Change, and a Most Erotic Smog

Change

This January in Beijing has been most extraordinary. I’ve been able to experience first hand how citizens, including wealthy establishment figures, have been most emphatically and publicly voicing their grave concerns about significant quality of life issues, including the abysmal air pollution in major cities in Northern China. What’s been most interesting is that not only do so many people say that they have a right to speak out about the quality of life they should have, but they also say that they believe that they have a responsibility to speak out.

Collectively, they’ve pushed the Chinese government towards more openness in quality of life issues, and to take some steps towards tackling air pollution.

In 1952, the Great Smog of London resulted in 12,000 deaths, and public outrage compelled the state to pass the Clean Air Act of 1956. This act banned the use of coal for domestic fires in some urban areas, and required power stations to be sited away from cities.

Led by Pan Shiyi, a real estate magnate who has more than 14 million followers on Sina Weibo and is a representative of the Beijing municipal legislation, as of today, more than 50, 000 people (98.9% of voters)have voted online in favour of similar legislation for China. The results of the survey will be delivered to the Beijing municipal government.

A most Erotic Smog

The wonderful thing about typing in mandarin on the computer, is that using the qwerty keyboard, you can simply type in the hanyu pinyin, and then pick the word you want from the various options that Word offers from the hanyu pinyin you typed. But watch the tones, or you may unwittingly be saying something you did not intend!

A late night typing my homework that my teacher set me, on civil liberties (exhausting for me to write in mandarin : ( ) , I drew a parallel between the pollution smog in 1950s London, subsequent legislation, and the current efforts in China to pass similar legislation. Hence I made reference in my essay to the “pea souper” fogs in London of the 1950s.

BUT I unwittingly made a typo, while gaily typing my little essay, when describing the green fog that enveloped the city: “…由于情色的烟雾笼罩着城市。最恐怖的日子就是1952年, 伦敦的烟雾造成12,000 人死亡。舆论哄然迫使英政大力治理空气污染问题，所以英政在1956年出台《清洁空气法案》（Clean Air Act of 1956 ）… …”

Spot the typo? Obviously, I meant 青色(qing1 se4- green)， not情色 ！I (qing3 se4- EROTIC). Hence my teacher collapsed in laughter when reading about “the erotic fog that enveloped the city… …”.

Btw, for those keen linguists out there, 情色means “erotic”, but reversing the words,  色情, means “pornographic”.