Wednesday, January 16, 2008

Jet lag and cloudy days

For the most part I've been working and sleeping. This is good. I'm using my first week back in China to simply re-acclimate to the routine, culture, weather, my work and people.

Unfortunately the weather here leaves something to be desired. Since arriving Sunday afternoon I have yet to see sunshine. The weather has been a combination of cold rain, gloomy and overcast. We're apparently supposed to get sunshine on Friday, but I think it's pretty pathetic to go 5 days straight without directly seeing the sun. I also did not miss the air quality. I'm considering purchasing an air filter for my home but I honestly do not know how much air filters actually help the air in your home. Does anyone know for sure?

I've started reading the newspaper on-line (shocker of all shocks!) and there is a depressing article about China's air quality. It specifically focuses on Beijing in preparation for the Olympics but environmental issues are an ongoing problem here because China constantly ignores environmental issues. The air quality on "Blue Sky days" in Beijing is still considered severely polluted by European and Untied States standards. I worry about the obvious increase in health problems for the Chinese as well because the problems are long term. While I am not criticizing China, seeing people wear face masks while biking to work or walking shows that there's an obvious problem with the air.

Anyway... I enjoyed being home. It's good to be back but I miss my family and friends.

No comments: