Thunder claps & rocket booms

Last night it rained for real. And then, when the real rain stopped, they made it rain.

At about 9 o clock p.m. it started. The sound of the falling rain on the windows was nice as I sat inside, but far too often it's come and gone in a matter of minutes here on the edge of the Gobi Desert (plus, Beijing is in the midst of a draught) and then you forget about it. But last night it really started pouring. There was thunder and there was lightning and it was definitely the realest storm we've had in Beijing this spring. It kept coming down for a decent while, and then it petered out and eventually, it stopped.

A little while later, sometime after 11 p.m. (as I'm trying to go to bed) there is a loud BOOM outside that was assuredly not thunder. Just after said boom, the rain started up again. What was this boom, you ask? Somewhere, some member of the People's Liberation Army pointed a rocket launcher of some sort at a cloud and shot rain-producing chemicals into the night sky. Most likely from the back of a jeep, cruising the streets of Beijing. Picture that.

As I drifted off to sleep, the artificial rain kept falling, i.e. the Beijing sky spat out whatever they just shot in it.