Eye of Modok

This year, I really want to make it up to Harbin. The ice festival there has been luring me for years, but I can never find anyone willing to go with me. All I ever hear about is how it gets to minus 20 degrees C and your face will freeze just going out. Yeah, well when I was kid, I went out every day in winter in weather just that cold to shovel snow off my driveway that would drift up to my waist regularly. Of course, I’ve spent most of the rest of my life avoiding places like that, favoring beaches in Thailand for my Januarys, but as long as it’s not a permanent arrangement, I love it!!

Growing up in Ohio, I’m no stranger to snow. The memory that sticks out most is “The Great Blizzard” of 1978. I used to get up at 5 am to deliver the morning paper around my neighborhood. The stillness, beauty and otherworldliness of that time made it worth the early hours and very the heavy paperbag slung over my shoulders, half the papers in front, half in back. Saturdays were not so fun because I’d have to return home and do the route in two trips. The ice and snow added an extra touch of fun, as invariably I’d hit a piece of ice at some point, my feet would fly out from under me and… wham! … saved from real harm by papers on my back, but the wind knocked out of me none the less.

One cold January morning I got up and went to the front porch, which I had helped to enclose by then, to look outside to see what kind of weather I could look forward to that day. The papers hadn’t arrived yet and the windows were all frosted over, so I went to look out the glass sliding door in the back, but all I could see was white. Opening the door to look out didn’t change a thing. Pure white against the pure black of night. I stuck my hand out in the maelstrom and it disappeared from view, quickly freezing as well. I decided then and there that I didn’t care what anyone said, I wasn’t going out in that. I needn’t have worried, as the storm had buried the whole of the Miami Valley in snow. Although only around 40 centimeters of snow fell, the winds whipped up snow drifts up to 8 meters tall! Our cars where completely buried on the driveway and the drifts went all the way up to the roof! Needless-to-say, the next few days were some of the best ever for building snow forts, complete with tunnels, and as school and work were out of the question for everyone for the next few days, I had a blast! The forts actually lasted until spring, and the crabapple tree was in full bloom before the last remnants finally melted away.

So, on the rare occasion we get a genuine snow storm in Beijing, I rejoice. The kids and I are out in no time building giant snowmen and having snowball fights. And although I’m happy with the relatively mild winter in Beijing, I have to wonder… what’s the point of winter without snow?