It's not just because of the Beijing traffic gridlock that the Chinese government has decided to limit new car registration. It's the overwhelming increase in car purchases by the new Communist bourgeoisie. This just means that there is no hope in sight for our lungs. Another day, I can't breathe. We go days on end when the Air Quality Index surpasses 400. That is hazardous according to the American Embassy. On the "crazy bad" pollution days the reading is over 500 which is supposedly the maximum. It's hard to say how a reading could overreach the maximum, but maybe this has symbolic implications which I fail to see or am trying to ignore. The obvious meaning to me is that science is confirming what I already know; it is hard to breathe in Beijing.
I have done some qualitative research on the effects of hazardous air pollution and before I lose my ability to think altogether, I must write it down. There is nothing scientific about this research, it is purely anecdotal and conclusively observational, the most fallible kind. But the physical symptoms make it hard to gain mental clarity, I have found. Yes, breathing contaminated air more days than you can count must have some detrimental effect on the brain's ability to function. Perhaps this is just the result of the dulling headache that persists in strange throbbing ways. Thinking is like trying to find a sharp edge in pea soup. The cognitive functions seem to mirror what the brain sees, haze. Indistinct images appear and disappear in the thick smoke; I think those were buildings. Sight is casualty. One has to strain to see and I am sure unwanted contaminants are attaching to my retina. I have had to increase the magnification on my reading glasses 100%. During the day it looks like the sky decided not to come out. At night, the colored lights of the city blur into bizarre, unrecognizable shapes.
It's surreal at first, but after a few days of heavy pollution the physical effects start to impinge not only on the intellectual processing centers of the brain, but also the emotional. On good days I have trained myself not to look beyond the immediate. My first year in Beijing, I thought this was a great Buddhist practice. I was living in the present, not looking outside myself for validation. The sphere I focused on was the space of about five feet. My motivation was not based on external conditions, but instead it came from a place the size a small bread box inside my solar plexus. I remember last year everyone said it had never been so bad. "This is the worst it has ever been". Until of course this year, this November. The bread box theory worked for a couple of days and then started to disintegrate of its own accord. Turning inwards is not so pleasant with the head and stomach seething. Other side effects are dizziness, loss of coordination, disorientation and heart palpitations.
I might sound like a hypochondriac, but I swear I am not. Most of us Beijingers (definition for my unscientific purposes: residents of ten months or more annually) try to carry on with our days pretending we are not subjugated by the poor air. We are so beleaguered by insufficient levels of oxygen, we don't have the strength to talk about it. Low level exhaustion is a constant. It feels as if some days you never wake up, because what you see is unreal, dreamlike. I'm sure depression is an escalating risk here. How could it not be? Detached from a recognizable reality, I go through days with a sickening floating feeling. There is no other way to describe it.
I didn't want to do it, but I decided to look up what I was breathing. I knew it was going to be a list of chemicals with names that sound like monosodium glutamate for the lungs. The most common pollutants according to the U.S. Embassy are ozone (the bad kind which is a result of a reaction between different oxides of nitrogen), inhalable coarse and fine particles, carbon monoxide and sulfur dioxide. I have no idea what any of these are, but I get it, it's not good. Of course, then I found the actual index and now I know why I feel the way I do. A good day in Beijing the reading is in the 200's. That's "very unhealthy".
0 to 50 Good
51 to 100 Moderate
101 to 150 Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups
151 to 200 Unhealthy
201 to 300 Very Unhealthy
301 to 500 Hazardous
Knowing more is only making me realize I better not have any long term plans to stay in Beijing. Each of those distinct pollutants has a different set of hazardous effects. According to the U.S. Embassy, "ozone affects the lungs and respiratory system in many ways." This can cause "coughing, throat soreness, airway irritation, chest tightness, or chest pain." There is more. That is only one element of the bad air. Breathing particles may cause people to experience chest pain, shortness of breath and fatigue. "Particle pollution has also been associated with cardiac arrhythmias and heart attacks." That's enough, don't you think? "Carbon monoxide enters the bloodstream through the lungs and binds to hemoglobin, the substance in blood that carries oxygen to cells. It reduces the amount of oxygen reaching the body’s organs and tissues." This sounds like a horror movie. Carbon monoxide affects mental alertness and vision in healthy people. I wish I never looked this up. I haven't even gotten to the effects of sulfur dioxide.
I can't breathe. I guess the unscientific research had already made this evident. Having it confirmed, though, means I am not losing my faculties due to age and puts new meaning on "crazy bad". I wish there were a happy ending to this, a big ribbon to wrap up this package for the Beijing inhabitants, holiday cheer to see us into the Western New Year, but the truth is that there were 20,000 new cars sold in Beijing the first week of December (http://www.asiaone.com/Motoring/News/Story/A1Story20101209-251794.html). For the Chinese, owning a car is an important status symbol. It is part of the new world order. It doesn't matter what the government does to regulate registration or how many people they put on the street with flags to control the flow of traffic. The Chinese are going to keep buying cars. The red ribbon is on the cars not the lungs in Beijing. Merry Christmao!
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