Two women take a selfie on a heavily polluted day in Beijing, November 30. (Photo: Li Hao/GT)
It took several days of continuous dense, choking smog for the Beijing government to issue their first ever air pollution red alert at the beginning of December. However, there are still many people who worked out, walked their dogs or took small children to school despite the smog. Even though China has had a serious pollution issue for many years, the spread of information about the damage smog can do has been insufficient and the majority of people, especially vulnerable seniors, are still ignorant about the health risks.
To help with the effects of Beijing's depressing smog, Lu Bing (pseudonym) bought drugs from Canada online with a group of friends.
She saw a friend place an advertisement on WeChat for Deidou "lung cleaning" drugs on December 2, right after the wind blew Beijing's toxic smog away. The friend, worrying about her own health, decided to buy the drugs and try to cleanse her lungs, and Lu tagged along.
On the official website for Deidou, it stated that the so-called lung cleanser "helps the lung to move stagnant pollutants from the lung into the general blood circulation where they can be filtered and removed." It didn't specify if the drug can be taken to counter the effects of the tiny particles found in air pollution. In fact, a friend living in Canada even left a comment on Lu's friend's post arguing the drug helps mostly smokers, not people who live in smog, but it didn't matter to Lu.
"Who knows, it might have some positive effect," she said. "But even if it doesn't, it won't hurt me."
Buying drugs is one of the many ways Chinese people are shielding themselves from the effects of pollution nowadays. Compared with a couple years ago, the public is more aware of the pollution issue due to its frequent occurrence, but the overall awareness level is still low and efforts by the government and media to educate people leave a lot to be desired.
Becoming more aware
With the reoccurrence of smoggy days, the public seems to have gained more awareness of its hazards.
During the smoggy days at the beginning of December in which visibility was down to a few hundred meters in the Chinese capital, a few media outlets shared an old piece of news from 2008. Many foreign athletes that came to China to participate in that year's Olympics were seen at Beijing airport with anti-air pollution masks on, which led insulted Chinese people to flood the Internet with comments demanding the athletes apologize.
Eventually, several athletes apologized. But now, some media outlets are looking back and pointing out that the athletes had the right idea.
It is clear that in recent polluted days, more people are wearing masks when going outside compared with previous periods of dirty air. During the red alert days, the Global Times reporter encountered significantly less people out on the streets and on public transport than during "blue sky days." When the reporter asked people with masks on - especially seniors - about why they chose to wear them, many responded that they heard people in their families or neighborhoods talk about how unhealthy the smog is and wanted to take precautions.
Over the years, people have worked to raise the profile of the air pollution problem. Take a recent example, at the beginning of 2015, a documentary filmed by former CCTV reporter Chai Jing about the smog issue was watched millions of times in a matter of days before being taken down. Under the Dome began by talking about health hazards of the smog and how it needs to be treated.
In earlier report in the Global Times published right after the documentary was released, significant short-term changes in the public's attitude were noted across China. For example, producers of air purifiers said their sales had gone up. A cell phone app that shows a map of areas affected by air pollution was downloaded thousands of times more than usual. The number of citizens reporting pollution to government departments also reached a new high.
