Ms. Zhou focuses on mental and psychological counseling for woman in rural areas. She writes about a life-threatening experience caught in a snow storm when returning home from a trip. -- I came home a little worried on the 17th of this month because the weather report said that Beijing had bad weather that forced the airport to delay hundreds of flights. Arriving in NanChong airport, I heard that the plane would arrive on time, so I called home to ask for pick-up at the airport. Turns out they had already left in the pouring rain. Nevertheless, the plane was still delayed due to air traffic control. I looked forward to take off; I looked forward to land. When I walked out of the airplane, snowflakes fell from the sky as it was below zero degrees. It was about midnight. Jing and XiaoLe were already waiting for me. I gave XiaoLe a hug, and also wanted to give Jing one, but I saw his fatigue and I felt sorry. Outside, snow fell heavily, and half the street was filled with snow. There were only a few vehicles; the three of us forgot to consider that not many vehicles went to the ring directly. I have never in my life encountered such traffic; I could hardly see in front of me, heavy snow kept falling, and it was as if countless jumping elves kept flashing in front of my eyes, making me dizzy. The car could only move about forty steps at a time. I couldn't rest my body against the back of the car seat because I had be wide alert to help Jing see the direction. I had to adjust my body and mind every so often, as the illusion of car after car didn't even make it seem like we were on the freeway. By chance, a larger car would pass by, revealing a spectacular scenery: the golden light danced in the boundless sky, and the little snowflakes became so keen and ferocious. At the same time, the big car rolled up a pile of snow and hit our little vehicle, making a muffled thunder sound, and we felt that it was the end of the world.
Several times, the window wipers stopped working, and Jing had to get out of the car to manually remove the pieces of ice. As soon as you opened the door, snow and wind would rush into the car and it became so cold that it would make a person tremble. At this time we also noticed that the snow had fallen six inches on the side of the road. When the windshield wipers became too frozen to function, driving became a lot more difficult, and we became a lot more nervous. Jing had to stress his eyes to stay concentrated and all of a sudden we came to a screeching halt. He said that suddenly a mountain appeared in front of him, but luckily there were little cars or else we would have rear-ended the car. I constantly had hallucinations, having no clue where I was. When we finally got to YuTian, the gas tank had almost emptied, and as we pulled up into the rest area to refuel, Jing shouted, "Break failure!" But in reality, the ground was just frozen. I felt that in order for us to not be afraid, Jing had to remain calm. And after this entire event was over, from the way he was telling people, it was enough to prove my conclusion that he was panicked and nervous, yet he didn't show it. XiaoLe, who was sitting in the back, noted that this was like a movie, so exciting! She said that it seemed like we were traveling through a time tunnel, as if we traveled back to the Tang dynasty. She fell asleep after a while. However we weren't any less nervous; XiaoLe trusted us to be responsible for her. XiaoLe woke up when we passed the last toll station, and as we looked back we saw how we were protected in all these times of dangers, so we were very thankful. Jing rolled down the window to ask the cashier lady if she was afraid of the cold. I said it was good that we came by, or else the lady would be standing in the cold for nothing. When we almost arrived home, there was another break failure, and the car floated to the roadside. Fortunately, there were no other cars on the road. We finally arrived home on the morning of the second day. Everyone washed up, drank some yogurt, and we didn't even unpack our bags before we went to sleep on the bed. He has been home waiting for the past twenty days, and in our lives we have never been separated for more than fourteen days! I looked at how exhausted everyone was, especially Jing, and I felt sorry to the family for my constant stay and leave. I think in my dream, I heard Jing shout, "Our car's license plate is gone, and that after the car was washed, the entire front was sealed by a large chunk of ice, as if the car had been pulled out of the mud!" As we listened to the traffic reports, we were so thankful and blessed to have survived—there had been more than sixty accidents that night. Hey, we were snow survivors! -- Original article written by Ms. Zhou, translated by ShiShi Ma, edited by US intern Kevin Mo.
Kaitlyn Cheung
4/21/2012 12:22:28 am
Snow can either be beautiful, or dangerous. It is very fortunate that they are all safe! Comments are closed.
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