On this episode of China Uncensored,
when getting away from it all means,
Run!
Run for your life!
Hi, welcome to China Uncensored.
I’m your host Chris Chappell.
You know,
I don’t talk often enough about
the natural beauty of China.
That’s partly because it’s hard to see...
...when it covered in thick blankets of air pollution.
In December,
China saw some of the worst smog ever.
That's because the smog was pretty much
the only thing you could see.
It was so bad that hundreds of flights across the country
were delayed or canceled.
In Chengdu,
a group of activists held a protest and did this:
The local authorities had a good laugh.
Followed by a long cough.
And then they sent in the riot police.
That last part’s not a joke.
Although in this case,
it's not entirely the riot police's fault.
Apparently they thought the statues were those street artists
who cover themselves in spray paint
and haunt tourist sites around the world.
Luckily,
there was no such confusion in Xi'an,
where pollution masks appeared on stone lions.
800 of them.
Well, at least statues can protest pollution.
Fortunately,
China’s Meteorological Administration
eventually solved the problem.
They notified local bureaus
to immediately stop issuing smog alerts,
and start calling it, “fog.”
They’ve also punished windows
for spreading false rumors about pollution.
Smog—or “fog”—
is not by any means a new problem in China.
The country routinely has crippling outbreaks.
And the worst kind of smog is PM 2.5 particles.
These are the tiny particles that get into your lungs
and can cause cancer.
China measures this type of pollution
on a scale of zero to 500.
In 2013, in the northeastern city of Harbin,
it reached 1,000.
The World Health Organization’s recommended safe standard
is 25.
They should have just filmed this Stephen King movie there
and saved on their special effects budget.
Fortunately, the great and glorious Communist Party
is taking steps to ensure these red alert pollution situations
don’t keep happening—
by raising the threshold
for what constitutes a red alert.
And also ordering air quality monitoring apps
to not display readings past the official government cutoff point.
I mean, Chinese citizens don't really want to know
what they're breathing, right?
And now, Beijing’s latest move:
Creating a new environmental police force!
Yes, Chinese police:
Not just for beating up dissidents anymore!
So amidst all this smoggy mist,
wealthy Chinese citizens—
and the companies that want to sell stuff to them—
have come up with a brilliant idea:
“lung cleansing trips.”
Yes, this is really a thing.
And they’re even traveling as far as Antarctica.
I remember when I took a trip to Antarctica.
It can get pretty boring,
so I’d recommend bringing
a chess-playing computer.
Also a flamethrower.
But seriously,
Antarctica makes sense
as a Chinese tourist destination.
Ok, there's no Gucci - yet,
but it’s one of the least-polluted places on earth.
At least until the Communist Party
decides to claim it for themselves
so they can tap its pristine oil and coal reserves.
According to a report called “Smog Escape Travel Ranking,”
Chinese travel service, Ctrip,
says online searches in China for “smog escape,”
“lung cleansing” and “forests”
have tripled during the latest pollution nightmare.
But for many Chinese,
this is a matter of life and death.
A recent study found that more than 4,000 people
die every day in China because of air pollution.
But hey,
a little “fog” never hurt anyone.
Although, if nothing else,
won't the government please think of the pandas?!
So what do you think?
And where would you travel
for your next lung cleansing vacation?
Leave your comments below.
Thanks for watching this episode of China Uncensored.
And please consider supporting our own lung cleansing vacations
by contributing to China Uncensored’s Patreon campaign.
The link is below.
Once again I’m Chris Chappell,
see you next time.