Snow in Changchun always lands with real weight. It is not the wet southern kind that clings and melts as soon as it touches the ground. Here the snow is dry, loose, and airy, spreading over the earth like a thick layer of white sugar.
Step on it and it answers with a crisp crunch, crunch - the particular rhythm of winter.
The snowy forest of Jingyuetan: in winter, Jingyuetan sheds its summer green and puts on a vast silver coat. Tall pines and cypresses are covered with rime, flashing like small pieces of gold under the clean sunlight. The frozen lake stretches toward the horizon, until the whole world seems reduced to pure white and silence.