We're Supposed to be in Shanghai...

This weekend Jacky and I had planned to visit a friend of mine from Tufts, Mengmeng, in Shanghai. Towards the end of last week we starting noticing the rising AQI (air quality index) in Shanghai. Now, Shanghai usually has relatively heathy air (by China standards anyway) so we were confident that by the time we boarded our flight on Friday the "Moderately Polluted" air quality level would eventually diminish to a "Lightly Polluted" and maybe even a "Good" level (if we were lucky). But to our dismay, every time we checked the AQI app on our phones (yes, every day we check the pollution level along with the weather) the AQI kept rising until it reached "Hazardous" and eventually "Beyond Index." As I was finishing up my lesson on Friday I got a message from Mengmeng warning us to cancel our trip:

Cover of Huffington Post on Saturday

So we eventually ended up canceling our flight last minute but we didn't escape the pollution. The AQI level in Beijing ended up rising almost as high as in was in Shanghai. This was the view out of our window this morning (AQI of 430 "Hazardous," 20 is considered healthy):

After living with it for almost six months, the air pollution here still shocks and angers us. Throughout our time here we've had many heated discussions about the gravity of the air pollution situation and frequently ask our Chinese friends their thoughts on the matter. As frustrating as it is to have to check the AQI every day and frequently wear a mask, what angers us the most is that it seems most Chinese people aren't educated about the long term effects of being exposed to such intense air pollution (WHO recently declared air pollution a level one carcinogen). It shocks us that the government doesn't seem to be working hard not only to prioritize alleviating this problem but also to spread awareness of how people can best protect themselves. We're baffled and saddened when we walk to school through the smog and only see a handful of people wearing masks. When we talk to our Chinese friends/co-workers about it they respond calmly saying something like: "sometimes the bad weather bothers my throat" or, at times, they don't believe us/ shrug us off when we mention long term effects. When we asked one friend if she wears a mask she says that she doesn't "in protest." In 2012, the US embassy and the government in Beijing clashed over the US embassy publishing AQI levels that were measured according to US standards for air quality (meaning that their numbers were always higher than those published by the Chinese government). Like with many controversial topics, the magnitude of the implications of the consistent air pollution seem to be largely ignored (censured) by the Chinese media. Our friend who works for Greenpeace in Beijing (an environmental protection NGO) was arrested last month after she took a picture of a factory spewing out pollution during a particularly smoggy day in a city north of China. Recently the government has announced policies aimed at combating this issue, but the steps seem largely insignificant and unsustainable (limiting cars on the road, prohibiting barbecues and fireworks, canceling school--all only on heavily polluted days).

We hear the worst of it is yet to come this winter! We will continue to wear our masks and encourage our friends to do all that they can to protect themselves as well. We're looking forward to taking a deep breath of fresh air when we step off our flight in Logan in just 11 days!