The snow had stopped. Sanitation workers were clearing Yanjing's streets, while people swept the areas outside their own doors, piling up the snow to wait for the snow removal trucks.
Neighbors could chat and joke as they cleared the snow. Here, Li Long got a real taste of what it meant to have the gift of gab.
Finding joy amid hardship was an optimism inherent in ordinary people at the bottom of society.
The neighbors also studied Li Long, an unfamiliar young man, as they cleared the snow.
There were only three households in this alley. Li Long took on more than half the snow clearing himself; an old man and a young man represented the other two households.
Those two knew each other and chatted as they swept, working only in fits and starts. Clearing the snow was effectively a social occasion for them.
But Li Long, the oblivious newcomer, held nothing back. Before the other two had swept more than a few times, he had swung his big broom and swept over seventy percent of the alley's snow outside.
The other two were a little stunned, then embarrassed. As Li Long swept toward them, they hurriedly picked up the pace.
The old man found the way Li Long worked rather interesting. Seeing this big fellow silently getting on with the job, he came over and asked, "Young man, are you from this courtyard? I haven't seen you before. You're with a work unit, aren't you? I saw a sign on that courtyard-is it Northern Xinjiang you're from?"
"Yes, I'm from Northern Xinjiang," Li Long said vaguely. "I don't come here often."
"Oh, oh-isn't it colder over in Northern Xinjiang?" the old man continued.
"It is a little colder than here." Li Long slowed his broom a little, afraid