Don’t Take a Deep Breath
I unfortunately picked up a cold during my short trip to Beijing, but the silver lining is that I can now simulate the experiences of a heavy smoker in China’s air. I heard from my friend that smoking is getting a bit less popular in China because the women don’t like it (which I guess is a good enough reason to stop doing anything) and avoid dating men who smoke heavily. Still, smoking is common and you can smoke basically anywhere. While ECNU technically bans smoking in the buildings I have noticed the security guard in my dorm smoking in front of the “no smoking” sign. To be perfectly honestly with you, I don’t understand how you can physically survive after smoking in this country. According to today’s the AnyHelper Broadcast for Shanghai the Air Quality Index (AQI) is 163, the United States Environmental Protection Agency considers an AQI of 0-50 to be healthy and an AQI of 150-200 to be unhealthy for everyone. I am having a hard enough time breathing through my cold, none the less if I had a serious lung condition like pulmonary emphysema that makes it hard enough to breath in the United States, a country with relatively good air quality. The really scary thing is I know it gets worse. The US Embassy in Beijing keeps an accurate record of the AQI in the city, as of today at 11:00AM the air quality is a relatively good 132, unhealthy for sensitive groups, but last December the Beijing Municipal Government called for an air quality read alert as the AQI reached a shocking 291, very unhealthy. I am very glad I was not in Beijing with my cold at that time and I seriously can’t believe that people with serious lung conditions could breathe at all. The poor air quality is largely caused by old fashioned dirt coal power plants. In the government’s current 13th Five Year Plan they have committed to improving the air quality by switching from coal to nuclear power, but it is important to remember that the environmental goals were the only goals that the Chinese government itself admitted in failed in the last Five Year Plan. Now if you will excuse me, I am going to see if I can find a can of clean Canadian air, which is a product I heard you can buy in particularly polluted Chinese cities.
1 Comment
Dad
11/7/2016 02:30:05 am
I figure, if the air in Beijing is that bad, might as well smoke. How much worse could it be?
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AuthorI am a junior at Juniata College spending a year studying abroad at East China Normal University. Please feel free to join my on my journey to China and beyond. Archives
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