When I first arrived in Beijing I couldn’t help but notice the fog that hung in the air. Buildings gradually fading away into a white greyish abyss. What was even more peculiar was that this mist seemed to be omnipresent. Of course I soon found out that this isn’t actually fog but a warm blanket of pollution carried in from the east as well as largely being generated by the low-grade petroleum being used in all the vehicles in China. It was not quite what I had imagined when I heard about the pollution in China though. People had made it sound so bad that in my vivid imagination I was seeing embers drifting through the sky like autumn leaves with stringy black clouds hanging at a couple of meters high, blocking out any sight of the sun. I guess my imagination was wrong.

None the less, the pollution in China is a very real thing and while it may appear as seemingly innocent fog it causes a lot of health issues. From people having skin issues or a huge amount of (young) people here walking around with grey hairs, to me personally suddenly forming scabs on the side of my head. Yet the people here keep surprising me. Just yesterday I was having lunch with a friend when from the window we could see a guy jump-roping at a busy intersection, his volkswagen parked right next to him. After he sufficiently soaked his t-shirt with sweat he decided to hang it over his car’s door, pull out a chair and sit there straddling his beerbelly. But not before he adaptly wiped himself using tissues, going as far as putting his hand down his backside before bringing it back up again to wipe his face. Amazing the amount of things you can witness while people watching.

What gets me though, is that this guy has a car, (a luxury item in Beijing with the price of just the license place costing as much, if not more than an entire new car) meaning he can go anywhere he likes. Yet, of all places he chooses to perform his regimen next to a busy intersection with loads of traffic and pedestrians. At least he’s exercising, I suppose!