Blood & Treasure: cancer weather

It rained and then snowed in Beijing Saturday night, after a black smog day. As the flakes fell at about 11 pm, they were so dirty that they looked like volcanic ash. My houseguest, a regular visitor from the US, suggested a new picture game: "Contemporary Beijing or Scenes From The Road." ?On his flight in that morning, the city had only become visible at about 150 meters.

In theory, the rain/snow should have cleaned out the smog, but that lasted all of a few hours, and now we're back to the dead gray sky. ?There's a tangible public unease about pollution this last year or so - witness the sudden outrage about dodgy air statistics - that's only worsening as Beijing seems to be slipping backwards on this.

I heard two people (both Chinese) separately declare over the weekend that they'd been contemplating buying a house in Beijing in the future, but now they were reconsidering it, as they'd never want to raise kids here. That's already mainfesting in the capital/family flight to the West at the high level, but I wonder if there's a point at which the appeal of the nicer second-tier cities outweighs Beijing et al's economic advantages.

Source: http://bloodandtreasure.typepad.com/blood_treasure/2012/03/cancer-weather.html

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