Snow

◎ Lu Xun

Tropical rain has never had a chance to turn into ice-cold, solid, and sparkling snowflakes．Erudite people consider this fact boring, and the rain itself takes this as a misfortune．In contrast, southern snow is the pinnacle of sleekness and beauty．It is simply a herald of emerging adolescence and the skin of the most vigorous and healthy virgin．In the snowy fields, there are scarlet Treasure Pearl camellias, white-colored and blue-greentinged single-lobe plum flowers, and deep yellow Alms Bowl winter sweets．Underneath the snow are pale green weeds．There are indeed no butterflies, nor do I remember if bees have come to gather honey from the camellias or plum flowers, but I seem to have seen winter flowers blooming in the snow-covered fields, on which many bees are busy flying around, and I seem to have heard their buzzing clamor.

A group of children, seven or eight in total, have gathered to make a snow Arhat．Occasionally, they puff warm breaths on their little, frozen hands, red and purple like ginger sprouts．Because they have failed to make the Arhat right, someone’s dad has come to help．As a result, the snow Arhat now looks much taller than the figure the kids have made previously．Although it is nothing but a tapering pile of snow - and looks as much like a gourd as it does an Arhat - it appears, on the other hand, very white and eye-catching as a big shiny mess, bound together with the power of its own gluey moistness．The kids use longans for its eyeballs and put on its lips some rouge snitched from a make-up case of someone’s mother．Now it does look like a big Arhat, and it sits there on the snowy ground with its eyes glittering and its lips glowing.

Although a few children have come to visit it the following day and give it a round of applause, a few nods, and a chorus of laughter, in the end, it has to sit there alone．A sunny day has scraped off its skin, and a chilly night has covered it in a layer of ice, thus turning it into an opaque crystal, and several sunny days in a row have taken the rouge off its lips and made it completely unrecognizable.

On the contrary, like permanent powder or sand, northern snowflakes, after they fall, remain non-sticky solids．When they are spread onto the roofs, onto the ground, or onto the withered grass, they remain the same shape as before．Of course, the snow on the roof has long since melted in the warmth of the fires lit by the residents of the houses, but in other places, the snow flies vigorously in the sudden whirling wind and shines brilliantly in the sunlight．It whirls up and fills the sky like a heavy fog with flame wrapped in it．Thus, it makes the sky flash in a spinning and soaring manner.

In the endless open fields and under the piercingly cold firmament, what is spinning and soaring is the spirit and soul of the rain…

Yes, that is the solitary snow, or the rain in an afterlife - the spirit and soul of the rain.

1. Lu Xun (Zhou Shuren, 1881-1936), the most famous and influential of modern Chinese writers．He was best known for his short stories and topical essays.