Here is another post from an obvious foreigner. I’m just an other 老外 LaoWai in this town. Another one to blame it all on the air I breath halfheartedly.
Not many locals I’ve met discuss the pollution and even less blame it on their bad health if they might be so unlucky.
For me it is the consistent scapegoat that I wish to decapitate and whose head I’d like to set high on a pole to show my victory. But how to succumb this evil, this great monster that is surrounding us daily and leaving this air of ours free of that vital particle called Oxygen?
Well the government does its job I suppose. They tear down blocks to be able to widen the streets so that everyone in this city can buy as many cars they want and fill it up. Excellent idea there, really! And when they do realize that all these extra cars creates a problem for the environment they decide to control which cars are on the streets each day by regulating this through the license plate numbers. This way there is a few days a week you’re not allowed to drive and if a camera catches you you’ll have to pay a fine of 100 RMB.
Problem with this idea is that once you have a car you are pretty much addicted to it, you will use it every day, going anywhere, I think most car drivers would agree with this even if they wish not to. So we have a population addicted to driving and all of a sudden they have to check online what days of the week they can and cannot drive their precious cars… well, they’ll just get another car, an additional one that is, at least the lucky ones who can afford it. So now there is more cars on the roads, no extra space to tear down and use for streets as a city needs houses to of course, so what to do?
Well have you heard some booming lately… some “fireworks” in the middle of the day? It’s all ionized balls going up in the clouds and… Let it rain! Those are the most beautiful days of Beijing, the manipulated ones. I don’t mean to sound negative, I love those days the most of course, but the story behind them is just too bizarre. After my years here I’m definitely not as naïve as I used to be, you learn quite quickly that anything can happen, anything is possible as the slogan says, even a few balls up in the air frequently to get those statistics of sunny days up a bit.
At least I know there are indoor places in this town that carry a completely fresh and clean air thanks to air purifiers. My favorite brand of course is Blueair as its a swedish brand, with a sense of style and image eventhough the products themselves are all that matters. Their quality has been proven over and over, and is vastly better than its competitors. In waiting for the outdoor air to improve all we can do is sit either by a Himalayan saltstone or a Blueair to inhale that which we all deserve, fresh air.
北京 HUB 
Posted on September 2, 2010
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