PRE-OLYMPICS CLEAN AIR REGULATIONS MEET WITH LIMITED SUCCESS

It wasn't supposed to be like this. Last Sunday, strict new clean air regulations went into effect in the capital, requiring that all construction within the city temporarily cease and that heavily polluting factories on the outskirts of the city temporarily close their doors. Approximately half of the city's private cars have also been taken off the roads through a system which allows odd and even numbered license plate holders to drive on alternating days.

Unfortunately traffic still isn't great and the air, while certainly better, is still not so very good. I took this picture from my bedroom window one morning last week. This smoky grayness with blunted sun is how it looks like this most of the time, making the rare blue sky days almost unsettling. I'd already been living in this new place about a week and a half when I realized for the first time that my bedroom faced east. I had woken with an uncomfortable start and immediately felt disoriented and overheated. Had I overslept? Something seemed wrong. What had in fact happened is that one of the government sponsored rainstorms had rinsed all the pollution away the night before and in the morning the sun was able to shine directly into my room and sear my tightly closed eyelids. Naughty sun.

I'm still rooting for the clean air regulations to have their desired effects and they might yet. Beijing has undergone massive transformations over the last 11 months (and certainly since well before I arrived) and while the changes approach exhausting they are undoubtedly impressive. More than two weeks before the opening ceremony of the Olympics, blue-shirted volunteers appeared in every subway station, on every large street corner, and in all sorts of places in between. Security has also been amped up to the highest degree. I discovered this on Tuesday when I found that I couldn't go to the post office on the BLCU campus because all universities are now sealed off and open only to ID-carrying students and employees. This is most likely happening in lots of other places but I don't get out much so I haven't noticed. So much for giving Mark a tour of my school.

Speaking of which, United States municipal and federal regulations explicitly state that Mark Siano and I are not to reside in the same city for a duration of any more than a week. I think most of us know what kind of calamities violations inevitably result in. But apparently China doesn't know. Mark got himself a plane ticket and will be arriving from the south on Monday afternoon. Beijing had best get ready to be rocked, softly.