This is 4 o'clock this afternoon in Beijing, a shot from my office window on the second ring road.
For the last couple of days, commenters are complaining TIME's China Blog writes too much about Beijing's weather problem. TIME's blogger actually backed off and posted a flattery environmental post yesterday. But the weather in Beijing apparently could not afford such praise. Getting closer to the one year countdown till next year's Olympics, the air is not up to a standard for any living creature to breathe. It will be worse for the athletes who are coming next year expecting to break some world records. Probably not gonna happen.
A newly arrived colleague of mine from Hong Kong suffers from a chronicle cough. An intern from the US got a cough two weeks into the summer life in Beijing. My boss's wife who came from Malaysia coughed for months and ended up breaking her rib cartilage. I rode my bike last winter for two weeks and started coughing. China Cough, like an infectious disease, is spreading.
When I first moved up here six years ago, Beijing used to have sandstorms. But as long as I successfully struggled through the spring, weather was generally good since May till the next winter comes. I used to feel spoiled to have so many clear and often sunny days, especially as someone who was from the country's south where the rainy season when rain could go on for weeks. Those good old “sandstorm-only days” are gone. Now most of the days now are like the view you see in the midst of cloud. Just that it is no mist.
I heard people, seasoned expats living in China, say the weather here has gotten better than ten years ago. I don’t get it. My own experience says Beijing weather has become worse. The locals do not seem to worry as much either. A Beijing friend used to question me: "What’s wrong with dust? This is north China. It should be dry and dusty. Pollution? Pollution is everywhere."
It is. Diesel can be smelled in the city's bigger and smaller streets. The number of days when the whole city is muffled up in a haze like today is going up. Last week, I saw a girl in her fashionable summer dress wore a mask. One more thing I can hardly fathom is how come the number of clear day in Beijing goes up steadily each year by the government's release. Someone must get it wrong, either I or the release. It might as well be me because I might have grown sicker, and dumber, in a city like this.
