The World Health Organization (aka WHO) has developed a set of measurements for air pollution. It ranges from 0-50 being “excellent,” all the way to 300+ which is “don’t even go outside.” When I got to Beijing last week, it was almost 500. I would show you a picture, but instead you can just find a slate grey iPhone and stare at the back of it.

I’ve amended their table and added a level to accurately reflect the reality of Beijing air:

AQI Air Pollution Level Health Implications
0–50 Excellent No health implications.
51–100 Good Few hypersensitive individuals should reduce outdoor exercise.
101–150 Lightly Polluted Slight irritations may occur, individuals with breathing or heart problems should reduce outdoor exercise.
151–200 Moderately Polluted Slight irritations may occur, individuals with breathing or heart problems should reduce outdoor exercise.
201–300 Heavily Polluted Healthy people will be noticeably affected. People with breathing or heart problems will experience reduced endurance in activities. These individuals and elders should remain indoors and restrict activities.
301-500 Severely Polluted Healthy people will experience reduced endurance in activities. There may be strong irritations and symptoms and may trigger other illnesses. Elders and the sick should remain indoors and avoid exercise. Healthy individuals should avoid out door activities.
501+ Satan’s Butt Hole All people should avoid breathing. Not only stay indoors, but build a thing indoors and inside of that thing, build another thing and stay inside that thing. Like Russian nesting dolls of air safety. And even then you will cough up interesting looking nodules. Seriously, you’d be better off felching air from the rear pucker of the evil Lord Of The Underworld, occasionally stopping to snort lines of cancer. Good luck.

But as luck would have it, the Chinese government, not wishing to incur my wrath and suffer the same fate as Qantas did, decided to shut down the factories and create glorious weather for me the rest of my trip! (Either that or they wanted to impress the APEC conference in town at the same time. Whatever. Win-win.)

And so, with weather corrected, I headed off to see China’s marvel of construction, The Great Wall. The picture at the top of this post is the Forbidden City, still a bit smoggy at Day 2 of the big factory shut down. I think the pollution level dropped to a manageable 200 or so, which is still “heavily polluted” according to WHO. (I feel like they should add an “M” to their acronym to make it sound grammatically correct. As in, “according to WHOM.”)

However, on Day 3 of the big factory shut down, the pollution level was 5. That’s not a typo. FIVE! Even Los Angeles regularly hovers around 60. Damn. When mankind puts their mind to it, we sure can make the planet wonderful. Here’s a shot of the Wall with the sky in all its blue glory:

blueskies

What I’m trying to say is this: If you were waiting for your new iPhone 6 or iPhone 6 Plus to arrive, you’ll probably have to wait a few extra days for your fancy new technology, since the Chinese government wanted me to enjoy their country’s fancy old technology.

Sorry.

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