OCD: Snow Day

I came back to Beijing from Seoul and there was 6 inches of snow on the ground.

Before I left, Beijing was dry as dust and looked it. The Gobi Desert blows a fine layer of yellow dust over Beijing, leaving it looking like a house that has been closed up for years. It has been a dry year, not unlike Los Angeles, Beijing has had below normal rainfall.

Until now. While I was in Seoul, the government shot rockets filled with silver iodide pellets, which made Sunday's surprise snow was the earliest for 21 years in Beijing, and came six weeks before the first snowfall last year; and dumped enough snow and ice to bring the city to a standstill.

The snow was unusual, but what caught my interest was the lack of protest about the unannounced seeding or the that that they seeded in the first place. If this had taken place Stateside, there would have been court injunctions, protests, law suits, enough to put off seeding till the next decade or two. Amazing what you can do in a country controlled by a government. And scary too.

Image: Ophelia Chong / First Snow Day