Monday, August 17, 2015

Take on my lungs

When you land in China for the first time in eight months, you kind of forget what it feels like. I am not talking about the way you feel getting off a long flight but rather what your lungs feel like when you take that first deep breath of 2 to 5 micron smog. It is as if somebody is chocking one of your two lungs closed and you are trying to breath with one remaining one, which by the way might as well be punctured.
It is not just me, Every person walking around looks weathered, like they oiled up their face, threw a baseball into it, wrapped it with a rubber band and then stuck it under the couch cushion. A five year old looks like they are six, a 14 year old looks 20, a 30 year old looks 40 and a 49 year old is dead

The life expectancy here can't be much above 60, with the smog, congestion, pollution, rice bowl haircuts, green bile, purple rivers, three eyes fish and the four packs of unfiltered cancer sticks they all smoke. But the worst thing is that air, because it is as thick as a piece of pork fat and about as appealing to bite into

Only five days to go

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