China-"The Snow"

Well, winter is here for sure. It has been pretty cold here. Last week, about the 18th of January 2008, we got some serious snow, at least serious for here. As cold as it gets here, they get unbelievably little snow. It starts with me getting many text messages on my phone from students and friends that it is snowing. Many are quite excited….”run to the window…look at all the snow”, or “WOW…its snowing”. I go look at the snow and I have to stop at the window and really look. After a little bit I see one, that’s ONE (1), snowflake falling. It’s a small one too, not like some of the big ones I have see around 3/8’s inch across. This one is maybe pin head size….1/16 inch, maybe 1/32. this snow lasted a couple of days AND nights. It ended up being 3-4 inches deep. That is a lot for here. It closed the highways, the airport, the busses and most all taxis too. The city stopped moving except for on foot and some bicycles. They have no snow plows here at all. I’m not sure about other cities, but I would guess most do not. The hotel where I live had all employees outside with brooms, local style Chinese hand sweepers, and regular shovels cleaning the snow. As fast as it fell they kept sweeping. They had maintenance staff, front desk staff, waiters, cooks, even management out there cleaning snow. It was impressive how everyone chipped in. I got up early Sunday morning and was out on campus about 6:30AM to get a few pictures of the snow. It was dark, with only the dim street lights on campus to light the roads. There were already several students moving around leaving for the Spring Festival, the biggest holiday of the year.
About one week has passed. I was visiting our new campus coffee shop a little while ago. YES…we have a coffee shop now. Nice too. It’s a lot cheaper than the coffee shops around the city, but still too expensive for most students. I had just left there to go to my home and it started to snow again. Its coming down harder than last week but I’m not sure how long it will snow. I passed one of our buildings where they have many big shows and meetings, like a big auditorium, and I saw two small boys out front on the steps. There was a small area where some of the steps were still covered with snow from the last time. These boys had a small piece of wood, maybe 1 foot by 2 feet long, and were using it as a sled on the steps. It reminded me of doing the same thing when I was going to Lincoln Junior High School in Secaucus, NJ long ago. I had my small camera with me and got a few shots and a small video of them. I will add the pictures and video here. I’ll need some help from a few of you reading this. I have never added a video here to my blog and I’m not certain it will work. For some reason my blog is not viewable by anyone here in China, just the rest of the world, so I need someone to try to open the video I add here, than email me and tell me what happened please. I know it’s strange, but I can add to my blog, I just can’t go see what I added. I cannot explain it, I just accept what is.
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