Lost on Planet China - J. Maarten Troost [34]
And then, as we passed the umpteenth power plant, came the slow-to-dawn realization that there would be no blue sky. There would be no crisp-yet-warm, winter-has-been-conquered, let’s-celebrate-the-spring air. Instead, there would be smog. There would always be smog. Enough to drift across the vastness of the Pacific and settle like snow upon the mountains of the Sierra Nevada and even the waters of the Great Lakes.
How could people live in this? I wondered. How could they put it up with it? The air was so rank and dense with pollutants that even a Republican would be hollering for clean air. Really, it’s that bad. And then, as I perused my newspaper, it occurred to me that it’s very possible that the Chinese are not aware, exactly, of how appalling their air truly is.
The World Bank estimates that 700,000 people die each year in China simply from breathing air. The city of San Francisco has roughly 700,000 people. So, too, Indianapolis. And Austin. Lose these cities and people are bound to notice. One would think that the Chinese would be upset by this appalling state of affairs. And the Chinese government does, too, which is why it refuses to publish information confirming just how devastatingly foul China’s air is. And thus we hear Los Angeles is polluted too.
Meanwhile, as I finished an article on the government’s efforts to teach migrant workers good manners, the train pulled into Tai’an, the small industrial city near the base of lofty Tai Shan. I hopped off, walked briskly through a train station that smelled like piss, and found the taxi stand, where I soon understood what it is like to be regarded as prey. The taxi drivers couldn’t believe their good fortune. A laowai! Foreigner! I felt a sudden bond with sheep. I settled on a taxi, and as the other drivers congratulated him on his good fortune, we sped past an enormous bust of Lei Feng, Hero of the Revolution. I took note of what I could understand—Supermarket for Beverages, Tai’an Power Supply Business Hall, Silicon Valley Grand Hotel—and tried hard to ignore the heart-thumping fact that we were racing, horn blasting, up the wrong side of the road. Microseconds before crashing into a truck, we veered away and I emerged, heart palpitating, at a garish hotel on the edge of town. This had been the only hotel I could find that still had rooms available, and now standing before it, I could see why. It was inconveniently located, and gaudy as a hotel in Reno, but one that didn’t have to comply with anything so burdensome as building codes.
“Passport, please,” said the young woman at the front desk. She showed it to her colleague and they spent a moment giggling. “Where you from? I have not heard of this country Netherlands. I think it is maybe in Europe.”
“Excellent guess.”
I made my way to my room, opened the flimsy door, and noted that among the grooming products lined up along the bathroom shelf were packets of his and her Erotic Sex Lotion and packages of his and her polyester shorts provocatively labeled “Sexywear.” A moment later, the telephone rang.
“Nihao,” I said, and then followed a moment later with “I’m sorry. I don’t speak Chinese.”
There was a momentary pause. “Massagee?” said the woman on the line.
“Er…” What is this, messagee? “Thank you, but no.”
I hung up, puzzled, and opened the curtains to a vista dominated by the sputtering power plant next door. Well, I thought. At least I had a view.
The next morning, I