Ode to the Wind

O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn’s being,

Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead

Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing,

                              From "Ode to the West Wind"
                              by Percy Bysshe Shelley, 1792 - 1822

O wild North Wind, thou breath of sweeping clean

Thou, from whose unseen presence the pollution particles

Are driven, like ghosts, in the morning to not be seen

                              Ode to the Wind, Beijing 2015

This is what pollution looked like for the last three days.

 

  

On Tuesday, pollution is literally off the charts again. We didn't see the sun that day. Just a grey and later eerie brown-yellow sky.

 

Everyone stays inside. Our village becomes a ghost town. In the evening, Thomas' soccer team even discusses canceling its indoor training because of the high pollution levels in the gym. (Outdoor trainings are automatically cancelled with these pollution levels).

And then, in the night, came the magic North Wind! This photo is from this morning: We have a sunrise! Seeing a bit of red in the distance is always the best sign for a new day in Beijing.
Thank you, O Thou North Wind!

In het Nederlands: In plaats van over het weer en de regen gaat de conversatie in Beijing vaak over de vervuiling. Is het vervuild? Hoeveel? Gaat het snel waaien of regenen? De vervuiling komt natuurlijk door alle emissies (van fabrieken, auto's, steenkoolcentrales, en ook alle kleine kacheltjes in de winter), maar heeft ook veel te maken met de weerspatronen. 

A New Color on the Spectrum: APEC Blue

Thank you, President Obama, for blue skies this week.

This week, President Obama and other world leaders are in town to attend the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meetings and Beijing has added a new color to the color spectrum: APEC Blue.

Because of the meetings, the government has issued a long list of restrictions to reduce emissions and traffic in the hopes of keeping the skies clean and the streets empty. As a result, the boys' school and many offices are closed for the week, in effect creating an "APEC Holiday" for everyone. (The kids, presumably, are doing two days of virtual learning from home to make up for lost time.)

The government measures include a limit on traffic, with only half the number of cars driving on one day (based on the last number of your license plate), and the other half the next; a reduction in the number of spots to see a doctor, to reduce traffic but also ensure hospitals are empty and ready for possible sick dignitaries; and even a halt on the burning of incense to honor to your ancestors. (See this article for more.)

The measures are working, so the skies are "APEC Blue."

Of course, considering that smog and pollution are pretty constant around here, this pretty blue sky that's currently over the city is in fact raising some questions among residents, who are wondering why this blue sky--which apparently CAN be created--is not always here for them to enjoy.  (Read, The Sky is Really Blue But It Isn't for Us.)


 
Here is APEC Blue, yesterday at the boys' school. While Thomas played soccer...

 

...Simon totally photo-bombed my "APEC Blue" shots.

 

 
Here's the APEC Blue over the Great Wall. A friend was visiting and we went up to Huanghua Great Wall, or the Yellow Flowers segment of the Wall. On the way there, we had to pass a security checkpoint and show our IDs because the actual APEC meetings are happening in this general area.
 

 
APEC Blue & selfie
 

 
Some firewood ready for the winter. You probably wouldn't be allowed to burn it today because of all the restrictions.
 

 

A recent APEC sunrise above our house.

 

(The Halloween spider still survives in the bushes next to our house.)

 

 

Some family pictures, of Thomas and Simon enjoying the beginning of their "APEC holiday" and Thomas on Skype with a good friend in The Hague.

 

To see how the family is doing during the APEC holiday, the best way is actually to follow Thomas' super active blog, Thomas Awesome Blog, where he carefully documents his activities (as part of his homework) and even shares other goodies, such as math strategies. :-)

 

In 't Nederlands: Het is hier opeens vakantie! Een paar weken geleden hoorden we dat de school dicht moest vanwege de top van de Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation die deze week in Beijing plaatsvindt. Wereldleiders zoals President Obama zijn hier en omdat het toch echt niet de bedoeling is dat zij de stad in de vervuiling aantreffen (die wij elke dag zien) zijn er veel maatregelen genomen om de emissies te beperken en het verkeer te halveren.  Hier is een artikeltje op de NOS Website: Smogaanpak Peking: halve stad vrij. De school van Simon en Thomas is dus ook dicht en vandaag doen we aan "home learning", oftewel thuis schoolwerk maken. Op de foto's zie je iedereen genieten van de onverwachte vakantie en de "APEC blauwe" lucht die deze week boven de stad hangt.

 

You wouldn't believe it...

You wouldn't believe it...until you saw it with your own eyes.

Yesterday was another one of those crazy Beijing pollution days. I spend a lot of time (or at least some time!) on this blog telling you so much about all that there is to like about China and Beijing. But the pollution remains the one thing that makes you question your own sanity for living here. 

Here's what my Air Quality app said yesterday:

On an index of 0-500, we were once again "Beyond Index." I had originally been planning to go for a run, but decided to scratch that plan when I stepped outside in a cloud of smoke. At an index of 500, the world looks drab, it smells, my eyes itch, and I don't know if I cough from a cold or the pollution.

Visibility is much reduced.

This is on the way home from work (sadly I am contributing to the pollution).

Of course, it would be better to show you pictures of the same spot with and without pollution, but it seems that as soon as Beijingers see a blue sky, we immediately forget all the pollution days that came before it. Worse, we say crazy things like: "Oh, today is not so bad. The pollution index is only 173." (I am serious, we say this kind of thing! )

On the positive side: Never in my life will I take clean air for granted again. I wish you all a clean blue-sky kind of day!

In het Nederlands: We wonen graag en goed in Beijing, maar die vervuiling...die is toch wel het lastigste om mee om te gaan. Hier zijn wat foto's van gisteren toen de vervuilingsindex letterlijk van de kaart was. 

Picture Perfect

A friend sent me the following article:

If it's too smoggy for your tourist photos, Hong Kong has a fake blue-sky backdrop

Tourists didn't pay good money to go to Hong Kong and have their vacation Instagrams ruined by light-impervious smog. That's why the city has set up a backdrop showing a skyline against a clear, blue, entirely fake sky. (Read the full article here.)

Here is how that works:

   
Or like this:




Living in Beijing, I think this is pretty brilliant! How many lovely photos have been perfectly ruined by that nasty old smog. So, determined to at least improve our photo archive, I went outside and took the following picture:



Doesn't that look amazing? This year, this is going to be the backdrop for all our pictures. Birthdays, Sinterklaas, Halloween -- you might get familiar with this sight.

It actually hasn't been so hard to take some good blue-sky images of Beijing the last few weeks. The winds have been blowing and the pollution index has been nicely low:



Here are some other good-weather pictures.


At the bus stop around the corner from our house. The WAB bus already pulled up to pick up Simon and Thomas.

 
Lounging in the backyard...

 
At the school, where a traditional lion dance opened up the new school year. (There are two guys sweating away inside that lion costume!)

 
After the lion dance, the kids work in teams to accomplish some wet and wild assignments. The purple building in the back is part of the WAB Elementary School where Simon and Thomas go to 2nd and 5th Grade.

 

It was mighty hot that day!

In het Nederlands: Het is de laatste weken PRACHTIG weer. Heerlijk warm, maar met een briesje en een prachtige blauwe lucht. We genieten erg, ook omdat we weten dat het dadelijk -- zo rond eind oktober -- allemaal abrupt weer afgelopen is. Het wordt dan snel koud en de lucht ook vaak vervuild vanwege alle kleine kacheltjes en later ook de centrale verwarmingen die weer aan gaan.

There and Back Again

Friends,

It has been a long time since my last post. I know that you have been craving news from Beijing. This time though, I think the international media already informed you of our recent happenings: air quality in Beijing has been at an all-time low the last few weeks. (Can those Olympic Games perhaps come back again?)

Having been here two years, I don't really look up from an index that is 200-300 (considered "very unhealthy" by the U.S. EPA air quality index) or even 300-400 (already in the "hazardous" zone), but when last week Saturday the index rocketed to a 682 "beyond index" score, even I had to do a double-take.

"Beyond Index" !  (This is a screenshot from my iPhone.) 

Luckily, today is already so much better. Only 435, so at least we are back on the index:

And here is a picture of what this kind of pollution looks like. The photo below is Beijing Riviera around 11:30 am today. Despite the nice Chinese New Year decorations (the year of the snake is about to start in two weeks) our neighborhood looks kind of dreary.

Even though this very informative article by the World Resources Institute explains that Beijing's air pollution isn't so much a result of the rapid increase in cars on the Beijing roads, I would like to report that I saw a very suspicious driver on the streets this week. (Child protection services: I don't know who the boy is, but I think his parents are otherwise very responsible.)

In het Nederlands: Het nieuws had Nederland ook al wel bereikt denk ik: de afgelopen weken hebben we weer een goede hoeveelheid smog mogen inademen. (Zie bijvoorbeeld dit artikel: "Beijing, lucht meer vervuild dan meetbaar". Ik kan niet genoeg zeggen dat we in een jaar toch ook wel ontzettend veel mooie dagen hebben, maar deze vuile nevel is natuurlijk geen pleziertje. Onze wijk is mooi versierd voor het Chinese Nieuwjaar dat binnenkort begint, maar door de luchtverontreiniging ziet het er allemaal toch wat troosteloos uit!

Here We Go Again (Air Pollution)

Wednesday 8:05 am:

Anna: What a strange weather today. The colors are really weird.

Thomas: I know what it is mom. It is pollution day. I am going to need my jacket against the pollution...

Just a snapshot from an otherwise average day: the pollution count is "only" in the 200s -- on a scale from 0 - 500 (see this post from last year)-- but indeed the colors outside are weird. It might also just have been a lot of sand and dust, I am not sure. It just kind of looked surreal out there just after 8 am.

8am? Yikes, Thomas missed the school bus and I drove him to school. The little whippersnapper took a couple shots from the pollution day for my blog.

If you want to learn more about air pollution, there's a very recent article in the New York Times, presenting the good news that China itself has started to track PM2.5 concentrations (the concentration of the smallest and thus unhealthiest dust and pollution particles). The American Embassy in Beijing has already for a long time been reporting those numbers on twitter, but the Chinese government had never publicly released this data, or used it for its air quality assessments.

The fact that de PM2.5 data is now officially measured and published, however, doesn't mean that there is a national standard for what these levels should be. And the PM2.5 levels here in northern China are already much higher than what's even allowed in the U.S.:

"In a yet-to-be-released December report relying on Chinese government statistics, the World Bank said that average annual PM 2.5 concentrations in northern Chinese cities exceeded U.S. limits by five to six times. In southern Chinese cities, the concentrations were two to four times higher."

 

(From the New York Times article; note the reference to the World Bank.)

Thomas in his pollution gear in front of our house.

 

Who needs a school bus if your mom has a car?

View from the back seat. A lot of pollution dust in China comes from the many construction sites. You can see on the photo that you never have to go far to find one. Two houses next to us--covered by the black plastic in the photo--have been completely removed last summer and will probably be rebuilt this spring.

8:30 am. School is about to start and it is supposed to be more light outside...

In het nederlands: Ik schrijf nog al eens over de vervuiling hier. We praten hier over vervuiling zoals je over het weer in Nederland praat. (Wat is de index? Gaat het waaien? Als het regent, regent het wel weer weg...). Vandaag was overigens niet een bijzonder vieze dag (de vervuilingsindex was "slechts" 200 op een schaal van 500, wat weliswaar in andere landen als zwaar vervuild wordt gezien maar hier regelmatig voorkomt) maar het was vooral raar geel en stoffig. Ik bracht Thomas even naar school en hij maakte de foto's vanaf de achterbank. (Ik beloof overigens binnenkort ook weer een fotootje van Simon te posten! Die had natuurlijk wel netjes de bus gehaald...)

Beijing Meteorologists

Recently I already reported on the weather forecasting magic that happens in Beijing (see this blog post). A few quotes from the boys this week just cracked me up (in a sad way) about the pollution in this place.

Simon: "Ah, I can see it is a field day, we can play outside today!"

(After seeing blue sky in the morning).

Thomas: "Let's go see if it rained. If it rained, it is going to be a nice day."
(When opening the curtains in the morning. If it rains, the pollution is washed away.)

We see how clear it is on the way to the bus stop. (If you look carefully, you can see Simon park his bike, just behind the tree.)

Amazing sky above the bus stop. If you see clouds (instead of a haze) you know it is going to be a great, great day.

School bus and blue sky.

Beijing meteorologists on the bus.

In het nederlands: Er is toch veel vervuiling in Beijing. Het is niet altijd even erg en er zijn veel mooie dagen, maar het feit dat je kinderen erover nadenken of ze wel of niet buiten mogen spelen op school - iets wat niks met regen maar alles met vervuiling te maken heeft - geeft toch te denken.