Weather in Shenyang, China
Shenyang's weather can be nasty. The fabled storms of yellow dust that sweep across the Mongolian plain have to be experienced to be believed. The dust gets everywhere. In the hotel where the foreign teachers stayed, we had to clean out the CD player almost monthly because of it. The seams around windows were taped up to keep out the cold and the dust. It was so bad you'd think you'd fart a brick.
Familiar streets took on a surreal appearance in the Spring when clouds of dust moved in and stayed for several days. The TV tower, usually visible from much of the city, could barely be seen from a couple blocks away.
Made in China. The pollution in the city must be mentioned with the weather. Like the dust storms, sometimes it was so bad that I could scarcely see to the end of the block. Through gross environmental negligence, China has earned the dubious honor of having 9 of the world's 10 most polluted cities, and Shenyang probably made that list. A study by the World Health Organisation in 1988 describes Shenyang as the second most polluted city in the world after Milan in Italy. I took a picture of a smoke belching rural factory while en route to Beijing. When I see a product that says "Made in China," I can't help but think of this. As horrible as it looks, don't forget that the USA is still the world's worst polluter (although China is catching up) and that many of the dirty factories in Asia are running overtime because of America's rampant consumerism (more info...).
Men and women often wear white face masks to filter out pollutants, and in the Spring many women wrap their heads in thin silky cloth to keep the dust from their eyes. Walking became an ongoing battle between miniature missiles and the sanctity of my eyeballs. Half the time I needed either swimming goggles or a cane.
In the winter, the roads become enameled chutes of blackened ice. Only the largest streets were cleared by truck and occasionally got sand. The preferred method of snow removal was to give shovels to school students and have them clear snow as part of their daily maintenance duties. I was very glad to have brought my Raichle hiking boots, both for their traction and because they are waterproof: lacking adequate drainage, many streets held deep pools of water for several days, even after a small rain shower.
The ice plays havoc on the bicycles. One friend of mine convinced the owner of a restaurant to serve him lunch at an outside table, next to a major bicycle thoroughfare. You can imagine the torment created in the Chinese mind as commuters wrestled with the necessity of piloting their bicycles over the treacherous ice field while simultaneously succumbing to their intense desire to gawk at the white man having lunch. My friend's goal, of course, was to count the number of bicycles who inevitably crashed because of the distraction; one pile-up included 17 bikes and riders.
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