Gray Skies over Beijing

Beijing, a city of twenty million people was a haze of gray this time around. Smog, smog, smog – blanketing the city like a persistent canker. Most Chinese cities fail minimum air quality standards and it probably came as no surprise to Beijing residents that their air quality standards were met only 48 percent of days last year.
According to an article in today’s New York Times, China’s Ministry of Environmental Protection notes that the dirtiest cities are in northern China, where coal-powered industries, electricity generation and steel manufacturing are concentrated. Also, let’s not forget all that city traffic as a contributor to the pollution problem.
While we were there, the American Embassy issued an advisory urging tourists to stay indoors – of course we did not hear about this and were out and about exploring as much as we could. We hiked a scenic section of the Great Wall at Mutianyu where it runs along steep mountain ridges and meanders down to cavernous valleys. To some, this looks like a “writhing dragon ready to fly into the sky.” We were sweating too profusely, breathing hard – real hard and not inclined to poetic musings at the time.
The First Lady Michelle Obama was in China the same time we were. She gave an address at Peking University, a premier institution of learning there. I saw some coverage on CCTV [in English] about the visit. I’m sure this must have been well covered by the media at home.
Although the smog was a disappointment – the people were stellar! We had a great host and hostess and enjoyed our interactions with the faculty and students at Peking University. Here are some smoggy photographs.

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