I’ve discovered that a great source of discomfort here comes from the pollution. The smoke from coal burning factories and power plants seems to park itself in the Beijing valley and will create a noxious fog. When this happens, your throat starts to feel pretty rough and your eyes burn with a crusty feeling around the edges. Then the winds from mongolia come blasting through and clean it out and the process starts all over.
Beijing has been tasked by various world organizations to provide a number of “blue sky days” as a contingency for being alloed to host the Olympics. Therefore, factories time their output with the weather. We even get a “forecast” from the government. Whenever there is nasty pollution, you can rest assured that a big wind or rain will blow through. When the weather is beautiful, you can count on it lasting only a short period of time.
The coal smoke is the most psychologically invasive because it gets into your house and smells like smoke. It comes back to my “blue bubble” concept where you want to control how much China you let into your world (or vice versa) on any given day. So last weekend we purchased 2 HEPA air filtration units that we placed in the bedrooms and the results are stunning. Not only does the air smell normal, we are sleeping better, coughing less, and are generally happier. It’s great. Today, I will be receiving a quote to have a water purifier installed in the kitchen to provide cleaner drinking water (the bottled water here is pretty nasty too unless you spend a fortune on it).
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