Winter Feelings
In winter the cold may be against us, the desire to hide away and shun the season is as keenly felt as a cold southerly. I would like to take you on a journey I did in China, 2008. This year will be remembered by the people in southern China, where an extreme snowfall shut down the region. People were stuck where they were, either comfortably at home, or, for the poor migrant workers, stuck inside a train station.
To put this into context, just imagine what Christmas is like for many Westeners; the whole family gets together and celebrates good time. Now imagine, that you are a young person, barely old enough to enter the workforce, this time of year is the one time you get to see your whole family again. You have just spent the last 12 months away from home, working, for the first time, in a factory. Working your arse off for stuff all money. You want so much just to hug your siblings, to share good times with the people you love.
During the new year festival, hundreds of millions of chinese travel back home. Growing up in such a small country as NZ, it is not possible to even conceive of it. For those in the south, they did not join the heaving masses, they spent it eating instant noodles on the train station floor.
I must fist apologise for the sombre nature of the opening, but I must set the scene. A little about what's happening in China, but also to attach all of this to my first ever winter. I turned 28. Being born in Auckland and staying there, I never had a proper winter. Sure, you might get a frost one year, but that's nothing. I was in Zhengzhou, capital of Henan province, almost bang smack in the middle of China. And it was cold in the winter. I spent my first week below freezing. I learned that snow is great when it first falls, but after about a day, it's just cold and wet, it can harden down to lethal ice or get black and sludgey along the road.
Still, it can be so very beautiful.
To put this into context, just imagine what Christmas is like for many Westeners; the whole family gets together and celebrates good time. Now imagine, that you are a young person, barely old enough to enter the workforce, this time of year is the one time you get to see your whole family again. You have just spent the last 12 months away from home, working, for the first time, in a factory. Working your arse off for stuff all money. You want so much just to hug your siblings, to share good times with the people you love.
During the new year festival, hundreds of millions of chinese travel back home. Growing up in such a small country as NZ, it is not possible to even conceive of it. For those in the south, they did not join the heaving masses, they spent it eating instant noodles on the train station floor.
I must fist apologise for the sombre nature of the opening, but I must set the scene. A little about what's happening in China, but also to attach all of this to my first ever winter. I turned 28. Being born in Auckland and staying there, I never had a proper winter. Sure, you might get a frost one year, but that's nothing. I was in Zhengzhou, capital of Henan province, almost bang smack in the middle of China. And it was cold in the winter. I spent my first week below freezing. I learned that snow is great when it first falls, but after about a day, it's just cold and wet, it can harden down to lethal ice or get black and sludgey along the road.
Still, it can be so very beautiful.
Back at home, taking a stroll along the river bank, I snapped this pic titled 'Walk Away Shen'.