Meditating on the many meanings of snow

What a marvel it was, last month, to see that most-unexpected of sights falling from the skies above Beijing - snow!

I've only been in China for a little more than a year now, so for me, at least, a dusting of snow in this ancient capital is still a rarity.

It reminded me of my younger years back home in the north of England, though thankfully the white stuff here seems to clear away a little quicker. I remember snowfalls of my youth icing over and sticking around for days or even weeks, gradually turning to gray from the exhaust fumes of passing trucks and buses.

There were no such discolored drifts, however, on a recent visit I was fortunate enough to have to Chongli, Hebei province, which is set to host most of the skiing events of China's 2022 Winter Olympic Games.

I couldn't help but be astonished by the pristine condition of the slopes at the area's ski resorts, which was made all the more amazing by the fact that many of the surrounding hills were almost completely devoid of snow.

"Such ingenuity!" I thought, whenever I wasn't almost toppling over (it having been more than a decade since I last strapped a pair of skis to my feet).

But as I slowly built up strength in the muscles I'd forgotten I had, the technological feat of constructing such ski slopes out of largely artificial snowflakes impressed me even more.

And it got me thinking about that word "snowflake" which has taken on a whole new meaning in recent years.

Merriam-Webster has it listed under its "Words We're Watching", those utterances that are increasing in usage but have not yet met the criteria for entry.

Snowflake, as the dictionary notes, has morphed from a word with a "hushed and lovely literal meaning" to something new and "decidedly less pleasant".

In addition to its literal meaning, its use as a disparaging term for a person who is seen as overly sensitive and fragile has taken hold since the lead-up to the recent US elections.

Often flung by those on the right of the political spectrum at those on the left, it became a favorite of far-right news site Brietbart, whose former executive chairman Steve Bannon is now Donald Trump's chief strategist.

Prior to that, it had been used in some quarters to describe millennials, for supposedly being too self-involved and convinced of their own status to deal with regular adult life.

That usage derives from a line in the 1999 film Fight Club (and the book that preceded it) where the character played by Brad Pitt informs his underlings: "You are not a beautiful or unique snowflake, you are the same decaying organic matter as everything else."

It never ceases to amaze me how even a word which is beautiful, or seemingly innocuous, can become something altogether more sinister when malevolent minds are at play.

But I guess it just goes to show how anything can become corrupted, if it falls into the wrong hands.

Contact the writer at gregory@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 03/05/2017 page2)