Perhaps this "going to Beijing for a year to work on my Mandarin" idea has some problems.

[randomness]

Leaving aside the fact that the Chinese internet authorities appear to have banned access to LJ, there's this, from http://jamesfallows.theatlantic.com/archives/2007/07/beijing_olympics_countdown_air.php:


"View to the south, July 26, 8:30am, from apartment building in the Chaoyang Park neighborhood of Beijing. The obscured buildings in the "distance" are perhaps 100 yards away."

Yecch.

Thanks to quezz, who made me think of this problem in a post of her own.

Comments

[whitebird.livejournal.com]

I think the distance is a bit off, that's got to be more than 300 feet. As far as LiveJournal is concerned, I bet SSH tunnels will still work.

But, perhaps going to another city might be a better idea.

Oh, yeah. 8:30AM. How much fog do you think Beijing gets?

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

As far as LiveJournal is concerned, I bet SSH tunnels will still work.

As a matter of fact, the journal I linked to says this:

Therefore, I can only connect to my lj via anonymouse, which is annoying as I can't stay logged in.

I personally would use an actual SSH tunnel, which would make it possible for me to stay logged in.

Oh, yeah. 8:30AM. How much fog do you think Beijing gets?

Infinitely more than it used to before all the particulates got belched into the air. What you're looking at there is smog.

Here's more on the subject from http://www.wired.com/science/planetearth/magazine/15-08/ff_pollution:

"The air isn't always so awful: Sometimes the wind sweeps through, revealing a blue canopy overhead. But on a bad day — come August, say, when temperatures approach 100 degrees — the atmosphere around Beijing becomes a photochemical bouillabaisse of coal smog, steel-mill spume, and tailpipe crud, mingled with concrete dust and baked in the oven formed by the surrounding hills."

[whitebird.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I can bet in the summer it's going to suck donkey eggs.

Usually smog is of a more orange or brown tint, that picture is more of a foggy grey. I think I'm just saying that that particular picture is perhaps a poor example of portraying Beijing in the poorest light. If that makes sense.