Edna - Chen Wenting - #0505020018

This year’s winter vacation was not as pleasurable as I had anticipated. Instead of being in a festive mood, the whole town was strangely quiet. An unexpected “guest” in white clothes arrived and gave people an ugly present. It was the present that I felt unhappy about even during spring festival - the snowstorm. It may be just a word to the urban inhabitants, but it was a disaster for the villagers who have to live in the unproductive earth.

Every year, when winter vacation approaches, I will be excited to envision the warm atmosphere of my family. Mother is busy with cooking in the kitchen, and father traditionally becomes her assistant. They cooperate well with each other. From time to time, the delicious aroma of the food flows into the TV room where my sister and I are doing exaggerated dances. However, this pleasant picture didn’t happen this year. The cold freeze, one of the heaviest snows on record attacked southern China, which brought great damage to the property. Countless tress fell. The power failure and the transportation problems turned the systematic area into a bleak mess. Due to the heavy snow, my mother who was a common wireless worker, had to go to the villages and repair the broken machines with her workmates. From morning till night, I couldn’t even see her shadow in the house. When she finally came back, she described the sufferings of the peasants to me with an expression of anxiety and exhaustion. A large number of fruit trees froze and died overnight they were no longer able to grow fruit to sell. As a result, the unstable foundations suddenly collapsed, causing many accidents. These wounded people not only had no temporary shelters but they also had to save their farms. Perhaps I could have heard many other horrible tales of woe but I stopped my mother’s words before I could hear more. Her tired face and wet cotton - padded jacket told me that my mother needed to take a rest. I tenderly put a thick quilt on her and tiptoed out of the bedroom.

   After the second round of snow, I went out and walked along the road. Seeing the white trees on the hills, I was touched. The trunks stood straight, like triumphant soldiers, proudly telling the world that the natural disaster could not overpower their iron will. On some distant farms I could see that several peasants were inspecting the vegetables that survived. Those poor creatures were at their last straw. The next year, the insects would be fewer but the epidemics might spread. Whatever the aftermath is , I believe that we human beings can find the solutions.

    That was the worst storm in my life; the winter of 2008. It brought a lot of misery to the villages, but for me, it also helped me to care about the people in the villages and be more helpful to my parents. I grew up emotionally.