500 is when the Canary Dies

The first morning in Beijing was glorious. From 28F we could see clear to through the CCTV tower, know colloquially as Big Underpants, straight to the Forbidden City. Looking West, the horizon was rimmed by Donkey Saddle Mountain Range. It was sunny and warm like a fine California day. It was not to last.

Three days in I opened the curtains and: brown. It was like Seattle gray, thick and pervasive, only brown. So brown I could not see the adjacent apartment tower. My lungs hurt. Finn was complaining that his nose hurt. Eli dug out a blackish booger we call smooggers (smog + booger = smoogers) and paraded it in front of my face. Holy dragon warrior, that hovering brown cloud that is clinging to my widows is mostly fog, right?

I logged on to the US Embassy to check the hourly AQI, the Air Quality Indicator. The AQI measures dangerous particulate contents, carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide and ground ozone. Most foreigners have an AQI ap on their phone. Checking the AQI can be dangerous, like owning a scale and checking your weight. It can become obsessive. I resolve to not obsess.

AQI measures air quality on a scale of 0-500. Zero would be a vacuum, 10 would be Austin's farts, 60 is Los Angeles on a decent day. 200 is unhealthy. 300 is hazardous. At 5:00 am on October 18th, the Beijing AQI was 447, constituting an emergency, though nobody was taking emergency measures.

Can the AQI surpass 500? Yes. Has it passed 500? Yes. What happens at 500: the canary dies. Even coal miners have masks. But what exactly do these numbers mean? I need context, so I asked everyone I know who speaks English: the boys' teachers, expats, Austin's co-workers, "What exactly does an AQI of 447 mean?" Is it equivilent to smoking cigarettes, equal to taking a pull off a tailpipe? Equal to sitting in front of a campfire and singing Kumbiyah? Do I REALLY have to keep my boys indoors? Lungs can regenerate after two years, you know.

Only Kyle could give me a satisfactory perspective. Kyle is a naval attache living in Beijing with his family. He actually hooked up one of his cigarettes to the AQI machine. It registered 67. Kyle figures he is actually cleaning the Beijing air by smoking it through his filter. Yikes! 447 is bad. It's scary bad. The boys are climbing the walls. Fortunately our Park Ave ceilings are nice and high.

So next time you see an EPA employee, give them a hug. For all my ultra-conservative friends, come, I invite you to experience life without the clean air act. It's *cough, wheeze* awesome. If you can't make it, don't worry this toxic cloud is coming your way soon enough.