Gone again
(Haze on Jinji lake; Suzhou)
This is what the air is like very often in Suzhou and much of the rest of urban China we’ve seen. I reckon it is worse by the lake as the moisture evaporates in the tropical heat, so even though this was a ‘sunny’ day with shadows, there’s not a glimpse of blue sky. Even if there are no clouds, the hazy mist shrouds buildings that were visible the day before. Sometimes I don’t mind it at all – it makes the city seems smaller, more manageable and less daunting and complex.
We realised a few weeks in, that Sundays have the clearest skies and it’s more likely to be blue – simply because many factories must close for the weekend, or there are fewer vehicles on the roads. It also tends to be extremely hot, to the point of discovering the joys of shoulder sweat or some other equally improbable area of perspiration; knees, feet in flip flops, lower legs, and even the backs of hands.
Today I left Ying at Glasgow airport for his return to work in Suzhou next week. One of the sacrifices of this exciting new life abroad is the travelling between lands – which I wish I didn’t have to do; I worry about the flights and all the vapour trails they leave in the sky, and I’m looking at ways to counteract it. Having two homes seems like a lot of fun, but both of them are half homes; when we arrived in China, we didn’t have a duvet, scissors, paper, any cups, glasses or even a pan. The worst part is missing things; I miss Ying, Chinese cuisine and fresh fruit when I’m here, then friends and family, Glasgow and the cooler weather when I’m in China. You can’t have it all.
air pollution is very bad in singapore these days. reasons are many, the main factor is singapore has a not so considerate neighbour. every last season of the year, the indonisian farmers burn their padi field and cause the air polluted all over the neighbouring countries. though these few days were bad enough,yesterday once i went outdoor i could smell it, we were told the worse time is yet to come.
singaporeans know it better we have no old buildings, singapore developers like to buy over old buildings, actually they are not old enough, pull down and building more contemporary buildings, either for living or working. now our immediate neighbouring
condominium is under construction. (two years ago, it was the one next to this one).
all these man made-air pollution make us suffer.
oh, where is not polluted? positano!