As you might know the pollution in China is rampent but what you might not realize is that this pollution is not only found in the air. The media loves to show images and write stories about the terrible smog that reaches across China with hazy pictures of tall buildings disappearing into the sky and Chinese people with colorful face masks, but what the media tends not to share is the pollution that impacts every other part of nature in China.
There is a layer of oil on most water ways because of the excessive use of oil in Chinese cooking and the abundance of food carts which dump their food waste in the streets. The water in my city reminds me more of blue toilet-bowl water mixed with milky laundry detergent with an excessive algae bloom in it, though algae could never survive in it. The water looks thick, dyed and dirty and it's common to see dead animals floating among the layer of garbage along the surface. The water sparkels when you hit it at just the right angel with the colors of a prism from the sun bouncing of the gasoline and oils, sometimes I get caught by the beauty before I remember.
The streets of my city as well as paths and walk ways are covered with stains from peoples mucous and salive along with a fresh batch on the ground. The dirt is hard and splits open like pavement, sometimes the color resembles the pavement more than dirt. Plants rarely grow on their own and grass is almost non-existent in the middle of the city. The only flowers breaking through the earth are the ones placed their by village workers who get shipped in in their rags to renovate the city over night or pennies. These flowers are grown in large greenhouses outside of the cities where they are sheltered from the real air and layers of silt. The layers of silt that I wash of my desk or even my cellphone every morning.
I wake up each morning entirely healthy to fits of coughing as I try to clear my throat of whatever has settled in it over night and clean the gunk out of my eyes with saline solution.
Yes, I live in a very small almost unheard of city in Hebei -one of the most polluted provinces in China. So my day to day experiences are not those that are typically going to leave the country. Big cities in China are surprisingly cleaner. I know this is a foreign notion to an American. To me I think the smaller the population, the smaller the area of the city, the cleaner it is! But no, not in China. People are so densely populated in China that even small cities are at risk for high pollution, in fact they are more at risk because people don't care about them. The leaders of Beijing were rightfully upset when a light was shown on their city for their pollution levels because the Beijing government works tirelessly to keep pollution down in the city. The public transportation is wonderful, the regulations are strict, and the companies are more compliant than one would expect of Chinese companies. So why is the pollution in Beijing worse than in almost the rest of the world? Because of the province I live in and other similar provinces near Beijing. Unfortunately the pollution from dirty, basically unregulated, completely uncompliant plants travels over land to nearby locations, making what should be an unpolluted city completely disgusting.
Living in China is to battle with nature. The weather warning says almost every day that the toxin levels in the air are so high it does not recommend going out doors if it can be avoided especially the young, elderly, and sick. It recommends not doing heavey exercise out doors and specialists say that just living in China has the same impact on your health -especially your lungs - as smoking a few cigarets a week, and I don't think that includes the second-hand smoke from every activity including stroles in the park. One can't drink the water from the faucet and restaurants serve boiling water to customers to make them feel safe, which means that ice is viewed similar to caner. Though your first reaction when you have a wound is to wash it out there is nothing more dangerous than doing this. Doctors advise their patients not to shower when undergoing treatments, which sadly isn't crazy Chinese thinking, but is common sense when your water could have been the thing that infected you in the first place. And finally, the food is not just very heavy and tough on the stomach but it can be filled with so many microbial that I'm convinced a Chinese person could never get food poisoning in America.
No comments:
Post a Comment