The value of shoveling the snow

New York City experienced its largest snowfall in four years last Thursday night. On Friday morning, the street outside my apartment was filled with people shoveling snow, but only from the sidewalk outside their homes.

It is the law in New York and many other cities and states in the United States that you must remove the snow outside your property within a certain period of time or face a penalty. You will be held liable for any fall and injury by a pedestrian if the snow is not cleared in time.

Sweeping the snow from one's own doorstep, or geren zisao menqian xue, is a Chinese idiom which scorns people who mind only their own business and don't care about their neighbors.