Francisco Little is a South African writer living and working in Beijing. He spends his time trying to understand Chinese culture and keeping his chopsticks sharpened.

The snow came down for over six hours in Beijing on Sunday 2 November in what most people thought was freak, climate change aberration of nature.

In reality, the city owed its thick white-coated surfaces to the Beijing Weather Modification Office. News agency Xinhua reported that "artificial means" had been used to increase the snow as an antidote to the ongoing drought in the region.

"We wont miss any opportunity of artificial precipitation since Beijing is suffering from the lingering drought," said weather chief Zhang Qiang.

Zhang said that more than 16 million tons of snow had been artificially added according to the preliminary calculation. Silver iodide was sent up in rockets to get the process started. The snow was a full two months early.

I headed for the Zi Zhu Yuan Park near my house to find the flakes dropping down in sheets. In places it was at least 25cm thick. To add to the whiteout the temperature plummeted over 14 degrees. The snowfall was so heavy it snapped thick branches on the park?s willow trees and people out to take photos were soon dodging falling wood, heavy winds and flying bamboo stalks.

Beijing?s legendary traffic jams took on a whole new meaning and bus routes and air traffic closed up for the duration.

But surprises in China have their upside, whether man made or not. The chaos didn?t stop people from having fun and ladies were soon posing precariously in the white deluge grinning for all they were worth as the wind threatened to blow away the smiles on frozen faces.

The park became another world and for a moment sounds of cracking trees, collapsing kiosks and whipped-up water didn?t matter. I guess man-made nature can still be beautiful.

To soothe the grumblings of local residents already complaining about the cold indoors ? the official date for internal heating in Beijing is 15 November ? apartment radiators will now be up and warming six days early.

I guess what you lose on the swings you gain on the roundabouts.

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