Shanghai is trying to kill me: The self-care edition
About 5 years ago, during my last year in Istanbul, I was living in a lovely old flat in Osmanbey, a neighbourhood at that time populated by old man bars, Armenians, artsy types who couldn’t afford to live in Beyoglu, and very small scale industry. The building next door, above the plumbing and wiring shop, was a mini textile factory.
One night, the mini textile factory caught fire.
I figured this out when I smelled the acrid burning polyester fumes seeping in from under the closed bedroom door. I opened the door to find my cat, Lola, looking rather perplexed on the other side, grey-furred from the smoke and coughing daintily.
The living room and hallway were filled with nasty toxic smoke, and out the front windows, out in the street, the air was opaque. At some point fire engines gingerly made their way down our impossibly narrow, hilly backstreet (technically a sokak, or lane). We bundled Lola into her carrier and were halfway out the door and down the winding staircase when the awful woman upstairs told us to calm down and go back to bed. Everything was fine. Just a little fire. Nothing to see here. Bloody foreigners.
The crazy thing is, we did go back in. It was 3am. We were exhausted. We opened the balcony door next to the bed for ventilation and let Lola sleep in the mostly unpolluted bedroom. It took her days to properly clean her fur and she had a chronic sniffle for weeks.
These days, Shanghai isn’t being much kinder to our pulmonary well being.
Here’s a Tweet I sent on Monday, gleaned from the US consulate’s air quality reading that afternoon.
 |
koangirl HOLY CRAP! “@CGShanghaiAir: 10-22-2012 15:00; PM2.5; 269.0; 319; Hazardous (at 24-hour exposure at this level)” 12-10-22 6:03 PM |
Hazardous.
They noted it so calmly.
It reminded me of the one from Beijing last year, where the US embassy there sent out a series of increasingly appalling hourly readings, culminating in one that read: “Crazy Bad”. Apparently, the particulate matter had reached a level so high that the folks who had written the program probably thought it could never actually reach that level so they were safe in writing whatever they wanted. I presume the next threat level would have been, “Good Grapes, Batman!” or perhaps, “Pack Your Bags”.
After our Monday afternoon dose of hazardous life-giving air, I noted several other pockets of local evil: opening our bathroom door at night emits a puff of chemically acrid air from the open window; walking past the supermarket on Yongjia lu last night, there was a 50 meter stretch where the air was suddenly about 67.3% horrifically toxic, bringing back very sharp memories of the textile fire in Istanbul.
Did I ever mention that I’m asthmatic? Not severely, but enough to need an inhaler from time to time.
I wonder then, why I indulge in self sabotage by living in absolutely dreadful cities, as far as my lungs are concerned.
In London, for 3 years I had chronic nose and throat issues. When I ran off to Ghana for a month in the middle of my London sojourn, I was horrified to discover that I was sweating grey, sneezing grey, coughing up grey for about a week after arriving.
In Kayseri, in Central Anatolia, they burned soft coal in winter. By springtime, my books were covered in a rather substantial layer of crunchy, black dust, and my hanging tapestries, when taken down months later after a 2 year stay, left a dark grey outline on my walls.
In Istanbul, I had chronic lung and eye issues culminating in 1. a corneal ulcer that nearly left me blind in one eye, and 2. a few cases of serious bronchitis and one case of pneumonia. Both situations involved doctors telling me that if I really did want to get better, I needed to leave Istanbul.
So I did, after 6 years.
And moved to Shanghai, where the water made my hair fall out and my skin go rashy, where my asthma got so bad one summer that I sucked my dad’s loaner-inhaler dry, where sometimes we can’t even see out of our 16th floor windows because the air is opaque white.
We now have a filter attached to the shower hose so my hair no longer falls out and my skin isn’t sore to the touch. I take my dad’s home-made organic kelp capsules to deal with the heavy metals I inevitably ingest. We keep the windows in the flat shut all the time, except the bathroom (for ventilation, as mildew is brutal here) and kitchen balcony (because the gas pipe comes out there and we don’t want to die). Still, the air seeps in, the toxic, sticky dust settles on everything, and I keep my inhaler by my bedside.
I wonder, sometimes, why I do this.
I mean, this month I’m doing a 30 day detox because I felt tired and sluggish and heavy after a way too intense September (30 days of work, eased by after work beer and chocolate and eating out because we were too tired to cook, followed by a week of indulgence in Hong Kong). No booze, no sugar, no dairy, no grains- all because, in theory, I want to feel healthier. And I do. I feel a lot better, though after long days at work, a glass of wine would be lovely. But I’m still doing it, temptation aside, because I want to treat myself better than I have in the past. I want to undo some of the damage done.
Which makes me stop and think about why I put up with air deemed hazardous, veggies that are anything but organic, tap water that is unfit for drinking and bottled water that has been through dozens of potability scandals since we moved here, and daily food contamination scandals.
For goodness sake, I grew up in the forest, drinking amazingly lovely well water, eating fruits and veggies my parents grew in our garden, eating the eggs of chickens I fed and watered myself, and generally living an objectively sane and sensible life.
The crazy thing is, I like it here. I have my mops, my lovely access to fabulous Chinese food, my fascinating little neighbourhood, my quite-engaging job.
I also liked London, Kayseri and Istanbul, even though they were all killing me slowly in their own special ways. I’m trying very hard to reconcile my compulsive fondness for living in toxic places that just happen to be really quite interesting.
I seriously hope I don’t regret my life choices when I’m 60 and my blood is composed of 58% heavy metals and my lungs are crunchy with particulate matter.
Thanks for all your stories on life here and there. If I tried to do that, it’d be nothing but a long diatribe on the crappy air and human crap in the streets and – yes and – crappy people of Beijing. Your stories are more interesting.
Thank you. Sometimes I have to really restrain myself from writing a series of rants about the air and crap and all. I feel so tired by it all. But that would make for a terrible blog so I bite my metaphorical tongue.
Come to Dujiangyan in Sichuan Province. The air is clean, the food delicious, the people laid back, it is a little piece of paradise.
It’s tempting, very tempting…
Dujiangyan sounds delightful, from what you write and the stories I just read about it
I <3 Sichuan: wonderful food, great weather, cute dialect, and spicy personalities.
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Albeit being serious in nature, leaving me to contemplate my own country of choice. Ireland isn’t a bad place to live in terms of aid quality although I can feel the smog clogging up my airways when I’m in city centre. The wet, foggy air does take it’s toll on me, I’ve been through countless of bronchitis attacks, severe chest infections and one bad pneumonia attack. I’ve also been diagnosed with Asthma. I was a healthy as can be back in Germany… Long rant short, I do enjoy your posts about the places you’ve lived in and your reflection on them, as well as the changes each place brought along.
Ireland killed me too, which is why I couldn’t stay there long. Every time I tried to stay there I ended up with exactly what you’ve described- endless chest infections etc from the cold, wet, damp, foggy air. 3 months in Galway at one point was 3 months of barking, wheezing and coughing up terrible things. Which is a pity, as I was terribly fond of it.
I read your post and nodded and thought, not for the first time, “She’s articulated exactly how I feel these days.”
You post this as the man and I are talking AGAIN about another move in 2014, while still dealing with the repercussions of this one to Beijing. He gets chronic bronchitis in the winter here, and as soon as I returned to Beijing from western China, I began to sound like a cat with hairballs every morning.
Pollution here is bad, but we knew it was part of the deal. It was why we left HK 4 years ago, then we voluntarily subject ourselves to this?! Why? I have no idea. The charm of Dickensian grit, maybe. The pull of a massive, ancient society going through turbulence on its way to…somewhere. China in no way tries to gloss over the grit; aesthetics and everyday politeness are priorities far down the scale when crawling up to the middle class is paramount.
We live in a relatively calm, clean part of Beijing: the west side. But next year we’ll be moving into the heart of town, hopefully a hutong neighborhood: more polluted, but more of a real Beijing experience than the sanitized place where we live now now.
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We keep talking about a move too, but we don’t know where or when. We just know that this isn’t sustainable in the long term. However, we both have great jobs here and are reluctant to toss everything aside as impulsively as I did when I left Turkey (and then mourned for my jettisoned life for the next 3 years).
We’re in the ex French Concession so it’s leafy and small-scale (which makes it livable), but dirty on a non industrial scale. Like, there’s old veggies left on the street by the vendors, fish parts, chicken feathers and gore, hair clippings from the barber, firecracker smoke, etc. We also get all the air and water pollution, simply because we live in this city. I don’t think I could live in any other neighbourhood in this city (I tried, at first) because they’re too noisy, crowded, car-filled, bleak, exposed.
We’re contemplating Mexico… but to do what, I don’t know.
I feel you, MaryAnne. It’s not just the air (which makes my skin rashy, too) – but the stuff we’re ingesting. But I think the worst thing is my tolerance for bad hygiene has gotten way high, after living here. The old man selling the soy milk this morning had super dirty fingers and was laying out the paper cups for the soy with his fingers right on the rims. He drops a few cups, they roll around on the floor you can’t tell the color of anymore, it’s so dirty – he picks up the cups, coughs into them (hacks, really) and continues laying them out.
The freshly-made soy milk is pretty good, though.
I know! Same here! All those little street nibblies I pick up en route from here to there, and I wonder if the dumplings are stuffed with pureed cardboard or if the oil is that scary recycled stuff or if the pot was washed out at all in the past week. I’m still alive, so I suppose so far, so good…
Well, if it’s any consolation, I live in the woods at the moment, surrounded by plenty of blue skies and natures… and I still got the same hacking cough I had in China. Albeit, it actually started to diminish after a few days, rather than get worse and develop into a lung infection. But still. I thought after China my immune system would be made of steel and I’d no longer fall prey to silly human diseases. I guess not.
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I can’t help thinking that China has scarred you for life. Oh dear.
“my immune system would be made of steel” – Sally. It really depends on which heavy metal is involved. Perhaps immune system of iron and zinc would be good enough?
I love Freiburg and it is surrounded by forest. Though the Germans like to complain. The ones from up in the forest complain about the city air. Though I never feel bad at all, especially compared to the 100% humidity car exhaust laden stuff I grew up with.
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No iron or zinc for Miss Sally- looks like she has Cu, Hg and Cd: http://www.scientific.net/AMR.518-523.1536
Wuxi, the Heavy Metal city! Wooooooot!
Camping out here by the shores of Lugu Hu straddling the Yunnan/Sichuan border, and I just took a dip in the cold but incredibly clean waters of the lake. There are stars, and a big bright moon. It’s indescribably lovely, and yet despite the loveliness I am still pulled back constantly to Shanghai. It’s just the way it is.
You realize this means you have to move back here, right? Like I said before, boarding schools build character! 😉
How beautiful is Lola kedi! Ne guzel!
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She is, isn’t she?
If it makes you feel better, I keep getting drawn back to China, too. I spent my first year teaching ESL at a small (!) coal-mining city of 4 million. Some days you could hardly see a block away due to all of the pollution. I was constantly sick! Now I’m half an hour outside of an even smaller city (which, unfortunately, has a huge chemical plant), and can finally “kind of” breathe again. It’s crazy the things we do to travel, isn’t it?
*cough cough cough*
Indeed!
Hey, stumbled upon your blog because I’m very close to taking a job in Shanghai…Is the pollution always bad? Are some seasons worse than others? I lived in Seoul for a year and felt sick the entire time, hair falling out, etc. and I don’t want to do that to my body again! But the job is so tempting…and aside from the pollution, Shanghai looks like a wonderful city.
Hi! I’ve never been to Seoul so can’t compare it to Shanghai. The pollution here really varies, even on a day to day basis. I’ve got an app on my phone with pollution updates and today is unhealthy (155) but the past several days had been really good (between 10 and 70). Winter can make things worse, especially when worn out from work etc already. I’ve been here 4.5 years now and definitely haven’t been sick all the time. Hair is intact (but I installed a simple, cheap, screw-on filter for my shower so my hair wouldn’t be all frizzy from the hard water). If the job offer is that tempting, I wouldn’t try to persuade you not to come. I’d take Shanghai over most other major cities in China.
Oh man, you’re getting me worried about this water. Should I wash my hair with mineral water now? This shower filter business installation just seems too complicated.
As fragile as our bodies can be, I think that we can withstand a beating that is Shanghai pollution and water.
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I wouldn’t worry about it, really. I had to get the filter because the water was really beating me up- nasty red rashes on my skin, hair frizzing and breaking. I only got the filter after two years (out of nearly 5) so I think it’s something that you’ll find out for yourself if you’ll need. I’ve got a bad metal allergy so it may have been the heavy metals in the water doing it. Ugh! Good luck!
This pollution is getting me worried for my family, my baby girl anyway many families living in Shanghai so I guess we also can survive. We just need to monitor Air quality, and get regular checkout to the closest international hospital for checkup