There's an app for that. It's simple - called Air Quality. It sends out alerts when the air particulate matter gets above certain levels. Today it's at 285. Someone makes up the adjective that goes along with the number. For 285 it's Heavily Polluted. You don't need an app to tell there's pollution, however (as Bob Dylan said, "you don't need a weatherman to tell you which way the wind blows..."
Just take a look and take a nice deep breath... aaaahhhhhh!!!!! So refreshing! The amazing thing is people tell you that last winter it was so much worse...
So I've been a bit under the weather the past 8 or 9 days and it is getting old. I went to the school clinic and the lady there (she wasn't a nurse - I don't know what she was...) gave me some antibiotics and cold medicine. She listened to my heart beating with a stethoscope for quite a while, but as Sky said she just had probably never seen a man with so much chest hair and wanted to stare for a while. A fellow teacher went to a hospital a couple weeks back (no doctors' offices - just go straight there - do not pass Go) with a cold and they diagnosed him with pneumonia and put him on an IV drip. He had to go back every day for a week and hook up to a drip for a few hours. $4000 later they declared him cured. No thanks...
So there's been some talk about Gmail being blocked recently. China never has liked the google family I suppose. Google has been blocked for who knows how long. But we all use a not very well-kept secret called VPNs - that lets us get outside IP addresses and act as if we are in the US (or any other country we choose). So the Google block, as long as you're using a VPN, really has no effect (and this can't be any big secret to the Chinese government). So then I guess they recently decided to block gmail as well. Well, to us with VPNs, we did not notice. But local Chinese who sent or received gmail through the Chinese ISPs can no longer get it. So it has affected the Chinese students who try to email us and ask for recommendations or other sundries they need for admission to US colleges. The Chinese government is screwing their own people. I just have a hard time imagining what awful thing is coming through gmail that it must be blocked. ..
I have seen a few movies recently. I never downloaded movies illegally before, but here it is the only way that you'd be able to see most western movies. The western movies that show up in the cinemas are only ones that have no political bent whatsoever. And I recall someone saying that the government only allows so many US movies a year, which also limits viewing possibilities. So I've seen The Interview, The Gambler, American Sniper, Birdman, The Imitation Game and a slew of others. Many of the teachers here are real movie buffs, and while I'm sure I've seen many more movies than they have, they actually remember them all! Also watched a few TV series that I've never even heard of before - Utopia (British) and Black Mirror (also British) come to mind. And managed to finish a book called Serious Men last week too! That's what you do in the winter in Xián where there is little to do otherwise...
I think I'll go out now and take a deep breath...
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