Jinan is one of China's cities, indeed one of the world's cities, with the highest levels of air pollution. Apart from vehicle emissions and coal fired power plants, it has some heavy industry (making steel for truck manufacturing) not far out of the city. 
I had thought that the past couple of windy days might have blown away the ever present smog, and give some needed respite to the eyes and lungs. But not so. Perhaps the wind was coming from the direction of the factories!
During the interview I had for this job, I was asked "do you have any chronic respiratory problems?" Duty of care, I was told.
One pleasant effect of the smog is the way the sun tries to penetrate it, especially in the evening. I took these photos tonight, from the park next to our apartments, where families play with their kid. The huge building site in the foreground (the cause of so much local dust) used to a be a sports field for the old University. Unfortunately the building labourers' temporary quarters, complete with a vile smelling latrine, have been constructed opposite the entrance to our apartments. Another form of air pollution. One learns when one must not breathe through one's nose!
Later: a night of RAIN cleaned the air (for a few hours). The result was marvellous! The trees, especially the conifers, had metamorphosed from dirty grey to clean green!
2 comments:
in jinan in 2012 and found that the air quality is worse because of much more coonstruction.
I am american. the sky is now red at night and you can not go outdoors for an early morning walk the air pollution makes you cough.
I just told a Chinese friend of mine that I wanted to move to Jinan, Shandong and he warned me about the pollution. So I was doing some online reading about the place and I landed on your blog. I lived in Shanghai for several years, and I felt the pollution in China is generally bad. But I didn't know conditions in Jinan were as bad to the point of even having to ask potential expats if they suffer from respiratory problems! Yikes...I will have to consider options.
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