Heilongjiang province is located in the far north-east of China, bordering Mongolia and Russia – Siberia, in fact. It is nearly three hours’ flight due north of Shanghai. In the winter, it gets cold – damned cold. I remember very clearly that the plane touched down at Harbin airport on a clear, sunny January day. The pilot announced over the Tannoy: “Welcome to Harbin, where the time is 11.30 in the morning, and the temperature is minus fourteen degrees Celsius.” Nice.

My main reason for coming up on the Sunday morning was that Harbin’s claim to fame is its annual Snow and Ice Festivals. The locals carve snow into statues and, best of all, make beautiful ice sculptures with lights set in them. This is famous throughout China, and so I thought I could spend the afternoon seeing the festivals before going to the meetings on the Monday. The only trouble with this plan was that my trip had come soon after I had moved to China, and most of my belongings were still on a crate somewhere between Dubai and Shanghai. I had carried clothes over in my cases, but only enough to last me the usual day-to-day requirements until my shipment arrived. All of my serious cold-weather ski gear still had not arrived. I found myself in Harbin, going out to see the snow sculptures, basically wearing every single piece of clothing that I had available,