LETTER FROM CHINA: There may be only artificial snow at this ski resort but when Beijing's plutocrats hurl themselves down the piste they enjoy the unique protection of imperial fengshui.
Beijing's Snow World resort boasts just one easy slope but at the bottom you glide to a halt before the Emperor Chongzhen who awaits eternity in a tomb set amid groves of ancient cypress and gingko trees.
"This is going to be big business," promises Miss Li Xuemin at the Beijing tourist office. Ten years ago just a few hundred people skied in China, now developers claim there are a million, and five million projected by 2005. Skiing is the latest investment craze in China by those undaunted by the huge sums already squandered in building bowling centres, luxury golf courses and amusement parks most of which are now empty.
Snow World is developed by Lilian Li who returned home after 15 years spent in California. It is just one of the 10 resorts which have opened around China's capital in the last two years.
Snow World, like its rival Shi Jinglong in the shadow of the Great Wall, is a private venture largely relying on know-how and equipment from the United States. Many of its visitors are locals who studied abroad and learned to ski.
"I am impressed anyone here seems to know what they were doing," said David Luo, a recent returnee from Canada. "I didn't think anyone had the first idea about skiing in China."
Beijing's climate is too dry for any regular snowfall to cover its western hills yet winter temperatures are always freezing so the snow machines can help out.
Last Sunday, the capital's latest and biggest ski resort opened at Nanshan, an hour's drive from the centre. It boasts a double chair lift and Swiss-style wooden chalets where Beijing's bright young things sat in gaudy ski outfits on wooden benches enjoying the sunshine and barbecued lamb.
"There's nothing else to do in winter," argues Nanshan's boss Lu Jian who invested nearly $5 million.
Last season he said 200,000 Beijingers tried skiing and this year he expects it will double as Chinese try out new ways to spend their leisure. People now get three days off at new year, seven days for Spring Festival and two days every weekend.
Beijing seems determined to become China's premier ski resort despite the lack of such natural advantages like snow or mountains. The western hills around the city may look dramatic but they are not high and their slopes are brown and bare in winter.
The villages are far from picturesque too, just collections of red brick hovels, but Nanshan's Austrian snowboard instructor Stephan Zdarsky thinks Nanshan could be a centre for ski boarding.
"The sport has to get cheaper to take off but the future's out there," he says.
For real snow you have to venture far to the north, at least to places like Mulanweichang, a hunting ground near the imperial summer resort of Chengde. It used to take the Qing emperors two weeks to ride there but the journey will be down to two hours driving when a new motorway opens next year.
This August, Chengde even opened an indoor ski hall with a 120 metre hill to make it a year-round attraction.
Beijing is not to be outdone though. It is building the world's largest indoor ski resort as part of the plethora of projects for the 2008 Olympic games.
"Beijing's 10 outdoor ski resorts are crowded during the weekends in winter, especially on holidays," claims Cui Xiaoming, chairman of the Beijing Four Seasons ski company which is creating 132,000 square metres of artificial slopes that will outdo even Tokyo's giant indoor slope.
Not to be put in the shade, Shanghai has just opened the Dashun Hokkaido centre with 50,000 square metres of artificial slopes.
Still farther south in sub-tropical Macao, its casino magnate, Stanley Ho, is gambling that if you build it big enough they are bound to come. He has just announced plans to drop half a billion dollars into developing a ski resort in Jilin province where China plans to host the 2007 Asian Winter Games.
Next door to Jilin is the province of Heilongjiang and its capital Harbin has boldly declared its ambitions to bid for the 2010 Winter Olympics.
These dreams could easily turn into so much slush. China's bowling industry boomed until 2000 but the vast majority have had to close down, wildly overestimating the spending power of China's middle class.
And China now has 500 golf ranges, 30 alone around Beijing, in which investors have holed $500 million although 10 years ago, this was a sport no one here knew how to play. Investor optimism is one factor but envy is another.
Irrespective of the market, if one of China's big cities gets something, then all the others want the same thing to do, even if there isn't room for everyone to play.
Universal Studios has just unveiled plans for a $870 million theme park in Shanghai although many of the hundred or so amusement parks which sprang up in China during the 1990s went bust.
Hong Kong had been assured that when Disney park, a $2.8 billion project, opens in 2005, it would be the only major amusement park in China so it would be certain to have a draw that would prop up its ailing tourist industry.
Instead, Universal Studios will open in Shanghai the following year and Disney is giving way to pressure to open another entertainment park in Beijing in 2008.