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I grew up in Hong Kong. It didn't have the cleanest air in the world but I lived in relative good health. After I left for university I heard things were gettin

by johnzim 13y ago

I grew up in Hong Kong. It didn't have the cleanest air in the world but I lived in relative good health. After I left for university I heard things were getting worse and worse although I remained sceptical. When I returned for work, the air was nowhere near as bad as it is on the mainland now but I simply couldn't survive it. Every day my lungs constricted within minutes (I have asthma.) I realised I could never return to live in my home city as I had intended to. I was not angered by the existence of the pollution. Things change and China grows on the mainland. What I was angered by was the fact that after the handover, the government was so cowed by their new CCP masters that they wouldn't even tell the truth about the air pollution. You will never hear an HK official admit that the pollution comes from China, yet every single adult citizen who grew up in the city remembers what life was like 15-20 years ago. China ostensibly has anti-pollution laws. The CCP's colossal corruption keeps them from ever being enforced and entire cities, my hometown amongst them, are now literally poisonous to live in.

wang0109 13y ago
There's a big "movement" by CCP to control this thing. It's mentioned in major party conferences. I heard there's going to be 10 Billion RMB poured into this, and pollution would be considered as evaluation parameter for "party leaders". However I seriously doubt most of the money will end up in vein or simply stolen. So "enforcement" is to happen but I have little trust in them.
da02 13y ago
Was it possible for you to breathe the air in the surrounding areas? (Lantau, Macau, etc)
- johnzim 13y ago
  Last time I was back in April of this year, Lantau was a little better but realistically still not good enough to consider living there, much less bringing up kids. I ended up feeling out of breath crossing the road. I haven't been back to Macau since I was a kid though, so it looks very different now (Thanks to Mr Ho.) My grandfather grew up in HK too. He passed away last summer, struck down by a rather horrible respiratory based cancer. However, I'm wary of too much confirmation bias in attributing that to the pollution too. It'll be interesting to see what the respiratory disease numbers are like in the coming decades.
  - da02 13y ago
    Thanks for the info. My condolences for your home land and family.
veidr 13y ago
Yeah, I live in Japan, roughly 3000km from China, but we also have to deal with China's pollution. Although not that common, we sometimes get an alert with the weather report that the levels of PM 2.5 particulate matter (overwhelmingly blown over from China) are exceeding government safety standards, and that we may want to consider keeping kids indoors. I remember we had similar 'smog alerts' a few days a year when I was a little kid in Los Angeles in wthe 1980s, and we couldn't go out to recess. But I think that's like what we are getting here in Japan, at a great distance separated by ocean -- nothing compared to what the Chinese people in Shanghai and Beijing are suffering.

by johnzim 13y ago

wang0109 13y ago

There's a big "movement" by CCP to control this thing. It's mentioned in major party conferences. I heard there's going to be 10 Billion RMB poured into this, and pollution would be considered as evaluation parameter for "party leaders". However I seriously doubt most of the money will end up in vein or simply stolen. So "enforcement" is to happen but I have little trust in them.

da02 13y ago

Was it possible for you to breathe the air in the surrounding areas? (Lantau, Macau, etc)

johnzim 13y ago
Last time I was back in April of this year, Lantau was a little better but realistically still not good enough to consider living there, much less bringing up kids. I ended up feeling out of breath crossing the road. I haven't been back to Macau since I was a kid though, so it looks very different now (Thanks to Mr Ho.) My grandfather grew up in HK too. He passed away last summer, struck down by a rather horrible respiratory based cancer. However, I'm wary of too much confirmation bias in attributing that to the pollution too. It'll be interesting to see what the respiratory disease numbers are like in the coming decades.
- da02 13y ago
  Thanks for the info. My condolences for your home land and family.

veidr 13y ago

Yeah, I live in Japan, roughly 3000km from China, but we also have to deal with China's pollution. Although not that common, we sometimes get an alert with the weather report that the levels of PM 2.5 particulate matter (overwhelmingly blown over from China) are exceeding government safety standards, and that we may want to consider keeping kids indoors. I remember we had similar 'smog alerts' a few days a year when I was a little kid in Los Angeles in wthe 1980s, and we couldn't go out to recess. But I think that's like what we are getting here in Japan, at a great distance separated by ocean -- nothing compared to what the Chinese people in Shanghai and Beijing are suffering.