The Air Over Here

When we arrived in Beijing on June 1st, after a 13-hour-flight over the North Pole, it was one of those blue-sky days where you can see for miles. On our approach, I could make out the avenues, train tracks, apartment complexes, etc Believe it or not, for a city reknowned for its smog, Beijing does have quite a few "blue sky days", and June 1st was one of them. The weather pattern seems to be the chief casue: on those days, the weather is generally cool and breezy, with any exhaust or fumes blown right away.> >

Then there are the days like yesterday (Friday, June 20th). Beijing was shrouded in a thick soup of smog, with even nearby skyscrapers outlined only in the muck. I'm usually not that sensitive to this, but I could feel my eyes burning on an evening shopping trip. It happens that yesterday we flew back from Dalian, a city in northeastern China, and our landing in Beijing seemed abrupt: one moment we were in what seemed like haze or clouds, and the next moment the runway appeared out of nowhere out of the smog.> >

Beijing City has just announced that, from yesterday, private automobiles will only be able to drive on alternate days. Those with license plates ending in an odd number will alternate days with those ending in an even number. This is supposed to take half the cars off the road during the coming months... we'll see if that cleans up the air. Oftentimes, the smog seems to result from a heavy, muggy air mass that just hangs over the city and does not move for up to a week... until thundertstorms arrive and blow it away. I'm not sure even the Chinese government is capable of controlling the air patterns!

Finally, for those suffering from high gas prices back home: Beijing just announced an 18% rise in gas prices, but according to the NY Times, that still makes gas "only" about $3.00 a gallon here. [They measure by liter here, and in Chinese Yuan, so of course it's hard to convert.} The government heavily subsidizes gas prices, to the tune of 1% of GNP yearly. Still, I'm glad we're not driving this year. [We are leaving for Japan today, and will be back July 14th, so it may be a month or so until my next "Beijing Blog"]