My hometown Harbin (China)--Winter culture（冰雪文化）

（By freelance Chinese translator li – based in Harbin – English to Chinese translation or Chinese to English translation services - website localization）

Harbin is one of the sources of ice and snow culture（冰雪文化发祥地） in the world. Geographically, it is located in Northeast China under the direct influence of the cold winter wind from Siberia（西伯利亚）. The average temperature in summer is 21.2 degrees Celsius, −16.8 degrees Celsius in winter. It can be as cold as −38.1 degrees Celsius in winter.

The annual Harbin International Ice and Snow Sculpture Festival has been held since 1985. Although the official start date is January 5th each year, in practice, many of the sculptures can be seen before. While there are ice sculptures throughout the city, there are two main exhibition areas（展区）: Enormous snow sculptures at Sun Island（太阳岛） (a recreational area on the opposite side of the Songhua River from the city) and the separate "Ice and Snow World"（冰雪大世界） that operates each night. Ice and Snow World features illuminated full size buildings made from blocks of ice. Winter activities in the festival include Yabuli Alpine Skiing（亚布力高山滑雪）, winter-swimming（冬泳） in Songhua River, and the ice-lantern exhibition（冰灯展览） in Zhaolin Garden（兆麟公园）. Snow carving and ice and snow recreations are world famous.

The "Harbin International Ice and Snow Festival" （哈尔滨国际冰雪节）is one of the world's four largest ice and snow festivals, along with Japan's Sapporo Snow Festival, Canada's Quebec City Winter Carnival, and Norway's Ski Festival.

Every November, the city of Harbin sends teams of ice artisans to the United States to promote their unique art form. It takes more than 100 artisans to create ICE!, the annual display of indoor Christmas-themed ice carvings in Nashville, Tennessee; Kissimmee, Florida; and Grapevine, Texas.

The third Winter Asian Games took place in Harbin in 1996. The city of Harbin bid for hosting the 2010 Winter Olympics（2010年冬季奥运会）. The Alpine skiing events would have taken place in the Yabuli ski resort（亚布力滑雪胜地）. In the frame of this campaign to assert its role on the world scene（世界舞台）, Harbin will also be the host city of the 2009 Winter Universiade（2009年世界大学生冬季运动会）. Harbin plans to spend US$ 1.5 billion in construction and renovation of its sport infrastructure（运动基础设施） for this Universiade. Harbin is bidding for the 2012 Winter Youth Olympics（2012年青年冬奥会.