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I'm sure it's horrible in some cities, but I lived in a 4.5M-people city in the South (Kunming) for a year, and its air pollution level was entirely comparable
by ced 10y ago
I'm sure it's horrible in some cities, but I lived in a 4.5M-people city in the South (Kunming) for a year, and its air pollution level was entirely comparable to North American cities of the same size. What are you basing your opinion on? The standards of living of Chinese people are rapidly improving. I'm sure I would be horrified to see how the sausages are made, and I wouldn't bet on its long-term success, but I wouldn't call it dysfunctional.
I agree with GP; the news media makes it sound like a horrible place, but living there felt like living in a developing east-European country. I'm much more worried about India.
- Retric 10y agoKunming is west of most of the pollution. Which keeps getting worse as you approach the ocean near central / NE China. http://berkeleyearth.org/air-pollution-and-cigarette-equivalence/ http://berkeleyearth.org/air-pollution-and-cigarette-equival...
- ced 10y agoTrue, but I was under the impression that even on the coast, a few cities are _really bad_, but most are ok enough (i.e. polluted, but not worryingly so). Do you have any personal experience there?
- personjerry 10y agoI'm there right now, visited Shanghai, Suzhou, Chengdu. In most populous cities you can't see past a few km because of what first appears to be fog in the morning, but then you realize is smog. Tap water is always undrinkable.
- seanmcdirmid 10y agoShanghai is bad but still better than Beijing/Hebei on most days. Shenzhen is better than most of northern China on most days. But they still have very few days where the 2.5 ppm is below 100, even if they never have crazy bad 500+ days like northern China. Still ain't suited to much living. The pollution situation is not overstated by the western media, as anyone living in eastern China who isn't a heavily biased wumao can easily attest.
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- dmoy 10y agoKunming is paradise comparatively. But I'm with you that it will improve once people get richer and start caring about their health. It'll take decades/generations, but it will happen.
- seanmcdirmid 10y agoKunming was much better 15 years ago when I first visited, it is still one of the better cities in China, but it is going downhill quickly. Very sad, actually. I'm not sure you can say the living standards of the Chinese people are improving when they can no longer go for strolls at night. If you only read Chinese media, you'll come out with a more grim view of China than if you read western media. For that, western media is actually positively biased, not negatively.
- justicezyx 10y ago"I'm not sure you can say the living standards of the Chinese people are improving when they can no longer go for strolls at night." That depends on what's your base comparison. Like comparing with Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Chinese probably have a better living; but of cuz, Chinese cannot go for strolls at night while DPRK people probably can.
- JoeAltmaier 10y agoOr rather, DPRK people probably have a rotation of night-strolling that is monitored and rated.
- seanmcdirmid 10y agoBut Chinese could stroll at night fine in the 80s, 90s, 00s. We are not comparing China to DPRK, but China now to China just a decade ago.
- justicezyx 10y agoIn 80s a large portion of people use food stamps... I'd be happy to sacrifice some air quality for ample supply of foods...