You were forgiven for asking if you were fair-skinned, blond-haired, and blue-eyed but it was an altogether different story if you were somewhat indistinguishable from the native population. So is the government doing anything about the smog? The reticence of the tour guide was answer enough.
FUN FACT. Gone are the images of the 1980s and 1990s when millions of Chinese traveled around the major cities by bicycle. With the affluence of an economy opening further and further to the West, the bicycle has been replaced by the automobile. There are so many vehicles traversing the country’s freeways and highways that the government has had to implement strict measures. Depending on identifiers on their license plates, drivers are allowed to move about only on certain days and at certain times. It is not an uncommon sight to see countless cars, trucks, buses stopped on the sides of major thoroughfares, their drivers dozing or having a meal. I suspect an ulterior motive to these restrictions is to curb the emissions that blanket the sky.
