Life in China

Beijing, China has a modern tale of two cities in which the rich and poor breathe different air. To properly cut out pollution requires high cost systems which many can’t afford, which ends up killing those left behind.

The first thing many middle class families do, such as Jiang Wang, is wake up and check on her children and make sure they are breathing clean air. Next comes preparing breakfast that comes from an organic farm to diminish the risk of pollution and toxicity, She’ll wash her produce with tap water that is filtered through a separate treatment system that hides under her sink. Except that water is not drinkable, which is why they have a supply of imported bottled water for that.

These are the harsh realities for millions across China and specifically, pollution filled Beijing. “From the moment you open your eyes till the moment, you rest in the evening,” Wang says, “You have to pay really (close) attention, to the air, to the water, to the food you eat.” Wang and her family, like the other growing amount of Beijingers, are trying to pollution-proof their life in hopes for health and safety.

Unfortunately, the only ones who seem to have a solution to their intake of pollution is the wealthy. Due to the fact that most fresh air filtering systems can cost up to $4,300, in addition to additional air purifiers for each room. “The rich live in cleaner parts of the city and on more polluted days they can drive to work, work inside, access better doctors, have second homes in the countryside and have expensive and effective air filters.” The everyday Beijinger most likely can’t afford any of that since the average individual salary is a little less than $17,000 a year, according to a report from Peking University. And that’s the highest in China.

The other unfortunate thing is that the people who benefited from this industrialization that led to pollution, are the only ones who can care for themselves and not breathe the air they toxicated. On the other hand the ones who suffer aren’t even the people who created this problem.

Rich people in China although, are starting to travel abroad and understand the impacts their air pollution is making. Even though there are lots of people who still dismiss the idea of fixing the pollution for money’s sake, there are those who are taking the much needed baby steps to clearing their air. A recent environmental protest in the southwest city of Chengdu was quickly quashed by authorities, showing the stubbornness of the Chinese government. A Chinese documentary called “Under the Dome” from 2015, was also removed from Chinese video sharing sites because it exposed the negative effects of pollution.

By removing the documentary, the Chinese government is doing nothing but hurting themselves further. It makes you wonder how long it will take them to realize that keeping their people ‘under a rock” is doing more harm than good, because at the end of the day, money won’t matter when you don’t have a habitable country.