哈尔滨：冰是江借的

I came to Harbin in January, and my friend said I'd come at the right time.

She said: people who come in summer don't see the real Harbin.

Coming out of the airport it was twenty-something below zero.

I put on a hat and gloves.

But after five minutes of walking, my face hurt.

My friend laughed and said: this is only the beginning.

She took me to the Songhua River.

The Songhua is Harbin's biggest river.

In winter, all the water in the river turns to ice.

The ice is thick, and people can walk on it.

In some places, cars can drive onto it.

There are a lot of people on the river.

Some people ride bikes on the ice.

Some people sit on the ice.

And some people sell things on the ice.

I said: it's lively here in winter.

My friend said: because winter is too long.

She said: if you stayed home for six months, you'd be miserable.

So we turned winter into a time when you can go out and play.

In the afternoon, I saw a lot of people working on the river.

They used machines to cut the ice into very big blocks.

One block of ice is as tall as a person.

Trucks pulled the blocks away.

I asked: where does this ice go?

My friend said: to make buildings.

I said: buildings made of ice?

She said: yes. You'll see tonight.

In the evening, we went to the Ice and Snow World.

I saw a lot of buildings made of ice.

Some looked like palaces, some like towers.

There were lights set inside the buildings.

The colours of the lights kept changing.

Blue ice, red ice, green ice.

I'd always thought ice was white.

But once you put lights inside, ice has a lot of colours.

A lot of people were walking around, and some were sliding down the ice.

I went down a slide too.

It was fast, and cold.

My friend said: they build this place every winter, and it's different every year.

I said: and in spring?

She said: after spring the weather gets warm.

The ice melts and the buildings are gone.

The water goes back into the Songhua.

I said: isn't that a shame?

She said: it's not a shame.

This ice was the river's in the first place.

When we're done with it, we give it back.

The next day we walked down Central Street.

The buildings on this street aren't like other Chinese cities.

A lot of them were built by Russians a hundred years ago.

My friend said: this city exists because of a railway.

The railway came, and people came with it.

So there are Russian buildings on the street, and Chinese buildings.

At midday we ate northeastern food.

One plate was enormous.

The food was hot, and it smelled good.

My friend said: somewhere this cold, food has to be hot, and there has to be a lot of it.

In the afternoon I went back to the river.

The sun went down, and the ice turned blue.

I stood there alone for a long time.

I thought about what my friend had said.

The ice belongs to the river; when you're done, you give it back.

In your city, what do you do with the hardest season of the year?