That time of year again

The weather is warming up, and it's coming up to that time of year again when I will be checking the kousa (yellow sand) site as often as I check the weather site. Lovely spring days plus yellow sand and anthropogenic aerosols from China equals face mask weather. There has already been a couple of days of it, just before I got back from holiday. I was happy to miss it. It started rather early this spring, and I think it's getting worse every year. Last spring I wasn't able to get a single picture of cherry blossoms against a blue sky. Clear skies did not happen, at least on the days when I was out with my camera.

How boring. How inconvenient.

How bloody annoying.

Actually the sand/aerosols site will be an interesting one to watch when the Olympics are on. I've never particularly noticed the weather patterns in summer in China, but I've heard from friends visiting Beijing in summer that it is very hot and the air is not clean at all. How much of that sort of rubbish in the air can the athletes tolerate, I wonder?

Yellow sand (again)

I found (or rather, The Man did) a site that shows the kosa distribution in Japan (yellow sand). The one I found before was only for Korea. Looking at the new map, I am wishing I did not have to go out tomorrow. We're about to have a nasty episode. I will wear a mask while I'm outside.

I wish they made the masks in other colours. White makes me feel like I'm about to do something surgical and nasty. Someone could make a killing with designer masks in Japan, I reckon. Stick on a Louis Vuitton logo and sales would go through the roof. A few kawaii designs and young people, especially, would be wearing them all the time.

I saw an article somewhere recently about face mask fetishists, and had one of those Help! I'm living in a weird country moments.

Yellow sand

A week ago there was a horrible episode of kosa (yellow sand), blown over from China, and I saw the strangest and most hideous sunset I have ever seen. The sun was a grey-white disc low in the murky sky, and I could look directly at it without any problem. In fact thought I was looking at the moon at first. It was grim. (There are some videos here, but none of them show the sunset.)

The kosa has been getting worse in recent years. When I first came here, I don't remember ever seeing it like that. I was told about it, but never really noticed. But in the last few years it has been clearly visible. It leaves surfaces gritty, turns the sky a sickly colour, and for many people it causes allergy problems.

Kosa is getting worse because of desertification in China, and the sand picks up various unpleasant elements as it is carried over rapidly industrializing areas before descending on cities in China, Korea and Japan. It contains some nasty stuff.

But the real reason for this post is that I was talking about the sand the other day with my friend, and we discovered that neither of us know how to pronounce the word desertification. Both the options we tried sounded wrong. One sounded like China was losing a certificate, and the other sounded like we were talking about the phenomenon of land in China turning into ice cream.

Where do you put the stress?



(Addendum of interest for Japan and Korea residents: I just found this U.S. army site showing the yellow sand levels in various parts of Korea. Yongsan is in Seoul. If it is high there, I imagine we can expect something similar a day or two later here in Japan, and it is probably a good idea to stock up on face masks. I know I was totally unprepared last week.)