existential struggles in greater China and southeast Asia
I haven’t brought it up on the blog before, but those of you who know me may have heard me rave about the live/indie music scene in Beijing. There are a number of venues that have live music performances on most nights, and a lot of artists worth seeing and following.
Chinese people celebrate the harvest season and the brightest full moon of the year on the fifteenth day of the eight month of the lunar calendar, which falls on September 22 this year. Happy mid-autumn festival! Time to eat moon cake!
It’s been a few weeks since I last posted and I owe you an explanation. I’ve been spending some time on another “project,” one that, if successful, will have a much more widespread (albeit weak and indirect) impact on environmentalism in China than this simple little blog. In any case, I’ll let you know if it comes to fruition.
On to today’s post. I experienced my first bike accident in Beijing today. Please don’t weep or gnash your teeth in sorrow. With the exception of a slightly bruised scrotum, I’m fine and nobody else got hurt either.
This morning, I was cycling to the neighborhood vegetable market along an alleyway that I travel every day when the collision occured. Here’s a diagram I drew depicting what happened:
Source: http://iphone.bjair.info/
This is the first time I’ve seen a “Good” rating for Beijing’s AQI in awhile – maybe since June.  Please refer to this earlier post for more information about AQI and Beijing’s air quality.
Note: Please take all of my “calculations” below with a huge grain of salt. I’m not a statistician, a mathematician, an air quality expert, or a public health expert (the truth comes out – I’m not much of anything).  As always, comments are welcome!
I’m back! It’s been a hectic few months, but now I’m newly unemployed and back in the driver’s seat. So let’s go.
As you may have heard, the air quality in Beijing is just shy of phenomenal.  In March 2009, ECA International, a global human resources service company, ranked Beijing as the city with the second worst air pollution in the world, behind only New Delhi.
Back in 2000, I spent a summer in Beijing and almost forgot that they sky is supposed to be blue. This summer, I’ve seen blue skies twice so far.  Despite this anecdotal evidence of improvement, the air quality here is still dismal, a fact that even the mayor of Beijing acknowledged earlier this year. Here’s a picture I took this afternoon:
