The concept is pretty simple -- set tripod in front of Tiananmen every day throughout the Two Sessions; snap picture -- but Wei Yao, the photographer for Beijing Review who got the shot you see above (along with this one), explains on Reuters's Photographers Blog that it still took a lot of work: Having the idea of how to do my project, I encountered some difficulties. Unlike the midnight sun in which shoot ...

I daresay it might be the best thing Sina/Beijing Review/China.org has done. Go give them some love. UPDATE, 3/27, 2:15 pm: Photographer Wei Yao explains how it was done. (H/T Malcolm Moore) ...

While many spent yesterday morning squalling over Beijing's pollution (caused in part by this season's first sandstorm), an actual squall of sorts blew through this region, causing more damage. (Incidentally, it was this very wind that cleared out the pollution, so that in a matter of one hour, from 10 am to 11 am, the AQI dropped from 506 to 279, and by 4 pm, it was under 100, according to @BeijingAir.) ...

Soon to be an iPad app, surely. Via Marketplace: We wondered what other cities around the globe might look like under these pollution conditions, so we built a simple simulator to illustrate. Using side-by-side photos of Beijing to calibrate our not-so-scientific "obscurity filter," we applied the tool to photos of some major cities around the globe. Let's make a game out of this: guess the city! Check your ...

Good news and bad news for Beijingers: according to the Ministry of Environmental Protection, Beijing is only the ninth most polluted city in the country. Unbelievable as that is for those who lived through the last month, here's the bad news: six of the most polluted cities are in neighboring Hebei province. No. 7 is Jinan in bordering Shandong, and No. 8 is right back to Hebei. In other words: You know ho ...

Showcasing the best in Asian-related memes. Sources: We Know Memes, Reddit (above), PB (below), Nathan Holdstein (Bane image). ...

No one loves a polluted Beijing quite like foreign editors. The first time the smog swept through, two and a half weeks ago, lots of overseas publications were caught off guard and slept on the story, which is why we saw articles about China's "Airpocalypse" up to five days after the skies had cleared up. Determined to never miss an easy story again, however, foreign editors are all over this week's polluti ...

Jon Stewart gave China's air the comedic treatment last week (and rhymed it with "Nair"), using footage from a week before (and referencing this story about the Hangzhou factory fire). We bring it up now because, first, we hadn't seen it on the China blogs yet, but more importantly, everyone is talking about pollution again. And if you must join in on this one-way conversation -- pollution sure is unwelcome ...

If you live in northern China, particularly Beijing, you don't need me to tell you the air's not looking good today. By all indications, government officials understand this as well -- their offices have windows, too. They live under the same miasma, as do their children. And we have to trust that they share our desire to clean up the environment, because, again, unless someone's building a dome over Zhongn ...

Via a strong recommendation from James Fallows, here's the video to watch if you want to understand pollution in China. Featuring Fons Tuinstra, president of the China Speakers Bureau, and Richard Brubaker of All Roads Lead to China, the 30-minute show touches on the causes of the pollution (the "bowl" of Beijing, cars), the effects (people leaving the country), and possible impetuses for solutions (competi ...

An international school in Beijing has built two "pollution domes" to protect their students during physical activity. A Financial Times article describes these domes as "giant pressurised canopies that can cover sports fields, playgrounds or tennis courts" -- specifically, at the International School of Beijing, it covers six tennis courts, a track, a miniature soccer field, and basketball/handball courts. ...

A 20-car rear-end chain collision yesterday morning on the Hang-Pu Highway between Hangzhou and Haining, Zhejiang province resulted in two dead and at least eight injured. The Jiaxing (prefecture-level city in Zhejiang) Fire Brigade said there was a "thick fog" at the time of the accident, and visibility was further hindered by smoke from burning stalks. ...

Late Sunday night in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, a fire broke out at a furniture factory in Anji county that no one noticed for hours because they couldn't see it through the "fog." Xinhua has the report (my translation): Due to a thick fog cover at the time, the initial smoke and open flames actually lasted nearly three hours before local residents discovered it. ...

The heavy smog that's defiled our skies is reportedly causing very real problems on the ground, too -- anecdotally, at least, as Bloomberg reports. “The number of people coming into our emergency room suffering heart attacks has roughly doubled since Friday when the air pollution became really severe,” said Ding Rongjing, deputy head of cardiology at Peking University People’s Hospital. ...

Actually, there's not much that's humorous about these images of atmospheric carnage, but over the course of eons a uniquely human response to the ghastly and macabre has been to expectorate fleshy, puny, anthropoid sounds that in our language can be classified as "laughter." Laugh away at this. ...

It’s hard to ignore giant killer smog when it descends on your nation’s capital – and also as Hurricane Sandy proved in Manhattan and Brooklyn, it’s hard for the media to ignore it when it affects many of your nation’s top journalists. It’s not just coverage of killer smog, though, that’s taking over the news, but the environment in general. As of something like 10 am Beijing time, all of Xinhua’s lead stor ...

We don't really get how a reading that theoretically should max out at 500 can spit out a number like 755, but look at the above. It got so bad last night that Beijing's official air-quality index conveniently went "out of service" from 10 pm to 10 am this morning. When it came back, it featured this warning: ...

Those of us who choose to live in one of China's big cities understand the deal. In exchange for opportunities for personal and professional growth, a front seat on the roller coaster that is China's development, and all in all a pretty good life, we agree to put up with traffic woes, the occasional big-city headache, and pollution. All of us know better than to complain about these things in polite company ...

I make it a point to not talk about pollution because it's somewhat of a cliche, especially among expats. Those who live here yet complain about the air -- like, blog about it -- belong in a set that we can fairly label "whiny." And vapid. And irksome, too, if we're being completely honest. But this... Only the Chinese government is authorized to monitor and publish air quality information and data from oth ...