I may have relatives in the north, but I am a southerner to the bone—and to be a southerner is to be obsessed with snow.
So when I saw snow falling outside, the excitement felt almost instinctive.
Excited or not, going outside still meant wrapping myself in layer after layer. Grandma knew that my brother and I were basically planning to get very intimate with the snow, so she added disposable gloves over our regular ones—a stroke of genius, as it turned out.
Snow in the north is nothing like snow in Hangzhou. Hangzhou winters are cold and damp, and Hangzhou “snow” is basically ice—a fact best demonstrated by how easily it packs into snowballs. In the dry cold of the north, making one is much harder. Put differently, northern snow feels more like a gas than a solid.
So after painstakingly gathering enough for one enormous snowball, I couldn’t bear to waste it by throwing it at someone. I found a few twigs instead and built a tiny snowman on the spot. And after that, what else is there to do on a snowy day?
Ice-skating! Alright, we did not actually have skates. That did not stop us from walking out onto the ice. The river had long since frozen and now lay beneath a thick white carpet, faintly marked by the footprints of those who came before us. As I stepped into that sea of white, something in me grew still.
What a world it was! Snowflakes drifted down, weaving a magnificent melody through the sky. I scooped up a handful from all that whiteness and flung it overhead; in an instant, I too seemed to turn white. Standing in the middle of it all, I felt the Creator’s power firsthand. This was the greatest work of art in the world.
Once I had finished marveling, I casually molded the snow into a simple geometric solid. My true inner thought: quick, take a photo so I can show off—and properly rub it in for my southern friends while I’m at it. That’s me, alright.
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