Wide open window without screen You’ve seen this window before. Everyday this past winter I would find this window in this position and I would dutifully shut it. Everyday. Everyday when it was -5°C. (It just didn’t seem efficient to leave all the windows open.) Leaving windows wide open in winter for the perceived “ventilation [...]
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Thomas Friedman, one of my favorite New York Times columnists, has devoted several recent columns to China’s depressing environmental record and what can be done to make China go green. Deng Xiaoping once famously said of China’s economy: ”Black cat, white cat, all that matters is that it catches mice” — i.e., forget about communist [...]
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This doesn’t have anything to do with China, but I thought that some of my family from the Four Corners area of the US might be interested in this story I found in the LA Times. Uranium mining was huge in the Four Corners – where Colorado, Utah, Arizona and New Mexico meet. I remember [...]
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As a nurse, toilet talk has never been a taboo for me, but evidently it is for the rest of the world. I was reading Foreign Policy Magazine’s blog (which is great reading, btw), and learned that it is such a big taboo that millions are dying every year because they don’t have access to [...]
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An Italian company has invented a cement that breaks down pollutants in the air. We need more innovations like this. Slashdot blog says: The effects are significant: ‘In large cities with persistent pollution problems caused by car emissions, smoke from heating systems, and industrial activities, both the company and outside experts estimate that covering 15% [...]
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Ever since I posted about the most polluted city in China and Guilin’s Li river, I have been considering a post about the mighty Yangtze river and the Three Gorges Dam project – a topic that I am very interested in. I’ve been reading a lot of web pages about the river and today I [...]
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Here on the Global Gal/Going Native blog, I will readily admit I have made a mistake or error in some posting. I’m certainly human. Today I must correct some information that I had posted quite a while ago because I do not want to mislead anyone! I may not be an official journalist with a [...]
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Remember how I was saying that Shijiazhuang is the second most polluted city in China? This is what it looked like outside this morning: . . . . . . Don’t see anything above? Well, neither could I this morning, due to the extreme pollution cloud/fog/haze/smoke/wall. Literally, I couldn’t see more than 10 feet in [...]
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I read other blogs about China that include a lot of political commentary. This blog doesn’t include those kinds of things because I don’t have the time for all that newspaper reading and commenting. Today I was reading a blog I like, The Peking Duck, and I came across an entry I would like to [...]
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I’ve taken some pictures out of my hotel room window so that you have an idea about what sort of weather we get around here. The first photo is of the most beautiful day that I have seen yet in my 5 weeks in China. In the distance you can see a mountain, something I [...]
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I'm an American expat living on the fringe of Chinese society. Thanks to a lifetime spent moving around, I often feel like an outsider. This blog explores life in Beijing, China, the occasional aviation topic, expat issues, random travel experiences and interesting things I see, read and hear. If you want to know more about my latest hobby, visit Sewing on the Fringe, where I blog about learning to sew in Beijing. And for daily documentation of Beijing's ever changing air quality, visit My Beijing Window. And, yes, I do wear my santa hat year-round. ;)
