Air in China: Data and the "Waiguoren"

Looking back on our district.

We headed up a steep incline of roughly-cut stone steps bordered on each side by subsistence farms. No space gets wasted here. Looking back from the top, our district was just getting its first morning sunlight, flooding in over the top of the noodle bowl.

When I’m not hiking with students, I walk down the street to stares, exclamations of “外国人!” (foreigner) and pointing kids – many of whom have never spoken to a foreigner. It’s become standard in the months I’ve been here; a lot of unexpected things have started to feel more normal recently.

Qingtian is a small town in Lishui city. It’s my home. The only reason most people seem to have heard of Qingtian is that the high-speed train between Lishui and Wenzhou happens – luckily for me – to stop here. It’s a mountainous region, primarily forested, and lies spread out along the banks of the Ou’jiang River that connects it to Wenzhou and the East China Sea. There’s some heavy industry, construction, and a lack of regulation to contend with, but the air quality is often quite good. For example, in the last 86 days in Qingtian, only 19 were above the mask-wearing threshold.

A new study suggests half a million lives have already been saved through China’s five year fight against pollution.[1] Lishui was named a “top ecological, picturesque paradise for healthy life and home of longevity” for their efforts.[2] A 2017 study showed a 33.3% decrease in annual averages of PM2.5.[3] The remote living environment in Zhejiang province is nothing like the Big, Bad China people warned me about. Before I arrived, I was advised to stock up on masks. Everyone in the U.S. seems to be an expert on how dirty the air is in China. To some extent, they’re correct: masks are often necessary here. They’re necessary in a lot of places.

In the last five years, the Chinese government has been pushing to move “big polluters” out of the more populated cities like Beijing and into more remote areas. Even back in 2014, Beijing began spreading them around Hebei province – and others – to minimize the damage on an individual level. These changes came from public pressure, which proved largely effective at initiating changes.

As of 2017, coal-pollution in northern China – home to Beijing – reportedly still cut three years off of peoples’ lives. In the first four months of 2019, air quality decreased by 8% in Beijing. Over the same 86-day period as above, Beijing totaled 47 mask-needing days, more than twice as many as in Qingtian. The worst day in Qingtian registered an average AQI of 147 to Beijing’s 232. (Air Quality Index over 100 is the U.S. standard for mask-wearing.)

Trevor and I with a teacher.

While these numbers are nothing like Beijing, the pollutant cocktail my students drink every day is still highly damaging to my students in the long-term. While the daily average in Qingtian has never moved from "unhealthy for sensitive groups" (101-150) to "unhealthy" (151-200), there are still times when the hourly AQI is well into the latter category.

Data should drive decisions. The facts are all there and the numbers should shape behavior. Why, then, is the smoke that makes my throat burn still allowed to waft across the street and into my classroom? It’s clear than even in Qingtian, students should have worn masks for almost three weeks since this semester started. I haven’t seen it happen once in class or on the playground. Yes, air in Qingtian is good. No, it's not as good as I want it to be for my students.

Instead of pointing fingers and waving spreadsheets in the faces of the people who really live here, I have to step back. Yes, when factories are sent out here, from places like Beijing, they could come with communication and social marketing campaigns, educational programs, subsidized masks, and well-maintained AQI monitors (recently the nearest one stopped working for ten days). Recent studies have shown that social marketing campaigns have successfully altered behavior in response to climate change.[4]

This could also be a great place to implement government- or NGO-funded social marketing, especially due to the unique combination of rural, blue-collar workers and the prevalence of smartphones and social media. The potential return on investment is high. Other studies in China have already shown changes in behavior in response to value-laden advertising campaigns.[5] While these options, which have worked in similar situations, may also help places like Qingtian and Beijing, it’s hardly my place to even suggest them.

My role here is to assist, to support, and to encourage both my students and locals who are already working on this environmental problem, not to make it my own – even when that doesn’t feel right and makes me complicit in negatively impacting my students lives.

Maybe Qingtian will get more health-related campaigns, maybe the classrooms will have air purifiers installed, maybe my office will buy an AQI monitor. Then again, maybe not. Too often, people in my position complain about cultural differences, run around in a mask every day, and wring their hands when they see something “wrong.”

Blue skies, baby.

For good or bad, I’m not the one to fix this problem. While I’m excited to be a part of a positive movement, a 外国人 getting all crazy about environmental improvements in Qingtian – and China as a whole – is not the way to go. This is their place, their home, and they will always know it better than I will. Things aren’t perfect, but they aren’t mine to mess with either.

I’ll wear my mask when necessary, but I won’t stop living like the people do here – even when my students want to play basketball in the smog. No matter the air quality, I’ll enjoy the mountains that stand just behind the court and hike fifteen miles whenever they ask me to.

***

[1] CNN. "China Has Saved Hundreds Of Thousands Of Lives By Reducing Air Pollution, Study Says". CNN, 2019, https://edition.cnn.com/2019/11/19/asia/china-air-pollution-study-scli-intl-scn/index.html.

[2] "In Lishui, China’s “Home Of Longevity”: Working Towards Resilience And Adaptation To Climate Change". World Bank Blogs, 2019, https://blogs.worldbank.org/eastasiapacific/chinas-home-of-longevity.

[3] Huang, Jing et al. "Health Impact Of China's Air Pollution Prevention And Control Action Plan: An Analysis Of National Air Quality Monitoring And Mortality Data". The Lancet Planetary Health, vol 2, no. 7, 2018, pp. e313-e323. Elsevier BV, doi:10.1016/s2542-5196(18)30141-4.

[4] Taylor, Michael A.P, and Elizabeth S Ampt. "Travelling Smarter Down Under: Policies For Voluntary Travel Behaviour Change In Australia". Transport Policy, vol 10, no. 3, 2003, pp. 165-177. Elsevier BV, doi:10.1016/s0967-070x(03)00018-0.

[5] Paek, Hye-Jin, and Zhongdang Pan. "Spreading Global Consumerism: Effects Of Mass Media And Advertising On Consumerist Values In China". Mass Communication And Society, vol 7, no. 4, 2004, pp. 491-515. Informa UK Limited, doi:10.1207/s15327825mcs0704_7.

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