Want to play in the snow again but definitely not praying for another snow day in Beijing? Me too! However, despite the odd blizzard here and there, just because it doesn’t really snow in Beijing doesn’t mean we’re deprived of all the snow day activities that make living in a place with four seasons so magical.

Located in Haidian District, on the west side of the city, is a huge park that’s been transformed into a snowy winter wonderland.

玉渊潭公园  yù yuān tán gōng yuán is open daily from 9am–5pm. Their snow season is expected to last until mid-February but the exact date depends on the weather conditions.

The park is an open snowy playground that’s perfect for tubing and running around in giant inflatable balls like a hamster. Simply put, they’ve got plenty of snow and plenty of open space. Like with most places in Beijing though, if you go on a weekend or holiday, you can expect some pretty sizable crowds. But, during the weekdays, the place is as good as exclusively yours!

Tickets to the park are RMB 40 per person, and there’s no snow gear rental on site so dress warmly. As for tubes, inflatable balls, and other snow day toys, those you can rent on site. The most popular – snow tubes – are RMB 100 per hour with an RMB 300 deposit. The rest of the toys are charged by the minute since, let’s face it, they’re mainly for photo ops anyway.

玉渊潭公园  yù yuān tán gōng yuán
No. 10 West Third Ring Middle Road, Haidian District
海淀区西三环中路10号

Images: Uni You

To me, the only good part about winter is the ice and snow, and the joy of watching your kids play with all of it! This year, however, many snow parks and ice rinks have yet to open their doors, for any number of reasons including pandemic control, weather constraints, and economic closure. Nevertheless, after much searching, we were able to verify that the following ice skating rinks and snow carnival parks are open for your business!

Champion Rink

Located in Chaoyang Joy City Mall, this indoor rink is friendly to ice-skaters and ice hockey enthusiasts. Admission prices start at RMB 69 for 90 minutes of skating on weekdays with a coupon, or RMB 100 without. The rink is open daily, 10am-10pm. And however accomplished a skater you are, you’ll want to pad up because it tends to get pretty cold on the ice!

Neverland Ice and Snow Carnival 梦幻岛冰雪嘉年华

Forget Peter Pan and the Lost Boys, ’cause you’ve got snowmobiles, sleds, and even llamas at this Neverland Ice and Snow Carnival, located along the fifth ring road east of downtown Beijing. According to Dianping, you can even organize a party at their premises, meaning snow fights with the whole gang! Aside from playing in the snow, there’s also a petting zoo with rabbits and deer and the aforementioned llamas. Tickets start from RMB 59 on weekdays or RMB 69 on weekends, and opening hours are daily from 9am-6pm, with final admission at 5.30pm.

全明星滑冰俱乐部 All Star Skating Club

Conveniently located in Solana, this ice skating rink boasts a coaching team that features some of the nation’s award-winning skaters, so if you have an aspiring ice skater, this might be the place to train them. The price is similar to Champion Rink at RMB 100 for 90 minutes, however, that excludes the cost of equipment rental. The rink is open every day from 10am-9.30pm.

香江冰雪嘉年华 Xiangjiang Ice and Snow Carnival

Great for young kids who want to slide down and dig around in the powdery white snow, this carnival park located in east Beijing does not look to be too crowded at the moment. They even have a snow “banana boat,” a winter variant of the popular beach ride where your family sits on an inflatable tube and is dragged along by a motor vehicle. Limited access tickets start at RMB 20 on weekdays for one adult and child, and go up to RMB 99 which includes unlimited snow slides for two hours on the weekends. You can buy tickets on Dianping by searching Xiāngjiāng bīngxuě jiāniánhuá. The park is open every day from 9am-6pm.

KEEP READING: Outdoor Play Place + Petting Zoo + Snow!

Images: Unsplash, Dianping

Last night while we slept, Beijing’s latest snowfall set in. The People’s Capital has been getting a lot of snow recently, and the skies have more of the fluffy stuff a-brewing. In fact, this snowfall will be lucky number seven this winter and it’s going to be a biggie.

This snowfall is expected to continue over northeast China until Sunday, Feb 16. However, the majority of snowfall over urban Beijing will likely occur on Friday from 2 am until 8 pm.

It’s so tempting to go throw snowballs and make snow angels. But is it safe?

Think of it this way, play sessions in the snow are pretty hands-on, and while the kids are caught up in the excitement of being outside, they’re likely to forget about all the sanitation protocols you’ve drilled into their heads. Now that’s not to say the snow is filled with little viral particles — but if anyone has been playing in that same patch of snow, happened to sneeze on it and was also a virus carrier, there is a chance of transmission. Think of all the times your kids will touch their face to scratch an itch, brush the snow from their eyes, or wipe a runny nose.

According to Chinese magazine, Knowledge is Power, coronaviruses are less tolerant to heat, but can survive for hours in low temperatures and may even be made stronger by the cold. Conversely, the magazine also reported on the opinion of physical chemist Wang Linghang, who suggests that snowy weather may reduce aerosol transmission, though other factors like wind and temperature must be considered.

So, while the snow may help slow the spread of the virus, it’s far from a sure thing. Best to save snowman building for next year.

Though the coronavirus has reduced the number of cars on the road, it may have actually worsened coal-burning pollution as migrants have been returning to their hometowns in increasing numbers, where the coal-to-gas transition is yet to be completed, reports Beijing Daily.

The result: AQIs north of 250, giving us yet another reason to shut ourselves indoors. Fortunately, the snow and wind should do away with those pesky particles, leaving us with a sub-100 AQI by Friday evening, just in time for Valentine’s Day dinner at home.

But if you do end up playing outside in the snow, make your snowman in some virgin snow. Don’t touch your face or wipe your eyes. Wear gloves and mittens (you should do this anyway since it’s so cold outside). And most importantly, wash up properly afterward.

Source: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/about/transmission.html
Photo: Unsplash

After living through what may be the driest winter on record, parched Beijing residents celebrated the end of the drought with Wednesday’s arrival of snow – or to be more accurate, snowflakes.

With Beijing’s lack of effective precipitation now stretching to a record-breaking 130 days, Beijing residents are demonstrating that they’ll take whatever they can get by meticulously documenting what appears to be every last flake on social media platforms.

READ: Beijing Just Witnessed its Driest Year on Record

If you’re not aware it even snowed this week, here is the photographic evidence to prove it. Don’t worry if you can’t find it at first; many of the photos helpfully point out it out to the viewer:

Yes, that’s snow, all right.

What may be a display of dry humor among Beijingers became published news for China Daily which posted this video as proof of the snowfall, even though there’s not much to see (shown below).

The best proof we could find of Wednesday’s snow was this video posted by Beijing Weather that showed scattered snowflakes percussively skittering across the roof of a black-colored car (shown below). Sadly, the precipitation wasn’t enough to allow locals to write “It’s snowing,” a common tradition of the season.

Beijing did experience a snowfall in January that covered the city with an average 1 millimeter of snow; however, this fact is being ignored by local media in light because some areas of Beijing’s massive jurisdiction received no effective precipitation during the same time.

But as meager as it was, Wednesday’s snowfall was likely the last chance to see snow this winter as high temperatures reaching 11 degrees Celsius are forecast for the rest of the week with no call for precipitation.

Unfortunately for Beijing residents, you’ll have to wait until next season to catch a glimpse of snow. Or maybe Beijing will be really lucky and receive snow four years from now when it hosts the 2022 Winter Olympic Games.

More stories from this author here.

Twitter: @Sinopath
E-mail: charlesliu1@qq.com

Images: Weibo (1, 2, 3)

Though most companies are headed back to work, some schools are still on vacation. Here are a few things you can do while you wait for the fireworks to completely fizzle out and for the spring to bring back a sense of normalcy.

1. Check out the snow

There are a few snow parks available in Beijing, and our family events group on WeChat mentioned the snow parks at Gongti, Longtan Park (at the north entrance), and Yizhuangqiao snowpark. The benefit of Gongti snowpark is that it’s close to most in the city, but it’s crowded and can be pricey. If you’re willing to travel, head south to Yizhangqiao snow park and stop by the neighboring Decathlon on your way out from a long day. It’s RMB 30 per person to enter the park, but only RMB 100 to rent a tube for a few hours to slide down those hills.

If you’re not shy toward fastfood, there’s a McDonald’s at Yizhuang Culture Park station. If you’re looking for something more refined, The Roots is an Yizhuang favorite of everyone in the suburb with taste buds.

Getting there:

Yizhuangqiao Snowpark: Type in 亦庄桥 to Didi for a taxi, or take line 10 or 5 to Yizhuang Line then get off at Yizhuangqiao station. Once exiting the station, use the picture below as a guide. McDonald’s is one stop down at Yizhuang Culture Park and across the bridge. The Roots is at the Yizhuang Sam’s Club on the 3rd floor. We suggest taking a taxi there and typing in 亦庄创意生活广场.

The red is the station, the purple is Decathlon, and the blue is the snow park with the line explaining how to get there.

2. Go ice skating

Thankfully malls are still open and running even when schools are not. Remember when our sister publication, theBeijinger, rounded up this list of their favorite places to ice skate? There’s also this mall that has virtual reality games, a trampoline area, a major kids’ land, and an ice skating rink.

3. Check out kidsteam locations

Did you know if you buy a membership card, you could visit any of the locations in Beijing? Kidsteam just opened a brand new location in Yizhuang. That’s a perk to me since my family frequently visits friends who live in the areas around the 4 locations, making this play chain a great option for us. This Saturday we’re heading into downtown to get our haircut and we’ll be close to one of the locations, so we’re meeting up with friends to have a play date!

The drawback is that prices are steep, as with most play lands, but this one averages out to RMB 80 per kid per entry day if a parent were to buy the RMB 2,500 card that lasts a year. Otherwise, it’s RMB 150 per head. You are able to leave and come back within the same day. I would recommend this for parents who prefer indoor play to playing in a mask on bad AQI days. My kids played for hours and didn’t want to leave (they’re 4 and 5 years old).

4. Go watch a movie

I’m always a sucker for a good movie at the cinemas, though I do miss salty, buttery popcorn over the sweet kind found at many Beijing cinemas. Kubo and the Two Strings has been rated well for kids ages 8 and above. And don’t forget Rogue One, I mean, as though you could forget.

5. Don’t forget events

There are a couple of events you could check out this weekend, and we rounded up this coming week’s events too. I’d personally suggest checking out Our Little Library Opening and the Children’s Drama, Malan Flower.

Photos: Vanessa Jencks

More stories by this author here.
Email: vanessajencks@truerun.com
Twitter: @vanessa_jencks
WeChat: vanessajencks

This week marks the annual exodus of people from Beijing. Individuals and families alike will embark on journeys back to their hometowns to see loved ones and ring in the new year. For those of us staying in Beijing that have seen all the glorious dumpling making events and other festivities that the city has to offer during the Lunar New Year, a change of scenery might be good. Luckily, winter is the perfect time to travel to the Harbin Ice Festival up in the northern Heilongjiang Province. Below is a quick guide for the sights, activities, and other tips to take note of when visiting Harbin this winter.

Skiing
If you’re looking to spend your vacation sliding down slopes of white, fluffy snow then Yabuli in Harbin is the place for you. The famed Yabuli Ski Resort sits 180 kilometers from Harbin and is China’s largest ski resort. Getting to Yabuli is as easy at taking a flight from the Beijing Capital International Airport (BCIA) or taking the Beijing-Harbin High Speed Railway. Of the resorts that exist in the area there is also the Club Med Yabuli Sun Mountain Lodge. Club Med Yabuli offers downhill skiing lessons and snowboarding lessons.

Festivities Abound: The Ice Festival
For those looking to explore the ice palaces, ice lanterns, and ice sculptures that Harbin has to offer, below are the top spots to visit when checking those out. Though at this point in 2017 the Ice Festival is making its last rounds (closing on February 25 depending on the weather) there should still be plenty of ice wonders to see for visitors.

Sun Island Scenic
The Sun Island Scenic Area hosts the Harbin International Snow Sculpture Art Expo each year where talented people shape snow and ice into fascinating sculptures. The scenic area is located past the Songhua River, away from the city center and is broken up into 3 areas: 1) Animals world on the northwest side, 2) the center of the garden which has lakes, and 3) the ice and snow series on the south side. The Snow Sculpture Exhibition is the world’s largest indoor ice and snow art museum.

Location: No.3 Jingbei Road, Sun Island Scenic Area, Songbei District, Harbin
Admission Fees (Snow Sculpture Exhibition): RMB 240 for adults, RMB 120 for kids 3.9 and 4.6 feet (1.2-1.4m), and free for children under 3.9 feet (1.2 meters).
Hours: Jan. 1 to the early Mar. 2017: 8am-8pm.

Ice and Snow World
Located on the south side of Sun Island Scenic Area is the Ice and Snow World which is lauded as the main attraction of the ice festival. Ice and Snow World is said to have the four key “mosts”: the most beautiful night views, the most art attractions, the most recreational activities, and the most options for alternative entertainment. Inspiration for the various sculptures usually come from traditional fairy tales or architectural feats such as the Great Wall and the Egyptian Pyramids.

Location: West side of Sun Island, Songbei District, Harbin (near Heilongjiang Science and Technology Museum)
Admission Fees: RMB 330 for adults, RMB 200 for children between 3.9 and 4.6 feet (1.2-1.4m), and free for children under 3.9 feet
Hours: 11am-10pm (Dec. 22, 2016 to March, 2017)

Zhaolin Park
Zhaolin Park’s is an ice world perfect for kids. The Park hosts over 1,000 ice sculptures including ice lanterns, animals, and mystic creatures. In addition to these kid-friendly masterpieces, Zhaolin Park also has recreational activities for children such as ice slides. The pieces at this site light up and thus are best visited when dark. While this park is the smaller of the festival’s three total main venues, it is still worth a visit if you have the time!

Location: 74 Youyi Lu (74 Friendship Road), at the northern end of Zhaolin Dajie in Daoli District
Admission Fees: RMB 150 per adult; children under 1.2 meters get in free. The park is free admittance all other times outside of the Ice Festival dates.
Hours: 9am-9pm

What to Pack in that Rucksack
January is the coldest time of year in Harbin, with temperatures dropping to -24 degrees C (-11 degrees F). This affects both your body and your technology so if you want to keep both your selfie game strong and everyone’s fingers intact, below are some helpful tips and essentials you will need to pack.

Clothing: Layering is the name of the game, and thermal will be everyone’s secret weapon. Layering is important since Harbin’s centralized heating means while the outside is an arctic oblivion, when one is inside it’s actually quite warm. For the outdoors, don’t forget to pack thermal undergarments, gloves (two pairs at a time depending on the thickness of your gloves), extra socks, and both a thinner jacket and a heavier jacket to layer together. Hats are a must (or something at least to cover your ears and forehead) as well as extra pairs of pants and long johns. Sunglasses may also be a good idea since snow can often be blinding. Packing a set of snow shoes or water proof winter shoes will also keep your feet warm. Preferably bring boots with tread to help ensure a more balanced walking experience.

Tech: In order to protect your cameras and phones from running out of battery too quickly, always put them away in a warm place (such as a warm inner jacket pocket) when not in use. Extremely cold temperatures will negatively impact batteries, making them last potentially half as long as they otherwise would.

General Health: Bring a water bottle for hot water to stay hydrated and warm. No matter where you are, it’s usually a good rule of thumb to try and stay hydrated! Also, if at any point you feel you are starting to get frostbite, get into a warm place and warm up slowly. Do not run any part of you under hot water or do anything too extreme to warm yourself.

Here are some useful maps for the trip as well.

Photos: Tracy Hunter, Rosanna He

Today forecasts predict snow in some parts of Beijing, but we want to remind you that Beijing’s snow is not crystal clean like the snows of our youth, nor will they close down schools on Monday, even if the snow sticks for days.

Though snow can bring in blue skies the following day, as writer Ruth Silbermayr-Song has pointed out, the actual snow could be just as dirty as acid rain. Beijing Meterological Bureau warned the entire city that snow can pick up pollutants as they drop through the air in response to Thursday’s snow falls.

Those of you who are from the warmer climates of the world where snow literally shuts down society, you can be thankful that milk and bread won’t run out at your local supermarket even with the expectation of dirty snow. However, this means when Monday rolls around, even if roads are still iced over, you will still need to take your children to school and lug yourself to work. Beijingers can, apparently, drive in snow, ice, hail, and sleet, though fog tends to freak everyone out. (This is purely circumstantial evidence based on last Wednesday’s social media reactions.)

For those who are accustomed to happy, busy snow days, we suggest not letting your children lick snow off of poles and avoid snow angels in deceptively white hills. But we assume if a child is wearing a mask and you are sure to wash outer layers, sliding on a sled should be OK.

We would also warn you not to skate on any bodies of water in Beijing, unless they have been confirmed to be safe. On the upside, there are plenty of ice rinks in Beijing to help you still enjoy the perks of winter without the potentially nasty snow.

Indoor and Outdoor Ice Rinks

INDOOR

All Star Rink
Located in Solana mall, this charming indoor rink is popular with families and even private lessons (in Chinese only) from national skating team coaches.

Open year round, 10am-9.30pm. RMB 50 for an hour and a half. Lessons cost RMB 135 for 40 mins. 1/F, Solana Lifestyle Shopping Park, 6 Chaoyang Gongyuan Lu, Chaoyang District (5905 6328)

Century Star Club
If you want to go for a leisurely skate, then this is not the place for you. However, serious skaters will enjoy the high quality lessons offered at this rink, though the number of students and teachers leave no room for more recreational visitors.

Open year round, 1.30-7.30pm. RMB 120 for a half-hour lesson. B/F, Capital Gymnasium, 54 Zhongguancun Nandajie, Haidian District (6834 6346) www.centurystar.com.cn

Joy City
From hockey tournaments to post ice team window shopping, this shopping mall housed rink has a wide spectrum of options for visitors.

Open year round, Mon-Tue 10am-9.30pm, Wed-Thu 10am-10.45pm, Fri 10am-8.30pm, Sat 3-7.30pm, Sun 1-7.15pm. Mon-Fri anytime and any duration before 5pm RMB 60, after 5pm RMB 70. Weekends, RMB 80 for two hours. 7/F, Joy City Mall, Chaoyang North Road No. 101, Chaoyang District, Beijing 7F (8552 6871, 8552 6695) www.championrink.com/en-us/events/champion

Le Cool
It may be a small rink, but the skaters at Le Cool give it plenty of personality. Thanks to its central location, it draws a crowd that is both vast in size and wide in variety, making it one of the liveliest and most downright fun rinks in town.

Open year round, Mon-Sat 10am-10pm, Sun 10am-7pm. Weekdays RMB 30 for 90 min (10am-6pm), RMB 40 for 90 min (6-10pm). Weekends: RMB 50 for 90 min. Skate rental included. B2/F, China World Shopping Mall, 1 Jianguomenwai Dajie, Chaoyang District (6505 5776, lecool@cwtc.com) www.lecoolicerink.com

Paradise Walk Mall (Tianjie Shopping Center)
This mall also boasts its own skating rink, with virtual reality shops, and a large indoor playground.

Mon-Fri 10am-9.30pm, Sat-Sun 10am-10pm.  5 Yongxing Lu, Daxing District. (5280 3300)大兴区永兴路5号院
OUTDOOR

Dulwich
While many popular local skating venues are bustling hubs of activity, this outdoor rink will satisfy many foreigner’s longing for the quieter ice rinks of their hometowns. Indeed, Dulwich’s rink is perfect for timid children looking to better their balance, along seasoned adults looking to skate in peace.

Open for the season from Nov 22. Weekends, 3:30pm-7pm (not open to the public on weekdays, opening time sometime change due to special events, call beforehand). RMB 50. Dulwich College Beijing, Legend Garden Villas, 89 Capital Airport Road, Shunyi District, Beijing (64549150) www.dulwich-beijing.cn

Houhai
Glide across the ice with hutong rooftops as your backdrop. Nothing else will ever give lifelong laowai skiers such a simultaneous taste of both home and abroad.

Open to the season from Dec 20. 10am-dusk. Prices TBC. Qianhai, north side of Beihai Park, Xihai Beiyan, Xicheng District. (6612 5717)

Summer Palace
Like Houhai, this historic site will give your ice time a distinctively Chinese feel. Better still: the lake is huge, giving you plenty of room to attempt to make figure eights.

Qinglongqiao Jiedao, Haidian District (6288 1144). This season’s opening times and prices not available at press time (we suggest calling ahead). In years past it was open from Nov-Apr and priced at RMB 50.

Source: thebeijinger.com, Kyle Mullin

If you can’t bare to have the snow flirt with your winter-loving heart, you could also take a day trip to cleaner slopes. Check out options here.

Photo: Anathea Utley (Flickr)

More stories by this author here.
Email: vanessajencks@truerun.com
Twitter: @vanessa_jencks
WeChat: vanessajencks

Snow in Austria’s countryside
When I was a child growing up in Austria’s countryside, far away from the city and most other human settlements, snow was so common in winter that we didn’t need to wait for it. Just as the change of seasons would happen with certainty, millions of snowflakes would cover the ground in white in winter with just as much predictability. White Christmas was the norm. As an adult, snow in winter wasn’t as certain anymore. Trudging through a field of snow reaching up to my knees to reach my school bus, rolling home a snowball that would be bigger than me even before I reached the converted farm house we lived in, and the numb feeling of hands and feet being warmed up on the heater have long become distant memories.

Snow in the city

Moving to the city in my teens has meant less snow and more mud. Gone were the days of playing in the snow during the holidays from dawn to dark, and here were days of trying to navigate streets in a way that would not completely mess up my shoes, or mean I’d stay at school with wet socks for the whole day. To me, less snow was a sign of moving from the countryside to the city more than that of climate change. Whenever I go back to my childhood home now, I know it is also the latter. White Christmas or even snow in winter doesn’t always happen, and the days you can go cross-country skiing or bobsledding have become few and far in between.

No matter if I was waiting for the first snow of the year or wishing winter away, the sight of a year’s first snowflakes floating down the dark wintry skies would always, without exception, create a feeling of utter peacefulness in my heart. The first snow would make the world pause for a minute, embracing us with its perfect beauty, and have millions of people look up at the sky in synchronization, feeling connected with the earth beneath our feet, the sky, and the universe.

Snow in China
My husband also says about his hometown in Northeast China that it used to be even colder, and they used to have more snow. Although it had already snowed a little this year—when the skies became white and neighboring houses vanished behind thick clouds of smog—we wished for snow again. My baby, toddler son, and I locked ourselves up at home, afraid of going outside not because of the cold, but the air. Every morning, we’d look at the air quality app. My toddler son would check twice, looking at the red symbol on my phone first, and the sky next. “The sky is grey-white, it isn’t blue. The air is dusty. I can’t go to kindergarten today,” he’d exclaim, not entirely unhappy about staying home with me. He is more familiar to smog than fog. But I’d rather he know about smog when it’s clearly there, than being in denial and calling it fog like so many other people around us do. To many here, Beijing seems far away and smog is what happens there, not in our small city in Northeast China.

And while bundling up at home around Christmas isn’t necessarily bad, we still hope for snow. This year, we’ll greet the snowflakes joyfully, just like we did when we were still children. We’ll greet them joyfully, looking at their dance from our window, our hearts dancing with them. We’ll greet them joyfully, taking out the sleigh and enjoying the snow that brings blue skies.

We’ll feel the peace that it brings.

Ruth Silbermayr-Song is an Austrian illustrator, German teacher and mother of two. She writes about life in China as a foreign woman, her cross-cultural marriage to a Chinese man, and child rearing bridging cultures and languages on her blog China Elevator Stories. Her story of pregnancy and parenting in China has appeared in the anthology “Knocked Up Abroad Again”.

Photos courtesy of Ruth Silbermayr-Song

In late 2013, I went home to Canada to birth my son who was born during the coldest and snowiest winter Ontario has had in 30 years. I loved it. I loved every minute of the huge snowdrifts against the patio glass doors, the crackling fire in the fireplace of my parent’s home, and the crystallized frozen breath that stiffened my scarf after a crisp walk outdoors. It was divine.
Winter is a season I’ve come to appreciate all the more since moving to Beijing in 2008. Winter here in the Chinese capital is, frankly, a disappointment. The bone-chilling indoor cold thanks to poorly insulated buildings makes the much colder temperatures in Canada seem so much more bearable; at least in my home country, when you return indoors, you can remove your down-filled vest. And without the pristine beauty of regularly falling snow, this city is just like one giant grey-infused shoulders-slumped sigh as it endures the long wait for spring.

My son was only six weeks old when I took my daughter ice-skating for the first time in Canada. We went to a homemade skating rink that is maintained by local volunteer organizations and serves as a place for shinny hockey or free skating for the small population of local kids.
My daughter had never been on skates before. Together, with her godmother, we walked the fifteen minutes to the rink and strapped her into toddler skates much to her excitement. Her godmother and I (both in boots rather than skates) took turns holding her hands and directing her across the ice as she reveled in the feeling of floating. “Mommy, it’s fun! Mommy, I’m dancing!”
I was so proud. I imagined her doing twirls on ice in a few years, able to skate away on her own, flying across the ice freely like most Canadian kids can do by the time they’re six or seven years old. I want both my kids to understand the beauty of skating on an icy surface—like ballet on blades, even if holding a hockey stick.
It’s been nearly three years since that snowy day of Canadian maternal pride, and I’m sad to report that we haven’t been ice-skating since. Sure, there have been a few roller skating attempts in warmer months, but we haven’t been back in Canada in winter since my son’s birth. And, with small ice rinks mostly tucked away into the basement of malls, ice-skating is an under-appreciated activity in this snowless city.
That’s why I just left my Canadian friend a message announcing my plan to take the kids ice-skating in Beijing as soon as possible. I got the response I needed: a resounding yes. Stay tuned! A proud Canadian ice-skating team will imminently overtake the Solana mall’s indoor rink.

About the Writer
Ember Swift is a Canadian musician and writer who has been living in Beijing since late 2008. She and her husband Guo Jian (国囝), who is also a musician, have a daughter called Echo (国如一) and a son called
Topaz or “Paz” (国世龙).

This article originally appeared on page 40 of the November/ December issue of beijingkids magazine. Click here for your free online copy. To find out how you can obtain a hard copy, contact distribution@truerun.com.

PHOTO: Blogs.Sweden.se