When it snowed last night we were dancing in a bar. A bar that sells liquor made with medicinal herbs. A bar with a little green door. You push it open and the DJ is playing Christmas jazz. Someone asked me, Has it started snowing outside. No, why? She said because someone said it would snow tonight, Beijing's first snow of the year. After the first snow the temperature would suddenly fall, down past ten below. Has Beijing not been this cold yet? But it would snow tonight, they said. The first snow would definitely come tonight.

At that moment the people in the bar were still dancing. Most of them were doing Balboa because there was little floor space, and Balboa needs only a circle. They could do nothing but turn. Two people pressed close together like the trunk of a fissured tree. How do you know it will definitely snow tonight? I asked her. And then someone said it was snowing. That person said, Come and look. This is Beijing's first snow of the year, come and look. The people in the bar put on their coats and filed outside.

What is there to see in snow, why do they have to go out. Through the small window I saw them standing in a row under a streetlamp, doing a routine everyone knew, extending the same leg with imperfect unison. Someone was filming them, but that person said it was too dark, too dark to see your faces, so you all look like a group of shadows swaying.

The music in the bar was still playing but the floor was wide and empty and a light bulb flickered on and off. It lit a bare signboard on which were written the words “Drunk in Life, Dreaming in Death.” One girl remained, practising glides. She tied up her braid, pushed off, and sailed from one side to the other as if the whole floor were her ice rink. The floor answered her heels with a sha, like a strip of tape being torn from the surface of the earth.

The secret, this girl who had no interest in snow told me, is to turn before the glide ends and bring the supporting leg to the front. Like this. Have you got it? Oh, not the way you're doing it. Like this. Have you got it? You're really stupid. Never mind, let's dance a song together.

By then more people had come back in. No one spoke about the snow they had just seen. They went on dancing. Perhaps it had not snowed outside. Perhaps the person who called out was a liar. Perhaps life seduces us with tricks like this.

I met a boy I had seen several times before. He wore heavy eye shadow and a blue hat. Who wants to learn shag, he said. I'll teach you shag. You, then. The rhythm is slow, slow, quick, quick. I said, I can't keep up. Don't be nervous, he said. I said, you have a piece of jewellery hanging from your neck, very heavy, like a shot-put. He said, six counts, slow, slow, quick, quick. Say it with me. Yes, just like that. Slow, slow, quick, quick. I said, actually, I've learned this before.

Then I said, all right, I have to go. Goodbye. I put on my coat and went outside too. I pushed open the little green door. It was not green on the inside because everyone inside already knew this was a bar that sold liquor made with medicinal herbs.

Then I saw the heavy snow truly falling beneath the streetlamp. It was so bright it seemed the snow travelled only through this small patch of space, as if all the snow were dust swept beneath this one lamp, as if they were the birthmarks of stars running through the night.

The boy came outside too. Someone filmed him dancing in the snow, and that person said, I can get the snow, but you're too dark. You look like a shadow. He said, never mind, and began to dance. The damp road answered his heels too: sha, sha, sha.

I waved to them and said I was leaving. They said okay. They said goodbye! Then goodbye! Goodbye.