Frozen landscapes make city a cold weather destination.

Santas, pandas and Ninja Turtles don't walk into a bar.

Instead, they stand on a lake - as immense snow sculptures.

See, Changchun's winter travel is no joke.

But it's very amusing.

Winter has literally taken shape in Jilin's provincial capital.

Peking Opera performers and penguins, cherubim and seraphim, castles and palaces - a winter wonderland populated by an eclectic cast - are sculpted in snow atop the frozen Jingyue Lake for the Changchun Ice and Snow Travel Festival.

This fantastical pantheon of mostly mythical entities dwells in the Jingyue Snow World that forms seasonally atop the lake's glassy crust, which is fleeced with carvings of sheep - the coming Chinese lunar year's totem. The creatures' white forms flock beneath multistory temples and a lifesize snow replica of a Great Wall pass skiers can swish down.

Even lavatories have been built with packed snow.

The sculpture contest is one of 113 festival activities. Others include ice fishing and winter swimming, and temple and trade fairs.

But while a host of mythical characters make cameos in Changchun - mostly as snow sculptures - the fabled creator who constructs this winter wonderland doesn't appear as a graven image. Jack Frost's likeness isn't carved in snow, but his omnipresence conjures others' presences.

And Jack demands human sacrifices - a pound of frigid flesh. He doesn't merely nip at your nose in Changchun. He gobbles whatever he can.

It's as if he's looking for something to eat in his freezer and finds you.

When the scores of Scandinavians who join Changchun's Vaseloppet complain it's cold, well, it really is really cold.

Yet subzero temperatures conjure landscapes as magical as those of Frozen.

Ice glazes deciduous branches. Trees sparkle like crystal chalices.

Pine boughs heave beneath blizzards' bounties.

Such landscapes and the activities they enable have brought more than 107 million visitors to the 17 annual festivals, generating 117.5 billion yuan ($19 billion) in revenue since the events' inception, the provincial government says.

Exhilaration surges when the mercury plummets in Changchun.

The primary event has since 2003 remained the Vasaloppet long-distance cross-country competition that lures elite skiers from around the world.

This Jan 1 and 2 marked Changchun's first Vasaloppet since China officially joined the 20-nation Worldloppet as an associate member in summer. Contenders from 33 countries flew to Changchun this month.

Winter has become the calling card of the city, whose name translates as "Long Spring".

It's the intensity of the city's wintertime that, in turn, elongates its springtime.

And while Jack Frost and Old Man Winter live large in Changchun, another immortal wintertime patriarch has his own theme park in Jingyue National Forest Park - Kris Kringle.

"Christmas Paradise" is a European-style entertainment zone that claims to be the world's second park built according to the theme of "Father Christmas' homeland".

(Um, who says Santa can't be Chinese?)

The forest also contains a Jin Dynasty tomb and a 30,000-square-meter deer park inhabited by more than 1,000 spotted deer and reindeer.

That's not to mention a golf course. Just in case the park's offerings weren't varied - you could say random - enough.

Who knows? Maybe Santa is a golfer.

But the arguably tenuous claim as Saint Nick's place of origin ostensibly explains Santa's prevalence among the snow sculptures.

Jingyue Lake's thick crust supports not only the massive statuaries and crowds but also almost any form of transport you can take over ice, from dogsleds to camouflage military vehicles affixed with (fake) heavy artillery.

Horsedrawn carriages are towed alongside bouncing bumper cars, grumbling dune buggies and growling snowmobiles.

Visitors can skid over the ice on runners, wheels, hooves or paws, using motors, pedals or reins - you name it.

The festival's transport is as miscellaneous as its other activities.

Skiers who tackle the offshore slopes whoosh through hoary woodlands.

Many then warm up from the inside out over a slope-side hotpot restaurant's scalding cauldrons.

Savoring these searing vessels puts a fire in their bellies that fuels the fun, enabling visitors to relish the freezing outdoors without turning into snowmen.

It's one of the only festival offerings devoted to heat rather than cold. (Saunas and hot springs are popular ways to thaw out, too.)

Changchun Ice and Snow Travel Festival visitors discover its diversity of activities make the seasonal celebration as unique and beautiful as each of the countless snowflakes that produce it.

erik_nilsson@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily USA 01/19/2015 page10)