The City in Smoke

Twice in my life I have thought, "This must be what it feels like in a war zone." Both times were in China.

The first time was in February 2004, as I celebrated my first Chinese New Year in Shanghai. I and a couple hundred other foreigners were holed up in the Blue Frog bar on the old Maoming Rd bar street, the bar filling with smoke and ash from the fireworks outside. Over a couple of hours, the scattered sound of fireworks going off in all the neighborhoods around us grew, like popcorn in a microwave bag, into a steady popping on all sides, then into a furious, dizzying stream of different explosions, crackling, booming, whizzing so loud that there was no guessing which direction they came from. I assumed the chaos would subside after midnight, but when we stumbled out of the bar two hours later, holding our ears and unable to talk, we had to dodge sparks and flame, trudge through the waves of ash and paper wrappings that were continuing to pile up, and communicate with hand signals through the din. On that festive occasion, the twinge of fear that mingled with the sensory assault only added to the novelty and excitement.

The second occasion was this afternoon, and it was neither exciting nor festive. Beijing is officially just one Blue Sky Day short of the 245 Blue Sky Day quota this year, and wind and storms are expected tomorrow. Confident the wind will clear the air enough to make a Blue Sky Day by Monday, the Beijing authorities have apparently given up all pretense of trying to protect the People's air. Not only that, they are refreshingly honest about it: the official pollution index was 421, the highest I've seen it since I started paying attention in July. Other days may have been just as bad - although today was certainly among the worst - but since no one wants to be the bearer of that kind of news, officials low-balled the pollution index.

When I first arrived to Beijing, I would gauge the pollution by how far a I could see or not see outside my window in the morning. Now that coal-heating season has arrived, I gauge by the smell. I woke up in the middle of the night Wednesday night with smoke in my nose. The charred pollutants in the air had completely permeated my tightly sealed 16-th floor apartment.

By morning, I could feel it in my eyes and throat. All winter, Beijing-ers from my employees to taxi drivers to store cashiers have been telling me, "Drink more water," as if that were the cure for living in a petri dish. Mostly they say, "Beijing air is dry, drink more water, drink hot water." The bolder sometimes day, "Beijing's air is bad in the winter, drink more water." Several times I've said to myself, if one more stranger tells me to drink more water, I'm going to wring his neck. Today, though, I was drinking that water. With a bottle of cool water and a tall mug of warm water with honey next to me at all times, my throat still felt parched and dusty all day. By closing time, I had used up a significant portion of my herbal tea and cough drops, but my voice was still raspy.

When I left the office, the temperature was cold, yet it felt like walking into a burning building, where you can't see the flames but the smoke tells you there must be a serious fire. I could feel the grit in my mouth when I breathed. Although I could hear the ongoing construction on a nearby half-finished office tower and I knew where it always breaks the skyline, I couldn't see it until I was almost next to it. Wafts of a faint, almost sweet, chemical smell occasionally mixed with the basic underlying burnt odor the air.

On the way home, I was reflecting on how completely the smell and feel of smoke had covered the city. Everything was darker than usual, as thick layer dampened the glow of street lamps and fluorescent signs. The muted colors of Beijing, already a fairly gray place, faded into a e exhausted monochrome. Not only was there no identifiable source of the smoke and darkness, there's no way to know how long it will last - everyone tells me January is the worst month, and for all I know it might be this bad all winter. Everything looked depressed, from the tired commuters waiting for their buses with masks over their mouths to the coughing motorbikes to the friendly noodle shops that are usually oases of warmth and light. As I rounded the corner into my neighborhood, I saw one young child running. Her dainty, happy skip was so incongruous that it only magnified the gloom surrounding her. That's when, for the second time in China, I thought, it must feel like this in a war zone.