Beijing Blue Skies thanks to Exams?
This week marks the nationwide college extrance exams for China’s students (June 7-9) and they take this seriously – the government orders construction sites to shut down to reduce noise, divert car traffic around venues, and use police to help safeguard passage to/from testing sites. Check out stories about Shanghai and one about related stress.
But there may be a strange side effect – stunningly clear blue skies in Beijing three days in a row.
(Photo taken June 9, 2006: Construction scaled back in Beijing’s Central Business District. Rare blue skies above.)
That’s bizarre. Beijing has become infamous for smog, haze, and gritty particulates. You can feel it in your hair at the end of the day.
Is there a direct correlation between exam-related shutdown for three days and exactly three days of clear skies? If so, it gives me hope that Beijing can turn it around for the 2008 Olympics, so world class marathon runners won’t collapse from fits of wheezing and asphyxiation. The Beijing authorities have already said no construction activity can take place after December 2007, and it looks like it may work. (Authoritarianism has its advantages…)
There were only 233 blue sky days last year in Beijing according to Shanghai Daily, and their target is 238 for this year. That’s an improvement on the 100 blue sky days in 1998.
Add three more to that count.
