Editor's note: Winter is often disregarded as the most colorless, noiseless season, one that is deprived of the flourishing of fauna and flora and lacks the vigorous sound of nature. Yet, it is in this “lackluster” season that we can pay our utmost attention to our surroundings. The thick layers of snow acting as natural camouflaging and noise-canceling materials render us a highlighted landscape that we tend to overlook in other seasons. 

In Yanyuan, after a flurry of mid-December blizzards, everything takes a different and unexpected shape. We start to take notice of this unfamiliar rock, that undiscovered statue, and that “nameless” plant. When the whole campus falls into a snow-rendered quietness, we can hear more sounds – the crunching, creaking noises of our footsteps, the rustling, soothing sounds of the reed, and the loving, lyrical notes from the pair of black swans dwelling on the ice at Weiming Lake. Just as Katherine May observes in her book Wintering: “When it’s really cold, the snow makes a lovely noise underfoot, and it’s like the air is full of stars.”








▲ Click to hear the sound of the black swans




Edited by: Dennis Meng
Photos by: An Yunyi, Pan Jianghui, Huang Xinru, Wang Li, Zhang Lingxin, Ji Haoyu, Lai Runze, Zhai Mengkun, Wu Shirong, Gao Peichao, Zhu Chengxuan, Li Yijie, Yin Qiuheng, Chu Zhaohan, Ye Renhao, Xu Yifeng, Cong Rongqing, Yin Shushan, Sui Xuechun, Shi Shiyuan, Cai Xiangyu
Videos by: Dennis Meng