Sandstorm in Beijing

The other day in Beijing there was a big sandstorm that blew in. This is not so unusual to happen in Beijing, it does happen from time to time, but its my first one. I didn't realize it was coming. That day was a pleasant day, temps were high, and me and a few of the guys decided to go out for beers at a patio bar. I knew there was a northerly wind coming around 5pm. Usually that means that the AQI gets low, in other words we get a blast of fresh northern air. I was looking forward to that, but at 5pm it was like someone flicked a light switch. The sky darkened and we headed inside. On the way home I put on my mask and kept my head down. When I got home I checked the AQI on my phone. Its usually somewhere in the 50-150 range indicating good to a bit unhealthy air. It was 895! That norther wind kept blowing all night and by the time morning came the sky was blue as ever, AQI 65. This is the sky in Beijing. 

Beijing Living 101: Ikea

One of the oddest things here in Beijing and a perennial source of amusement among the new expats is the behavior of people at Ikea. This recently was in the news again as Ikea decided to ban people from loitering on their beds and furniture. I immediately saw the futility in this when I heard of it and it seems that since then Ikea has stated that they will not be banning people from doing this. Probably a good choice since it is likely impossible to enforce. 

One thing China has is a lot of people, one trip to Ikea on a Saturday and you will feel like you have seen and touched all of them. The only way to actually have a pleasant shopping experience and maybe to try out a couch or bed, is to get there right when the place opens. Any later and you won’t be able to get through the store without being pressed by the sweaty masses and certainly won’t be able to try out any piece of furniture you might like to buy. For me personally this has just been frustrating as a couple of times I actually wanted to test out some couches and had to ask people who were napping to get up, which they didn’t like very much. . Once, rather stupidly, I went to Ikea during Chinese New Year thinking that certainly there would not be very many people there as it's the time of year that everyone goes home to spend family time, like Christmas in the West. No, all of Beijing was at Ikea spending family time on the couches and beds, not in their homes. 

There are many reasons why this is, but the main one can be easily seen by who  it is that is doing the sleeping/lounging on the furniture. Since Beijing is a packed city and China is a developing country, many people don’t have very nice furniture at home. Secondly, the availability of an outlet for people to have a social outing with their family that is in any way comfortable is slim if you are making an average salary or less. Third, Ikea has it all. From comfy couches to cheap eat and drinks, and even air conditioning. Why go anywhere else?

The only times I dare go now is immediately at opening, if I go at all. The idea of Ikea trips makes a ripple of stress go through me. Its best to plan ahead and get in and out quickly. Though management has good intentions to, you know, actually sell stuff to customers who want to buy it, that is unlikely to detour anyone from doing what they please. This is China, after all. 

Oslob Whale Shark Watching

I distinctly remember being a young boy and reading a book about the animals of the earth. In one section there was a picture of a whale shark. I remember thinking of how massive that might be, in comparison both to whales and other sharks, but mostly to anything I knew at the time. Put next to a picture of a bus, 40 feet long, this gentle giant is a filter feeder. There was no danger of the whale shark attacking me, very little of it accidentally running into me. There was, however, a few times when they became very close to us and we tried to avoid it, but did touch them a few times. I have my wife to thank for this encounter. It didn't even cross my mind to check, but she found this and made sure we went.
Of course, I was thrilled with the idea. Since that young age I had been thinking about the whale sharks, even more after visiting Churaumi Aquarium in Okinawa almost 8 years ago, then again this past year. We took a private car from Mactan island to Oslob in Cebu. It was a 3-4 hour drive each way and about 1 hour at the site. We opted to leave early at 5am, but there was an option for 4am departure. We thought it best to get there early and try to beat whatever crowd there may be. It was a good choice as we could see upon leaving around 1030am that there were more people gathered waiting to go out.
Arriving in Oslob we came to a small center along the beach which had a couple of bathrooms and changing stalls, a 20 meter beach front flanked by a couple of small cafes, and a concrete sheltered platform where a briefing was given. We had a bit of mango and sticky rice with a cocoa drink, then put our extra belonging in the car. We got on a small rowing boat with 3 guides and one other tourist, very personal which I enjoyed. There were about 4-5 crafts like out during the given time, about 25 people in all who were there to see the whale sharks. The boats rowed out to an area about 50 meters off shore where the water was approximately 10-15 meters deep. Once we strapped on our masks and made sure we were ready to get in, we jumped. A few of the boats had shrimp/plankton to attract the whale sharks and this is how so many were concentrated in a relatively small area. There were 3-4 whale sharks there, the largest maybe 30 feet long and the smallest maybe 15. For 30 minutes we bobbed in the sea taking what time we could to dive down and get close to the whale sharks.
It was surreal to be close to such a large and ancient living thing. Of course in zoos and aquariums we had seen such creatures, but the closest we had gotten to something in the wild must have been when we were across the river from a rhino in Chitwan National Park, Nepal. Of course, I wasn't quite as worried about this animal suddenly charging us. More so I was worried that we would disturb them!

After our 30 minutes in the ocean we jumped back into the boat and headed for shore. We then dried off a bit and headed for Tumalog Falls. What a nice refreshing dip that was. The falls were so beautiful and after the sea the fresh water felt great on my skin. We then had a bit of lunch by a seaside restaurant and headed back in the car.

For those thinking about this as an option for something to do in Cebu, I can't give it enough recommendation. Its one of the most interesting things I have ever experienced. The price of the tour, with driver both ways, lunch, and guide were well worth it. Also, instead of using our own water proof camera we opted to pay the extra 8 dollars or so to have the company rent us a camera. This meant that one of the guides took pictures of us then helped us to transfer to our USB card. Totally worth it as we were too busy catching our breath or enjoying the experience to get shots and 30 minutes goes by fast when you are so enthralled. 

Making the Most of the Chinese New Year

The Lunar New Year fireworks here in Beijing were as expected; loud, continuous, and terrible for air quality. All day long on the 19^th we could hear fireworks being lit, but it wasn’t until the evening that they really started to pick up. From our apartment we could see numerous locations shooting them off all night. Just outside our apartment someone decided that the middle of a 4 lane street would be a good place for large star bursts and stopped traffic for a few minutes. As midnight approached the intensity increased right up to 12. After that, I don’t know what happened as I went to bed. Unfortunately the air quality went from pm 2.5 at about 70 which is good, to over 400 by midnight, which is the most hazardous level and almost off the charts.

Today, the city has been largely quiet and slowly the air quality has gotten better, but it still looks pretty smoky out there and we can still hear a faint pop-pop. Since it was so quiet I thought I would ride Aya’s ebike over to Ikea to check out their damaged goods. I assumed not many people would be there as most people are spending the day with family. Of course, I was wrong. Ikea was packed, mostly with people gobbling 1 dollar sausages from the snack stand or sleeping full out on sofas and beds. A few people were actually shopping.

The place is so absurd at times, its hard not to ask "why?" The longer I am in China and Beijing the more I am getting back into being curious about the Chinese and China’s history. Before my work ended last week I decided I would check out a few sites around the city as not so many people would be there and so made plans as well as checking out some books about China from the library. That turned out to be a good idea. I went to the Drum Tower and the Bell Tower as well as the Llama Temple and Tiananmen at dusk for the flag lowering and the next day to the National Museum. Besides being sites around the city, they also provided a slice of Beijing life. At the drum tower only bits of one of the original 12 drums remain, likely the rest were destroyed during some revolution. There are so many in the past 100 years its hard to say when. At Tainanmen the soldiers and crowd were silent except for the couple right next to me who argued loudly the entire ceremony. At the national museum I had my ebike battery in my backpack so it wouldn’t get stolen. When I went through security the female guard asked me what it was. While I understood her question, I didn’t know the word for it nor how she couldn’t know what it was. Everyone and their mother has some sort of ebike in Beijing, they are everywhere. Thankfully the guy behind me saved me and told her what it was, denji? Not really sure, but it sounded like the Japanese denchi, which means battery so I am guessing they are similar.
I’ve also been watching classic Chinese movies each night like, To Live and Red Sorghum. Both of which I like and have watched before, but Zhang Yimou (the director) will be visiting my school next week, so I thought I would brush up on my viewing. I also have watched a few documentaries to fill in the non-fiction gaps such as the three part PBS series 'A Century of Revolution' and one on Tiananmen square 89'.  During the afternoons I had been reading up a bit from I Chose China, Last Days of Old Beijing, Postcards from Tomorrow Square, and Factory Girls. Last Days of Old Beijing has been the most interesting because its written by a foreigner living in the hutongs south of Tiananmen and I can relate most closely with his curiosity and viewpoints as he laments the economic progress of China razing its cultural history.  I actually saw a character 拆 Chai on a wall on the way to Ikea today! The city is still tearing itself apart.

So far I have enjoyed my break quite a bit. Though this place often makes me scratch my head, its never boring and I don’t think it will be for some time.  Now, one more thing to do before getting back to work on Monday, do my Chinese homework for my lesson on Tuesday!

Turning 33

Friday was my 33^rd birthday. It seems like that should be special in some way because of the double number, no doubt somewhere it is of cultural significance. In some ways I feel old. I look back on the last birthday that I remember, that was turning 30 while going to Nepal, and I feel like that was a long time ago. I was a bit more fit and the future was a bit more fresh and open.

About ten years ago I read an obituary in the Door County Advocate. Some guy on a motorcycle had died on the notorious 2 lane highway that stretches up the county. I guess he pulled out onto it when he shouldn’t have. I can’t remember his name, but I do remember he was a professor of some sort. What struck me about the obituary was the tone. It was celebratory of a life well lived, though this man was only in his early 50’s. One of his friends wrote about when he and the professor were kayaking up to a glacier in Alaska and the professor pulled out two glasses and some whiskey. They broke off a piece of the glacier and had some 10,000 year old ice. I thought that story was so cool, who does that?

What I think of the most are all over the past 15 years are the what-ifs and might-be’s. I would guess that most people do on their birthday, but I don’t think of them as regrets or dreams of what might have been. When I think of them what I remember is not the idea of uncertainty holding me back, but rather spurring me on. All those what-ifs make life exciting and interesting to live. They make me want to go see it, go do it, go eat it, jump from it and embrace it. Of course, I am afraid sometimes. Uncertainty is a vast and empty ocean. It would be madness not to be afraid or have doubts, but it would also be madness to allow that fear to dictate your life.

Though I was hoping that this year the number of countries I’ve travelled to would have met my age, it hasn’t yet. Currently I’ve been to 29, 30 will come in March when Aya and I go to the Philippines. Mongolia is near enough that I will probably go there sometime in the near future and a friend and I are talking about taking the trans-Siberian which would mean Russia and possibly some other Nordic countries as well in summer 2016. I’ve got a friend living in Denmark, which I haven’t been to yet, so that is possible too. Myanmar and Laos aren’t too far away either. It’s a big world out there and I would hate to miss it. Hopefully I will get to have a glacial ice and whiskey one day too, maybe to celebrate 50 countries at 50 years old. How cool would that be? 

The Air in Beijing and How We Deal With It

AQI PM 2.5 at 44 on this day

AQI PM 2.5 at 230 on this day

Say China and most people think of just a few things. The Great Wall, cheap exports, and pollution. A few years ago when I lived in Shanghai the pollution there was something that bothered me and a big reason I wanted to leave. At the time I did not have a measurement for pollution levels besides how it looked to the human eye. Though there were occasional days that were obviously smoggy, it wasn't too hazy on the average day. I did develop a little cough and had a rash at times that I’m pretty sure was due to the pollution levels. Despite this, I made almost no attempt to avoid the pollution other than watching the sky and eventually getting out of Shanghai.

Now that I am in Beijing, the pollution levels have become even more visible to me. Of course everyone warned me about the pollution levels and it was something that I was preparing for from the moment I accepted the job. Before arriving I bought a respro mask, aya got a lot of disposable masks which she uses, we installed AQI apps on our devices, and started looking into air filters for our apartment.

The Respro Sportsta mask, has been something that I have used a lot. Whenever I ride my bike and the levels are near 100 or above I wear my mask. I also use it a lot riding the staff bus to and from my job on days where pollution is high. I have found that it is not difficult to breath through this and ideally people are supposed to be able to do physical activity like running in this mask, though I haven’t done that. The filter does seem to be working. After about 72 hours of use I changed the filter and found it to be blackish on the outside. The only complaint I have about this is that to get the mask to fit properly I have to put it high on the bridge of my nose, which means that my glasses then can’t rest on my nose, but must sit on the mask. This pushes them out and gives me a strange look. I would recommend buying one of these if you are coming to China, but there are other options that some people use such as Vogmask and there is even a nasal filter that 3M makes that I have seen but haven’t used yet.

We installed the AQICN app on all our devices and I check it all the time. When I wake in the morning, usually at lunch, on the way out of work and then again at night I check to see what the aqi level is, but more importantly I look at the wind speed and direction. When the wind dies down the pollution levels go up and the longer the wind blows the cleaner the air in Beijing gets. Obviously the restrictions on cars and factories are not very good so no matter what day it is they will be pumping out huge amounts of particulate. The only real short term way to solve that is for the wind to blow. Blow that pollution out to sea! And to Japan! And Even to the USA! The levels of pollution have a color code as well to help identify different levels. 

GREEN: More or less I follow that if its green, which is below 50 PM 2.5 (the smallest particles measured) then I am good to run outside. This happens a few times a week and one of the reasons I check my app so often. Looking now I can see the wind will be blowing hard all day tomorrow, so I am bringing my running clothes to work tomorrow.

YELLOW: If its yellow, which is the 50-100 reading I won’t worry much about being outside, but won’t run unless its on the lower end like in the 50’s or low 60’s.

ORANGE: This is the 100-150 reading. Its getting fairly high pollution levels now. I probably won’t wear a mask, unless its getting close to 150. I’m not running in this, too high. I would walk around, but I would avoid physical activity. The more sensitive westerners I know start wearing masks at this level. At this level you can start to see that the air is getting a bit hazy.

RED: This is the 150-200 range. The mask is going on, but I probably won’t avoid going out shopping or to dinner unless it starts to get near 200. Definitely not going to bike or run in this. Last year Paris got to this level and it was a sensational story, this happens regularly in Beijing and many people don’t wear masks (there is a good reason for this, the rating system they look at is different, see below).

PURPLE: This is the 200-300 rang. The mask is on, but I won’t go outside unless I have to, which is the 60-80 minutes I spend going back and forth to work. If I have plans for the evening, I postpone them. At this level the air is visibly thick. Chinese people will begin to don masks at the is level, some of the more conscientious and sensitive westerners will. If I don’t wear a mask at this level I get a bit dizzy and have a headache, but I always wear a mask mom. Don’t worry.

DARK RED: This is 300-500 or >500. At this level it is considered hazardous for anyone to breath this air for any amount of time. Almost all westerners wear masks at these levels. Around 50% of Chinese will be wearing masks at these levels. Supposedly schools close if this level remains for more than 3 days in a row. This is not true.

The most interesting thing is the difference between the Chinese and the U.S. readings.

The Beijing City government on the other hand considers levels up to 115 to be “light” and up to 150 to be “moderate” for reference, the WTO considers 10 to be acceptable and anything beyond that to be a high level. Much has been made of the difference between not only the scales used, but from the actual reporting differences between the US embassy in Beijing, which regularly posts automated air quality measurements at @beijingair on Twitter, and the City municipality readings.

On 18 November 2010, the feed described the PM2.5 measurement as "crazy bad" after registering a reading in excess of 500 for the first time. This description was later changed to "beyond index". By January 2013 the pollution had worsened with official Beijing data showing an average figure over 300 and readings of up to 700 at individual recording stations while the US Embassy recorded over 755 on January 1 and 861 by January 12. On that same January 12^th the Beijing municipality reading was 700.

We also use two filters in our apartment. The Philips AC 4074 and the Sharp KC 860U. We got the Philips first and it was about 500 dollars while the Sharp was about 450 dollars. Since they were both big purchases I was a bit reluctant, but they are needed on certain days. Many people have posted on how to construct your own much cheaper devices, more or less by strapping a HEPA filter onto a fan. They may be on to something, but I’m pretty happy with the ones I have. The Philips we keep in the bedroom and use it mostly when we are sleeping. It has a sleep mode to lower the noise it makes and 4 color levels which I am enamoured with. As the air gets cleaner, the color changes. It is supposed to have a 99% filter rate for PM 2.5 Its seems to do a good job, but I also think that when I have my humidifiers on its picking up those as well. I’m not sure.

The Sharp we keep in the living room as this device also has a built in humidifier. So far so good, it does seem to work pretty well and I am happy with the purchase. In both cases I lament the cost, but in home air filters are a must in Beijing. We have also bought a number of large plants, which we hope are also helping with the air along with making our home look pleasant.

The Chinese are aware of the pollution problem. The difficulty is both the balance between growth and development in the economy and the fact that government leaders are not elected. Average citizens have little power to sway government policies, but even so the government is aware that it needs to make reforms as people are even suing the government over the pollution levels.

The government has begun to change things to bring pollution levels down. Many new measures in including closing coal fire plants, promoting greener energy, mandating greater fuel efficiency, and taking millions of older vehicles off the roads. These measures must be working to some degree as pollution levels are supposed to be down 4% from 2013 to 2014 and a lot of the expats I have talked to here have said that this year has been better than in the past. By 2017 the city is scheduled to close its last coal fire plant and there are lots of infrastructure programs in the pipeline so hopefully the next few years will just be getting better. Beijing says it plans to be within WHO guideline levels by 2030. Certainly I will be long gone from  China by then, in the meantime I wish they would speed up the process. 

Another year over, and a new one just begun

This year has been a good one overall, but one that ended with the death of my grandfather, age 93. As I wrote the eulogy for his funeral I had to consider his long life, but also all the places he had been, people he touched, and accomplishments he accrued. He had a very good life in all respects. He lived a long and healthy life, had a long and happy marriage, had 4 kids that all did pretty well for themselves, had a successful business, was a productive and giving member of the community and generally was loved by all who knew him.

About ten years ago I was taking a class in university, I believe it was on Greek history. At the time the instructor had us reading passages and one such passage had a father describing the death of his son in battle. It was described as, “a good death”. Prior to that the idea of a good death had never really occurred to me, probably I was just too young to think about that. More and more since then I have considered what it is to have a good life, to have a good death and how those two things are related.

Essentially, I have boiled a good life down to one in which you gain the most utility for the least input. In other words, one in which you gain pleasure without expending much energy on your own. That sounds really hedonistic and in some ways it is, but it is actually much more mundane than that because it forces you to consider a lot of long term impacts your current decisions might have. Its also a bit liberating because you realize that a lot of the time what you do will have no impact on your success or failure. This frees you to do things as you like, wear what you like, say what you like most of the time and probably best of all to realize that you have no obligation to care about things that are fleeting.  It boils down to making sure that you and your loved ones are best taken care of and I think it also leads to a lot more meaningful lives and interactions rather than a life focused on keeping up with the Joneses or worrying about others’ judgments. We are who we are, not much will change that so its best to accept it and just do the best with what we have rather than lamenting what we don’t have or what we could have done. I guess it will take many more years to see if that is actually true, but I can’t see how it wouldn’t be. How can being comfortable in your own skin be wrong?

A good death can have many meanings, but essentially I think it means a death that is desirable or perhaps one we can be at peace with knowing. My grandfather’s death was a good one by my standards and the standards of his community. He lived a long and relatively pain free life, he spent almost all of his elder years at home with my mother Mary and other family around him and in the end he died in his bed after showing almost no signs of pain or concern. I think also a good death involves, for me, the knowledge that the life I have lead up to it has been a productive one, one where the utility was maximized not only for me, but for those around me. Essentially, did I contribute something to the world and did I enjoy doing it? That might mean helping lots of people, teaching a long time, spending time with family, traveling more or some other things that I just don’t know yet.

All this to say, this was a good year. I feel like I have maximized my utility, maybe a little too much as my trousers are getting a bit snug. In the past year I travelled a lot, something I love to do. I went to Japan twice, to Okinawa, Osaka, Tokyo, Nagano, and then to Aizu where I once lived. I went to the US twice to see family. I travelled throughout Malaysia and said goodbye to my island home of Penang to go to Beijing. I scored a great job teaching a subject I love in a great school. I had lots of opportunity to study Chinese and to explore the city. My sidekick has also been doing well, with her job, health, and her utility too. Though my grandfather died this year, he has a good life and a good death so there is little to lament. Life is good, here is to living a “good” one and to a new year.