want a repeat, winter lasted forever it seemed.