If NASA ever wants to test their next Venus probe, Beijing is just the place. It has an army of inexpensive, highly educated engineers and mathematicians, and Venusian surface conditions. Like Venus, Beijing is approximately hot enough to melt lead and has an opaque atmosphere that appears consist primarily of sulfuric acid. The fact that life exists in Beijing gives me hope that, with Mars a bust, we may yet find civilization on Venus. However it will be Chinese. This is not at all bad, because it means that the first astronauts to visit Venus should be able to get great roast duck, or a palatable Buddha Slaps You in the Face.

 

Beijing doesn’t have Singapore’s humidity (thank god) but on hot days it simmers in a dusty, dry heat that stings the eyes. The pollution is unspeakable, and this is the good season. Blue sky is rare. Pale grey is the norm. Periodically, the wind blows in hard off the desert, carrying a payload of fine, orange dust that blast down the wide, straight streets and gums up your nose hairs. In some ways, Beijing is like living in Singapore during the haze season, except Beijing’s haze is self generated by coal-burning power stations, coal-burning industry, old, diesel vehicles (and I suspect some of the older busses are coal burning), and a growing armada of private cars.

 

However, lest I paint too dismal a picture, there are bright spots. Beijing’s weather is not relentlessly unchanging in the way that Singapore’s is. It is variable on a day-to-day basis. Mornings, especially, can be pleasantly cool. Yesterday we had nonstop light, cold rain. This morning, for the first time, the air was completely clear. Distant buildings were visible, as were the hills to the west of the city. Suddenly Beijing was pretty. It was as if the dowdy girl had been given a makeover and a new frock. She still wasn’t a supermodel, but you could take her home mother. By midday, however, the makeup had started to run and frock was fraying at the lacy edges. The pollution doesn’t stay at bay for long.

 

Beijing is also seasonally variable. It is a place of extremes. Apparently it goes from the current kiln-like conditions to an arctic winter that is positively lethal. And, I am told, the pollution is even worse in winter when households light up their coal-fired heating furnaces. A Swedish student named Jonas, who has been here through one winter, explained it to me: “It looks sometimes like fog,” he said in a slow, Swedish drawl tinged with Norse stoicism, “but it is not fog…”