Word: snow
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...first sign that Lotus Mountain is not Aspen comes from the man skiing down the hill in a pin-striped business suit. Other skiers are dressed in more sporty Gore-Tex outfits, but many share the snow-dusted rear of the man dressed for a day at the office. After all, most of the visitors to this newly built ski resort in China's northeast only began strapping on ski boots in the last couple of years. Few know how to negotiate a gentle slope without a few spills?or realize that the dried squid and sauteed pig kidney...
...With the country celebrating its first-ever gold medal in a snow event at last month's Torino Olympics?courtesy of male aerial skier Han Xiaopeng?skiing has never been so cool in China. A decade ago, there was only one sizeable ski site in the entire country?Yabuli in northeastern Heilongjiang province?and that was built specifically to host the 1996 Asian Winter Games. Today, there are more than 200 resorts nationwide, and the China Ski Association estimates that Chinese ski slopes will record more than 3 million visits this winter. Although the high price of lift tickets...
...Swiss-style chalets to trails in the shadow of the Great Wall. But few of the runs are long enough to take more than a minute to complete. Local topography is hilly rather than mountainous and poses little challenge to ardent ski demons. Many resorts also depend on artificial snow, which, in addition to providing less-than-ideal schussing conditions, requires thousands of tons of water in a region already suffering from drought. With Chinese skiers clamoring for tougher runs and posher digs, Western ski-resort companies are scouting out the market-just as foreign golf-course firms...
...boots may be an easy sell compared with convincing Chinese to vacation at high-end domestic ski resorts. China's northeast may have plenty of snow, but with average temperatures in the -20°C range, this is hardly balmy country. Chinese tourists with enough cash to dedicate to a luxury sport may prefer to go abroad. "South Korea is only two hours away and has great ski resorts," says Wang Hongbin, publisher of China's first ski magazine, Speed Ski. "People like to boast that they have vacationed overseas, not in some poor village in China's northeast...
...boom. The city is home to Asia's largest indoor ski dome, Yinqixing (Seven Silver Stars). With a slope that's just 380 m long, the $36 million facility isn't designed for serious ski bums. The steepest section of the hill is only 17 degrees, the snow feels more like Sno-Cone crystals than real powder and there are no lifts-just an escalator that takes skiers partway up the slope. Still, a Yinqixing spokesman says the facility has recorded 500,000 visits since opening in 2002. One such customer is Shanghai native Gao Rujin, who recently brought...