The picture below is a normal day in Nanchang China – view from my hotel room:
Nanchang China on a typical day
Last night, a cold front blew in, so it’s very windy and clear today:
Nanchang China on a clear day
Every day we’ve been here, it’s been like the first picture. Today, everyone outside is upbeat and clearly enjoying the weather, even though for southern China it’s c-o-l-d!
Here’s a map that shows you where we are. Nanchang population is 5 million – about the same as Houston. There are about 35 cities in China that are bigger than that, which just blows my mind. The province of Jiangxi is the same size as Florida but it has 41 million people – as many people as California!
By the way, the entire east coast of China is polluted like this. City or farmland, it doesn’t matter, the smog is relentless. Yesterday I drove 100 miles east to Xinyu, and even on the highway in wide open country, the haze didn’t change a bit. It was overcast and you couldn’t see the clouds.
The Chinese are acutely aware of this problem; it’s part and parcel of being a developing country. The national newspaper has weekly smog reports by city. I lay odds that in 10 years China will have cleaned this up considerably. Meanwhile, if you live in a clean place be thankful, because the world is only as beautiful as the air you breathe.
Perry
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Perry Marshall has launched two revolutions in sales and marketing. In Pay-Per-Click advertising, he pioneered best practices and wrote the world's best selling book on Google advertising. And he's driven the 80/20 Principle deeper than any other author, creating a new movement in business.
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11 Comments on “China Pollution: Normal Day vs. Good Day”
And I thought the pollution certain days in Denver and now Phoenix was bad!
The first photo reminds me of Mexico City in the early 80’s when we went down there on a high school Spanish class trip…very shocking for someone who’s never seen so many buildings, people, cars, etc. in such a high density for the first time.
China is very interesting and special.
When we were in Beijing 2 years ago, the smog looked like your pictures. One day when it was windy, we saw mountains out of our hotel window. We had no idea there were mts. that close that we could see.
Those photos show a little touch of greenness. I can see quite a number of solar water heaters on the roofs.
Perry
The couple days in California was so cold too.
See you when you come back
December 09 at: 16:00
Amazing.
I never really studied China’s layout, City by city – population-wise. All I know is they had past the 1-billlion mark, years ago. Its been estimated though, that the world population could fit shoulder to shoulder in the State of Texas & have the rest of the earth empty. Therefore there is space for more people:) – What population explosion?
Thanks for sharing Perry.
Great trip! Amazing compassion.
Good luck. God bless you.
David
Wow and I thought LA was bad!
LA is nothin’ compared to China :^>
Perry
Makes me think how lucky we are to have already gone through the dark days of our industrial revolution in the C18/19th…when smog was like this was also the norm.
Craig
PS Hope the child adoption process is going smoothly.
It’s going great, lots to tell. I’ll update y’all soon…. Meanwhile Laura keeps posting more pics at http://compassionmama.blogspot.com