For someone like me who grew up in a place where it is not uncommon to have three or even five times the visibility you get here in Wenzhou, the smog has been the most difficult thing to get used to. As I grew up in Oregon's Willamette Valley and have lived in such places as Redmond (in Central Oregon) and Pensacola (in the Florida Panhandle) I am rather used to being able to see hundreds of miles on a clear day.
As you can see in this picture, there is a lot of smog in Wenzhou. In fact, in the months that I have been here there have been only a handful of days without smog. The sky is often grey in the morning not from clouds, but from the exhaust of 7 million cars, buses, and motorcycles. At sunset, the sky turns a brownish-red. Why is it red? Red light is the only wavelength that can penetrate the brownish smog. Only when there is a strong wind does the smog dissipate. On those days, if it isn't raining, you can see about 5 or maybe as much as 7 miles and the sky will be blue. Those days are very nice.
That being said, once you get out of the city the air pollution is not that bad. I have posted some pics of Wenzhou here today for all to see. I will post pictures of the outlying areas as soon as I get out to take some.
This picture is a late morning street scene near my apartment.
In this picture, you see one of the murals painted on the side of a community building. This is the only form of street art in Wenzhou. You will not see graffiti here.
This picture is a b/w shot of a building across the river.
This is the same mural as before, but I played with the colors.
Here you see the same river front picture as at the beginning of this blog, but again I played with the colors; highlighting the only green area in the shot.
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