In 2010 I moved to Suzhou, China and immediately was confronted with what must be one of the longest running smog alerts I had ever experiences. I had lived in LA many years in the past and saw the orange sun (so pretty) but never anything to compare with China's air.
A few years later I live in Guangzhou and check my China smog meter every day: (This is the website for air quality in China: compliments of the Chinese government) http://aqicn.org/map/china/ The truth is that I'd rather live oblivious to these conditions, but when you look out the window of your apartment or from work you see a grey haze over everything each day accept perhaps after a good rain.
What is hard to deal with is when smog seeps into your life and affects you in its most insidious way, while you're sleeping. You have no way to control this. Late at night you feel a congestion in your chest and wake to feel your chest being squeezed like a sponge.
Of course there is the fact that a person should receive a reasonable amount of vigorous exercise to stay in tip top shape. But, don't hold your breathe. The weather won't allow it, at least in the way you might expect. So, people try their best to find ways to exercise inside where there might be a certain amount of filtration through air conditioning units. But, some people have given up and "live with it".
A few years later I live in Guangzhou and check my China smog meter every day: (This is the website for air quality in China: compliments of the Chinese government) http://aqicn.org/map/china/ The truth is that I'd rather live oblivious to these conditions, but when you look out the window of your apartment or from work you see a grey haze over everything each day accept perhaps after a good rain.
What is hard to deal with is when smog seeps into your life and affects you in its most insidious way, while you're sleeping. You have no way to control this. Late at night you feel a congestion in your chest and wake to feel your chest being squeezed like a sponge.
Of course there is the fact that a person should receive a reasonable amount of vigorous exercise to stay in tip top shape. But, don't hold your breathe. The weather won't allow it, at least in the way you might expect. So, people try their best to find ways to exercise inside where there might be a certain amount of filtration through air conditioning units. But, some people have given up and "live with it".
Chinese pride is something that I never had thought about when it comes to this pollution. As much as you might hate the pollution, to knock China for its pollution is taken very personally by the Chinese. You are insulting, in a form, the Chinese way of life, for their striving for a better future for their nation. It is part of what makes their nation number two in the world as an economy.
What is true is the fact that car is king in China now and there is no going back, only forward. Car Crazy China Cars will only become more common and fresh air, less and less. That is air in China.
