The winter vacation has finally passed, although the weather remains immersed in a continuous drizzle.

I braved the cold to return home, and along the way, I suddenly added layers from three to seven pieces of clothing, which only increased my fear of the harsh cold.

Thinking back to my youthful days, I once had a heated argument with my parents and, in a fit of anger, ran out into the snow to take a cold shower by the outdoor well. That incident left me bedridden for several days. Later, during my middle school years, driven by a wild and unrestrained personality, I spent days with a group of rowdy friends under a row of faucets, enduring the bone-chilling cold water from head to toe, and finally managed to scrape into university.

Since entering university, I have rarely taken cold showers in winter, even though I live in the Pearl River Delta, south of 23 degrees north latitude.

During the winter vacation, I happened to watch a live broadcast on Qinghai TV of some high-altitude ice man challenge. A bunch of bored TV producers gathered a group of middle-aged and elderly people from all over the country to the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau to see who could last the longest naked in freezing conditions. Among them were so-called world ice men and snowmen, heroes of the Great Leap Forward style.

I truly admire those who can genuinely endure the ice and snow, probably because I have always lived in the south and lack sufficient understanding of snowy weather. My only memories of ice and snow are from my childhood, with icicles hanging from the eaves.

It’s rare to have such good weather as today. I remember that since I was young, it has seldom been the case that it didn’t rain or snow during the New Year, and the rural paths weren’t muddy and difficult to walk on.

But this time, from the 25th day of the lunar calendar for the next ten days, the weather was either sunny or cloudy.

By the fifth day of the lunar new year, the temperature surprisingly reached 25 degrees Celsius. The tall trees in front of my house, whose names I can’t even count, had buds ready to burst into leaves on every branch. I thought spring had quietly arrived, but then on the sixth and seventh days, the weather took a sharp turn, dropping from 25 degrees Celsius to below zero.

Experiencing all four seasons in just a few days has made me even more convinced of certain doomsday theories.

I didn’t do much during the winter vacation at home. The much-anticipated study plan vanished in the sound of firecrackers and fireworks. It seems I still have no immunity to festive folk customs.

I hurriedly packed my things and headed back to school, with only one vague goal in mind: to find a good job!

Foshan, I’m back again!