Weather

As I sit here in my room, there is a dust storm passing through Beijing. I am basically trapped in the apartment, afraid to go outside to visit my friends on campus, for fear of killing my lungs. I feel this is a very appropriate time to write about Beijing's weather and pollution. Especially because I know how much Midwesterners love to talk about the weather, and because apparently St. Paul has experienced a batch of 60-degree days which is much warmer than anything I have had here. Since I have been in Beijing it has snowed twice but this is our first dust storm. The two times it snowed were actually not natural snowfalls. It was the result of cloud seeding by the Chinese government. In order clean some of the pollution out of the air every once in a while they launch missiles packed with silver iodide out in Inner Mongolia. These clouds packed with moisture then flush out large amounts of pollution when it rains or snows. It is kind of like a toilet bowl for the skies. So naturally when it rains or snows it is not a pleasant thing, because the city's filth is just falling back on to you. The second time it snowed, I had left my bike outside. The snow that accumulated on it was nasty stuff, most of it didn't even fall off by riding it for 20 minutes. I had to bring it into the apartment building for it to melt off. The next morning, after all the snow had melted off, was when I realized how bad the snow really was. Instead of pools of water that might of formed under the bike, there were pools of dried dirt on the floor!

            When it snows in Beijing it is kind of a big deal. Like any other city that does not receive snow frequently, Beijing's infrastructure and citizens are not equipped to deal with the snow. Traffic is terrible. It is very dangerous to ride a bike because of all the ice patches and the bikes don't have the best traction. Therefore, everybody either drives their own car, takes a taxi, or attempts public transportation. This causes a huge congestion on the streets. One Monday when it was snowing I decided I would simply take a taxi to class. I left my homestay half an hour before classes expecting traffic to be a little slower due to the weather. I discovered that everybody had the same idea as me and I spent 10 unsuccessful minutes searching for a taxi. So then I decided to try the bus, but the busses were also running slow. I must have waited 45 minutes before the appropriate bus showed up to take me to school, then the ride there was also very slow. I ended up arriving to class a full hour late! Ever since that Monday I have avoided taking the bus to get to school for fear of arriving late.

            This dust storm is a different story. As I woke up this morning I could see a yellow tint to the widow peeking out from the curtain. I just assumed it happened to be really sunny, obviously I forgot where I was. In Beijing no such thing exists. When I opened my window I discovered a yellow haze covering the city. It is possible to visibly see the dirt on top of parked cars. The worst part is that it seeps into the house. On top of my laptop there was a thin coat of dust, and every breath I take I notice the dust. My hands also feel dirty. These sandstorms are the result of the desertification of the Mongolian steppes and other lands experiencing drought and that are overgrazed and deforested. These expanding deserts cover a third of China. Before China started cleaning up Beijing for the Olympics apparently the city had a lot of these storms. I don't know how frequent they are anymore but they are pretty disgusting. The worst part is the wind that accompanies the dust. I can't imagine walking the streets and getting dirt blasted at me.

 

A quick note on the pollution here. It is pretty bad. Every morning I look out my window, if I can see the summer palace (on a hill pretty far away) clearly it is a good day, but there are some days that even the building across the street is a bit hard to see. After my first time playing basketball outside I nearly coughed up a lung, it felt like I had asthma. Even on my morning commute to school there is a stretch of road where I always get short of breath.