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Thousands of people living in the Chinese capital will celebrate the start of the Chinese New year by heading for the ski  resorts (滑雪场). Never mind that Beijing's dry weather seldom produces snow. It is cold enough in winter for snow-making machines to make a covering for the hills north to the capital. And the rapid growth of a pleasure-seeking middle class has formed the basis for this new craze(热潮）.

Since Beijing's first ski resort was opened ten years ago, the sport has enjoyed astonishing increase. There are now more than a dozen resorts. Clothes markets in the city  have added bright colored ski suits to their winter collections. Mr. Wei, a manager of a newly-opened ski resort in Beijing, sees the growth of an industry that could soon lead Chinese to head for the ski resorts of Europe, In recent years ski resorts offering natural snow have opened in China. But many are in faraway areas of the country and can't really match the equipment and services of some ski resorts in Europe.

Beijing's skiing craze is partly a result of the recent increase in private (私有的) cars. This has led to the  growth of a Ieisure industry in the capital's suburbs (郊区), which until the late-1990s were unreachable to ordinary people, According to Mr, Wei, about 40% of the visitors to his resort come in their own cars. The rest are bused in by schools, businesses or government Offices.

The problem is making money. Starting ski resorts requires quite a lot of money; hiring land from the local government, preparing the hills, buying snow machines, making sure there are enough water and electricity to run them, and buying ski equipment for hiring out to customers.

    The ski resort where Mr. Wei works cost nearly $4m to set up. And. as so often in China when someone comes up with a good idea, many others hash in and price wars break out. Beijing now offers some of the cheapest ski training classes in the world, though with most people rather new to the sport, expecting a few more doing the same job.