The Never-Melting Snow
Beijing, China
2025, Junior, Creative Writing
Every spring in Beijing, something strange and almost magical fills the air. When you look at it first, it looks like snow—tiny white pieces of cotton floating gently through the streets and drifting over rooftops. But it’s not snow. It never melts. And it’s not quite as magical when you breathe it in or have it in your mouth when you talk.
When I was just a child in nursery school, my friends and I were captivated by this fluffy white stuff. We had no idea what it really was. We knew that it somehow came from a particular kind of tree, but we didn’t understand how and why it was formed. To us, it was simply “spring snow.” In our little imaginations, it was a wonderful gift, a second, surprise snowfall that never melted after winter had gone.
We invented games around it. My favorite was a silly but exciting one: we pretended the fluff was dangerous. If a piece touched you, you were “out.” We ran and dodged and laughed, trying to avoid the floating “flakes”. The games rarely lasted more than a few minutes because there was just so much of it. We always lost. But we didn’t care. It was fun while it lasted. And we always enjoy playing it.
I still remember one time in kindergarten. We were not supposed to go outside at recess because there was so much “snow”, and some of the students were allergic to it.
As I got older, the magic faded a little. The fluffy stuff started to feel more like a pain. It clung to our clothes and got in our mouths when we tried to talk. Breathing became a cautious act during recess in spring. My classmates began to sneeze and rub their itchy eyes. What once felt playful and dreamy became a lasting frustration.
This year, the “cotton” returned, just like all the years before. But something about it pushed me to look closer. Maybe it was the way the fluff invaded every corner of the city, or the way it interrupted conversations, or just the amount of it that seemed to have increased. Whatever the reason is, I became curious, really curious, for the first time in years. What exactly was this stuff? And why does it seem like Beijing has so much of it, more than any other place I’ve visited?
I decided to go online and start reading. It turns out the white fluff is actually from female poplar and willow trees. They’re not pieces of cotton or snow at all, as we thought as kids; they’re seeds, carried by the wind in a halo of soft fibers. And Beijing has an especially large amount of it for a reason rooted in history. In the 1960s and 70s, the city planted millions of these trees to quickly green the landscape and to battle severe sandstorms. It worked. The trees grew fast, creating shade and improving air quality. But now, decades later, they’ve reached their reproductive peak, sending out clouds of fluff every spring.
I also asked my mom and grandma about it. They remembered learning in school how important those trees were during that time.
“They helped change the city,” Mom said. “But back then, no one thought much about what would happen fifty years later.”
Now, I try to breathe more slowly and keep my mouth shut when walking through the city in April and May. It’s a small inconvenience in a city that I call home. I’ve learned to see the fluff not just as a problem but as a sign of history, of a time when Beijing needed protection from dust and wind. And those trees, which are now much older than me, are still standing, still doing their job.
My friends and I don’t play the old “mind the snow” game anymore, but I sometimes smile when I see little kids doing it, pretending it’s snow, and making up stories and rules just like we did. Maybe one day they’ll get curious like I did. Maybe they’ll also search it up, or ask their parents, and learn that even the most annoying things in life can have fascinating roots.
And maybe they’ll learn like I did, that even floating fluff can carry a story, a story about the environment, community choices, and how we live with the past decisions of our city. Spring in Beijing will always mean white fluff in the air. But now, for me, it also means remembering where we came from, and what we’ve grown through.
Reflection
Last week, I was on the school campus, and I saw a pile of what I used to call “snow” or “cotton” and it reminded me of this strong moment that always plays and replays in my head. It was a time when I was in kindergarten, and I remember standing by the windows with my best friends. Outside was a huge pile of “snowflakes” floating and carried around by the winds. But snowflakes carried by winds… how was that possible? Remembering this story made me really want to write about it. I don’t usually get a chance to write about my personal stories, and it felt so cool to write this piece. I noticed that when I wrote this story, the words just flowed so quickly, and it took me less time to write this than my other stories. It sort of felt like I was writing a journal or diary.