Fleeing to more affordable homes
Li Wenqiang, a 25-year-old data analyst, plans to leave Beijing in a couple of years because of the fast pace of life and high cost of living.
To save money, he lives in a rented apartment with some of his colleagues and shares his bedroom with a friend.
"I only pay 1,500 yuan ($218) per month, but I would have to pay much more if I did not share my room with others," he said.
He said one of the main reasons that pushed him to consider leaving Beijing was the climbing housing price.
His job entails researching the real estate market, so he witnessed the price hikes firsthand. For example, the price for one square meter rose sharply from 20,000 yuan ($2,913) to 60,000 yuan in one year in some districts, he said.
"It is shocking that the price for one square meter in a place outside the Sixth Ring Road can reach more than 30,000 yuan," Li said.
Although his salary rises, Li said the speed of the increase does not match the skyrocketing housing price, so he does not envision buying an apartment in the city.
Li said that having a home is important in Chinese culture because tradition dictates that one cannot have a family until he or she has a house.
"Without a house of my own, I do not think my future mother-in-law will say yes to me marrying her daughter," he said.
He also worries that his future kids would not have the opportunity to enter a good school without his owning a house or a Beijing hukou (housing registration).
Li said another factor that influenced his desire to leave Beijing was the fast-paced and high-pressure city life.
Some of Li's friends left the city mere days after they arrived because of the pressure. He has lasted much longer, but he is afraid that he will not be able to cope with the long work hours and constant overtime when he gets older.
To flee or not to flee?
Bi Gairong, a white-collar worker in her 40s, came to Beijing around 20 years ago. She gets a strong impulse to leave the city every time it becomes engulfed in smog.
She became even more worried when she read articles on the Internet that explained the great harm smog could do to a person's health.
One primary factor that makes her want to leave Beijing is her 12-year-old daughter Gao Yining - Gao has myopia.
"The ophthalmologist advised my daughter to take part in more outdoor activities to protect her eyesight, but she cannot because of the pollution," Bi said.
However, unlike her mother, Gao does not want to leave the city of her birth.
"I am very familiar with Beijing, and I have many friends here," said Gao. "I am a student leader now, but I will need to start all over when I transfer to a new school in a new city."
Gao is not worried about the rumor that says smog might negatively affect a person's intelligence.
"If the rumor is true and I become stupid because of the pollution, others will also become stupid," she said.
Besides her daughter's objection, there are still many other reasons Bi has yet to leave the capital, one being that she has no idea where to go.
With other smaller cities also struggling with pollution, Bi finds it hard to choose where to relocate.
She cited an example where one of her friends took his child to Nanjing, Jiangsu Province to escape the high levels of smog that forced Beijing schools to close for three days last December, only to find that Nanjing was also polluted.
"One may go to a seemingly cleaner city only to find that it is also polluted afterward," she said.
Bi is also afraid that leaving for another city would negatively affect her daughter academically, as the textbooks she would use in the new school might not match the national college entrance exam she would take in Beijing.
Also, leaving the city would mean leaving her social network, which took years to develop, behind and starting from scratch in a new place.
"Should I flee from BSG? It's not that easy," Bi said. "There are so many obstacles and uncertainties that I have to worry about."
