Breathing
One evening in late December, Randy and I both caught of a whiff of something so familiar, and yet it is was one we didn't associate with Clarion County Pennsylvania in 2012/2013. It was the unmistakable smell of burning coal. Randy grew up in that area, and as a child it wasn't uncommon for people to burn coal in their homes even. More recently, for us, it is a part of our Beijing life, between the coal-heated kang all over the countryside and the coal burning boilers right next to our building that heat our radiators during the winter. But we didn't expect coal exhaust these days even in this one-time big coal mining region.
Right after New Year's we were in a hardware store in the same area and saw this.
I've seen word-burning and pellet stoves before, but never a contemporary coal stove. These must be gaining in popularity, at least in this area of Western Pennsylvania.
We seriously thought we left the fragrance of coal, and the way it made us feel, in Beijing for these two months. And in the past few weeks, our friends back in Beijing seemed to be bearing it at unprecedented levels.
More after the jump
In just the last week so many of my friends on this side of the world have emailed/facebooked/tweeted me news stories about the heavy smog that blanketed Beijing. We were not homesick at all reading about the record-setting pollution that even state media reported, though we can't help but think about our friends in China who are actually living through this. And while Beijing received the most international attention, it isn't even the most polluted city in China!
If we were back in Beijing this month, we would likely all remain sealed in our apartment with our air cleaners.I've always been a little embarrassed inviting people over to our apartment and possibly having to explain our five air cleaners. We haven't started wearing face masks in public because we don't want to draw even more attention to our expat discomfort with the air quality. This might change though; even the Global Times is reporting that face mask sales are skyrocketing. We may stick out not wearing face masks when we return in a few weeks.
One thing that has been interesting is that there have been some media that have drawn comparisons between pre-1950 Pittsburgh and 21st century Beijing. I've looked at this, too, but with respect to more recent years.
The comparison to Pittsburgh sixty or more years ago, and all of southwest Pennsylvania, is apt, particularly considering the Donora Fog of 1948 (really grateful to my friend John who passed this along). Just like 21st century China, we've grown as used to the pollution as a necessary by-product of economic development as the residents of towns like Donora were in the 1940s. Just like Beijing, Donora experienced the perfect weather conditions to produce an inversion that allowed the pollution to build up in concentration. The main difference is that because Donora was such a small town, it was known quickly that the immediate death toll was 20. This could be impossible to determine in Beijing, though hospital admissions due to smog-related ailments were much higher than normal.
We return to Beijing in a few weeks, so in the meantime we are trying to spend as much time as we can, outside, breathing.
Right after New Year's we were in a hardware store in the same area and saw this.
I've seen word-burning and pellet stoves before, but never a contemporary coal stove. These must be gaining in popularity, at least in this area of Western Pennsylvania.
We seriously thought we left the fragrance of coal, and the way it made us feel, in Beijing for these two months. And in the past few weeks, our friends back in Beijing seemed to be bearing it at unprecedented levels.
More after the jump
In just the last week so many of my friends on this side of the world have emailed/facebooked/tweeted me news stories about the heavy smog that blanketed Beijing. We were not homesick at all reading about the record-setting pollution that even state media reported, though we can't help but think about our friends in China who are actually living through this. And while Beijing received the most international attention, it isn't even the most polluted city in China!
If we were back in Beijing this month, we would likely all remain sealed in our apartment with our air cleaners.I've always been a little embarrassed inviting people over to our apartment and possibly having to explain our five air cleaners. We haven't started wearing face masks in public because we don't want to draw even more attention to our expat discomfort with the air quality. This might change though; even the Global Times is reporting that face mask sales are skyrocketing. We may stick out not wearing face masks when we return in a few weeks.
One thing that has been interesting is that there have been some media that have drawn comparisons between pre-1950 Pittsburgh and 21st century Beijing. I've looked at this, too, but with respect to more recent years.
The comparison to Pittsburgh sixty or more years ago, and all of southwest Pennsylvania, is apt, particularly considering the Donora Fog of 1948 (really grateful to my friend John who passed this along). Just like 21st century China, we've grown as used to the pollution as a necessary by-product of economic development as the residents of towns like Donora were in the 1940s. Just like Beijing, Donora experienced the perfect weather conditions to produce an inversion that allowed the pollution to build up in concentration. The main difference is that because Donora was such a small town, it was known quickly that the immediate death toll was 20. This could be impossible to determine in Beijing, though hospital admissions due to smog-related ailments were much higher than normal.
We return to Beijing in a few weeks, so in the meantime we are trying to spend as much time as we can, outside, breathing.
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http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2266412/Desperate-man-China-builds-homemade-dialysis-machine-kept-alive-13-years.html
Scroll down for the photo of a space heater warming his dialysis supplies!!!
Ingenious never the less ( there is so much we don't know about China, its intriguing to think what a healthy dose of such courageous spunk combined with proper investment for development costs could do for reducing healthcare costs worldwide)