Today is a snow day (I wish). About an inch of snow fell overnight in Beijing. And this morning, workers are out with their big brooms sweeping the sidewalks free.
It’s the first significant snowfall of the winter. Xinhua cites an official from the Beijing Weather Modification Command Center saying the snowfall was artificially induced: A total of 426 cigarette-size sticks of silver iodide were seeded into clouds from 28 weather rocket launch bases in the city, said the official, Zhang Qiang, Xinhua said.
Workers were also out spreading salt and sand around the apartment complex where we live. Xinhua says 443 tons of the mix were spread around the city to keep the roads clear.
The nice thing about the snowfall is that it slows the entire city down and gives the urban landscape a new look, putting a smile on everyone’s face.
But schools stayed open. So for our daughters, it was a mixed blessing.
I was surprised to see this in my Yahoo! China News RSS feed. My first thought was it was a sub-par news report at best. Snow in Beijing. I thought it funny that a topic I find a flimsy topic for my own blog (and I did it this year too, wrote of snow in Taizhou) would make it in. But it appears Yahoo takes this blog, sends it on the RSS feed and marks the source as McClatchy Newspapers. Their link to this source brings up an error, so it took me a while to figure out this wasn't meant as a news article but a blog post.
Well, it's an all right blog post I suppose, but it does make the rounds.
Posted by: OP Paljakka | February 17, 2009 at 10:01 PM
Did you go to the Summer Palace? It was awesome with the snow.
Posted by: otoh | February 17, 2009 at 11:33 PM
why don't they use shovels in Beijing? Have you ever seen a shovel??
Tip of the day: Don't eat Silver iodide snow!!!
Posted by: Magnus | February 18, 2009 at 01:37 AM
What's a 'shovel'?
Posted by: Tim J | February 18, 2009 at 05:31 AM
Snow accumulation in Beijing and elsewhere in China perhaps except Heilongjiang and Jilin is usually not that much to warrant the use of shovels. Hence you have "各扫门前雪" instead of "各铲门前雪".
That is not to say people don't use shovels at all, of course some do.
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