A is for Air Quality

 is for Air Quality

The plane lands and the cold air shuts off, to be replaced by a peculiar sour smell. It's a pungent body odor with a strong top note of acid and a bottom note of fear - my fear.  My throat stings.

What is that smell? Will it burn my throat? How will I perform with a sore throat? This must be why Sonia kept telling me that China had the best throat lozenges.

I disembark on the tarmac. My first view of China is of a gray and thick cloud shrouding everything. Walking through gate the towards customs and security checkpoints, I notice that the smell subtly shifts to heavy cigarette smoke, unfiltered.

Sonia, my guide for this trip, explains that a. the Chinese people smoke a lot and b. welcome to China - where the air quality is rated by color - and I should not worry because it is not as bad as it could be.  I learn that every morning people wake up to see what the pollution index is.

I am in Shanghai. A major city upwind from the factories of Guangzhou. Shanghai is a beautiful city, except for the air.  (More on the beauty later.)

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This was what I woke to the next morning. Still gray. Smoke smell in the air. I wondered if I needed a mask to walk the streets. I hoped this was not an omen of air to come.